Letters to a Young Teacher

Kozol agrees with Francesca that high-stakes testing is “a kind of shaming ritual” (131) designed to discredit public schools and the entire concept of public education. Advocates of measures to privatize education in the United States support a universal voucher system in which public funds go directly to individuals, who can redeem them at either public or private schools. Parents often get the impression that these vouchers can get their children into a prestigious private school, but vouchers typically don’t cover the high tuition of the fancier schools.

The voucher system is unfair in a variety of ways. Affluent parents with the necessary time and resources can muscle their kids into highly ranked schools. Among poor families there are varying degrees of skills and resources for getting kids into the “right” institution. Supporters of privatization who claim that vouchers will create a free market that will remove this unfairness are not realistic, as the huge web of decisions and obligations involved in getting a child into a private school requires free time and insider information.

Furthermore, a voucher system would allow private schools to accept only certain kinds of children. As profit-seeking ventures, private schools in a voucher system could, for example, limit enrollment to children whose parents agree with disturbing ideologies.