Public education has often been under attack and has managed to survive the assaults time and time again.

The attacks by the extreme right wing of the Republican party started as panic responses to the threat of integration brought by Brown v Topeka Board of Ed.

Public schooling has suffered the assault of dozens of imposed legal demands from groups previously marginalized. Somehow most of public education has moved in 50 years from "separate but equal" schooling to Title IX, racial integration, bilingual ed, inclusion of students with disabilities, handling of gay and lesbian problems, sex ed., and a myriad of other problems reflecting the communities in which the schools are located.

This is the salient point. Public schools, with all their problems are responsive to their local school boards and their state Boards of Education. This is accountability--private education and vouchers are a method to by-pass any public accountability to elected officials.

Public education tries to fulfill the vision of a democratic America. An America in which our public institutions are responsible to, and controlled by the voting public and their representatives.

The voucher movement betrays that
very vision that is essential to democracy. It treats education as a mere consumer item and asks to settle for the "choice" to apply to a private school that has no accountability to any school board or any other elected body.

This is an un-American attempt to take
education away from the people and their control and place it in the hands of religious schools (in the city of the test case, Cleveland, 99 per cent of the 4,300 that are getting vouchers are "faith based" schools).

The cure for our public school ills lie in the area of greater public and parental participation----not vouchers.

Support Thomas Jefferson's vision of public schools as being essential to democracy. Money going to vouchers for private schools will undercut the tax-payer support for public schools and prevent positive reforms that might be needed to improve present schools.