Public schools pay the price for Tallahassee’s hypocrisy.

Often the people and legislators in Tallahassee who are fighting hardest to keep Florida’s failed school accountability system in place are school vouchers staunchest defenders. They scream that we must have accountability for our public schools but then they shrug their shoulders when it comes to private schools that accept vouchers.

In the public school system schools can be labeled as failures, children can fail or be forced to take remedial classes, teachers can be fired and every penny has to be accounted for. In the voucher system the only real accountability measure that private schools have is they are required to report what they do with the money if the amount is over 250 thousand dollars, which only a handful of them take in.

The people who support vouchers also say we must listen to the parents of children who accept vouchers because they know what is best for their children but at the same time they ignore the parents of public school children who have been complaining about a lack of resources and high stakes testing for years.

I will close by saying the state constitution calls for a high quality and uniform education system. What we have is neither high quality nor uniform as public schools pay the price for Tallahassee’s hypocrisy.