| Opportunity! Scholarships! Action! All of these things sound awesome, and even moreso when you string them together - "Opportunity Scholarship Act" - it just rolls off the tongue, like "Madoff Investment Securities," or "House Un-American Activities Committee." Still, everyone knows that the OSA, likely to rear its zombie-vampire head once again in the lame duck, is just a marketing name for school vouchers - a famously failed scheme with over two decades of pure bleh to show for itself - a misuse of taxpayer money and violation of civil liberties done in the interest of advancing an education "solution" that has not, in over 20 years, done anything to improve student achievement. Even voucher advocates now must concede that students who receive vouchers do no better than students in regular public schools. (You can see this defeat in action as many voucher advocates now no longer sell better test scores in their pitch, instead pivoting to a promise to boost parent involvement.) You have to wonder what else voucher advocates will suggest - a new VCR for every classroom in the state? New mimeograph machines?
Voucher opponents will rally tomorrow in Jersey City at 3:30 p.m. in the auditorium of Franklin Williams Middle School (M.S. #7). Senators Rice and Cunningham, Assemblyman Mainor, former Assistant Commissioner of Education Gordon MacInnes and activist Junius Williams will be in attendance along with what's expected to be a large crowd of parents and children.
Note the impressive list of sponsor organizations:
ACLU NJ
Coalition for Effective Newark Public Schools
The Latino Institute
League of Women Voters of NJ
Delaware Valley Americans United for Separation of Church and State
NJ Working Families
Our Children/Our Schools
The Paterson Education Fund
Save Our Schools NJ
Statewide Education Organizing Committee
It's also notable that a number of Republican legislators oppose school vouchers, including Senators Diane Allen and Kip Bateman, and Assembly members David Wolff and James Holzapfel.
WHEN: Wed, Nov. 30. 3:30 p.m.
WHERE: Franklin L. Williams Middle School #7 (Auditorium); 222 Laidlaw Ave., Jersey City |
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