I love teaching teachers almost as much as I love teaching my students. Now that I am in the twilight of my career I hope to have my hopes and concerns about public education continue long after I am attempting to find my ear lobe at a Shady Acres Nursing Home for Teachers. Every year I have at least two soon-to-be teachers work in my classroom for a semester in order to get a feeling for what teaching is. Of course, these teachers are studying for their certification but book work simply isn't the same as being there.

This year I had a particularly talented young man named Eian Prohl. He worked well with my students and it was obvious from the beginning of his stay that he will make a fine high school teacher. He was not only inquisitive about his subject and teaching skills, he was also aware public education was in the process of going through dramatic changes. Most student teachers would not get involved in such debate but Eian decided to look into what the pros and cons of these changes could be. He wrote a fine paper concerning the concepts of charter schools and voucher systems. Because he is new to the system it was interesting how a future teacher considered these possible changes.

His paper was as follows:

Charter Schools and Education Vouchers

Charter schools are nonsectarian public schools of choice. Publicly funded and open to all students with no admission testing or screening, each school has a charter, or performance contract, detailing its program, goals, and methods of assessment. An education voucher is a certificate issued by the government that parents can apply toward tuition at a private school (or, by extension, to reimburse home schooling expenses), rather than at the public school to which their child is assigned. Vouchers are intended to allow citizens to spend their taxes toward the education of their choice without using a direct tax credit or deduction.

Charter School Pros: Overriding theme = choice is good

1. Parents able to pick the school best suited to their child's strengths and interests, which may not be met or even available in the public school (i.e. the performing arts), as well as their weaknesses (e.g. reading or some handicap). Often the entire educational philosophy (traditional v. progressive) if different between the charter and public, and parents should be able to choose.

2. Parents have a free, non selective alternative if the public school is under performing.

3. Competition between public and charter schools, as well as increased autonomy and lack of teacher's unions, drives reform in education and public school improvement.

4. Schools are almost always small: safer and more personal attention to students.

Charter School Cons: Overriding theme = funding is a massive problem

1. Drains public schools of money - less efficient to operate two schools than a single school. Why not concentrate efforts in one school?

* In N.H. especially, charter funding is a massive hurtle because of how underfunded education is already. Charter schools only receive about $4,000/pupil for their funding--they do not receive property tax and other sources of revenue of the public school. If the charter school is not sponsored by a local school district, this puts immense financial pressure on the new school to be solvent. About the only way to overcome this is to specialize in something, so that you can charge for your services (i.e. charter school for the deaf, charter school that specializes in reading).

* If a school district sponsors/charters a school, they can't deny out-of-district students, leading to the situation of one district subsidizing the education of students from towns not in the district.

2. No strong evidence that charter schools, on average, provide a better education than public schools. Research out of Stanford University this past year (2009) examined 2400 charter schools in 17 states and found that most are no better than public schools, while 37% were inferior and just 17% superior. Another study by the School Choice Demonstration Project also found comparable achievement growth between 3000 matched charter and public school students.

* Teachers of charter schools are 132% more likely to leave their profession, according to a 2003-2004 teacher turnover study by Vanderbilt University--Often underpaid and without a voice due to lack of unions.

3. Why are public funds being used for a double standard? Charter schools are smaller and more autonomous. If these are advantages, why not focus on giving them to the normal public schools

Education Vouchers Pros

1. Education Equality: All students deserve the best education possible. If this education is a private school, why should only those families with the economic means be able to access this superior education?

2. Giving lower income family's access to private school educations will increase the diversity in private schools.

3. It's unfair for parents of private school students to be taxed to support public schools their children do not attend (i.e. pay twice). A large amount of their hard-earned income is designated for their child's education, and as a taxpayer they have the right to ensure that that money is spent towards the best education available.

4. Competition will improve public schools

5. If students are assigned to schools based on where their parents can afford to live, then socio-economic segregation and the achievement gap is maintained by the public school system. Low-income families and are stuck in a reciprocating circle of substandard education for their children.

6. Private schools, as private sector businesses, use money more efficiently and don't squander it like we all know government education bureaucracy does. According to the CATO institute, vouchers can be given out at a savings to the school because the average yearly tuition is less than the average cost spent on a public school student.

Education Voucher Cons

1. Cream skimming: private institutions can accept only the students they want to. So clearly, the best and the brightest public education students will use the vouchers, making bad schools worse.

2. They drain public schools of money while increasing their per-pupil expenses due to cream skimming.

3. The State never gives without taking: private institutions taking money from government undermines private schools and will create pressure to make them accountable to the government. A private school receiving funding from the government is contrary to what makes them a private institution.

4. They are UNCONSTITUTIONAL: Vouchers are used towards religious institutions 95% of the time, violating separation of church and state.

5. We don't want education put into the hands of market forces and run for profit--look what for-profit health care has turned into!

6. Education vouchers are overwhelmingly supported by the wealthy and Republicans, but not the Democrats, whose political base draws from the lower-income and racial minorities in this country. If vouchers are a way to benefit these demographics, why don't Democrats support them? There's a telling story in this: Vouchers are just a clever system pushed by those who can afford to send their children to private institutions and stand to gain a large tax break.

I would love to hear comments from other soon-to-be teachers about Eian's concepts. For remember the future is theirs and all the dinosaurs of education can do sit back and hopefully watch their legacies continue.

Jim Fabiano is a teacher and writer living in York, Maine
Maine Publisher's Association Best weekly column award for 2004
Recipient of Theodore William Richards Award by the American Chemical Society for excellence in teaching secondary school chemistry for 2007.

Email Jim: james.fabiano60@gmail.com