Catholic School Principal lives in a bubble.

Todd DeClemente the principal of Cathedral Parish School says my school is great so all schools that take vouchers are too, or that is his gist anyways. 

http://staugustine.com/opinions/2014-07-05/public-funding-private-schools-makes-sense#.U7sJZfldWSo

But is that really true?

When I spoke with the states expert on vouchers he said there were some really great private schools that take vouchers, mostly religious, but some really poor ones too. This goes to my chief complaint about vouchers, the lack of accountability, it’s almost as if the state has no interest in weeding out the bad apples and Mr. Declemente who wrote the piece supporting Catholic schools apparently doesn’t either. 

DeClemente may indeed be in charge of some great school but how many of the 1,500 schools that take vouchers are? Nobody knows and the state, which is all about accountability for public schools, isn’t trying to find out.

The bottom line is if we are going to use public money to finance private schools at the very least we should set minimum standards for teacher certification and curriculums, we should have oversight about how the money is being spent and the schools should be accountable for their results. I really don’t think that is asking too much and if these schools want public money, if Mr. Declemente wants the public to give him money he and they should be willing to agree.

And the fact that he and voucher proponents fight tooth and nail against accountability and minimum standards should really tell you all that you need to know.