Through popular school choice efforts several states like Indiana and Louisiana have adopted school vouchers. While that seems great, and I am a proponent of school choice, vouchers seem to have unintended consequences for those who pushed for them – in that they give government a foot-in-the-door so to speak. Because of this I’m concerned about a collective silence from private schools about the Common Core State Standards.
And Florida Governor Rick Scott is pushing for that very thing. He said that students who receive tax dollars should be held to the same standards that apply to public schools.
That would be the Common Core folks.
Florida has adopted them. Louisiana has some strings attached with their voucher program in the form of assessments. Iowa even though they don’t have a voucher system (they offer a tax credit for donations made to school tuition organizations) private schools who are accredited through the Iowa Department of Education. This is the only body who can accredit non-public schools at the moment. Let’s put this in perspective failing public schools in Iowa are accredited. Parents also can only access school tuition organization money if they are sending their child to an accredited non-public school. Non-public schools don’t have to be accredited, but their parents can’t receive the tuition assistance.
So private school parents, teachers, administrators and boards – wake up. You need to be concerned about the Common Core State Standards. If you are forced to adopt these standards what choice will we really have?
