(Bartoletti is executive director of the N.J. Principals and supervisors Association.)
What a shocking boast when, in our inner cities, more than half the students who enter high school drop out and, among the remaining, fewer than half are able to fulfill basic graduation requirements.
No one should think that children are being well served by these self-appointed representatives. Indeed, the highly organized education lobby has served its own self-interest at the expense of children.
In Jersey City, they have obtained salaries ranging from $32,500 to start, to over $70,000 for teachers with greater seniority. Our education providers have reaped the best salaries in the nation, while our student performence in cities like Jersey City and Newark have been steadily declining.
In a message to district teachers, Thomas J. Favia, president of the Jersey City Education Association, states that his union has provided members "with one of the finest economic packages in the state."
Yet, when it came to the education of his children, Tom Favia's boosterism was strangely lacking. Like a majority of his members who reside in Jersey City, he sent his son to a private school.
Obviously, our public school teachersd don't trust their own system. They know better than most that six years of state "takeover" has resulted in nothing but wasteful spending and a slither and slide to even lower test scores, increased violence, and despair.
Bartoletti's assumption that school vouchers will cause our public schools to empty out will only be true if the education unions continue to fight meaningful school reform in the public school system. Does she think that if poor parents were empowered with a voucher they might make the same decision made by over half our public school teachers and their union boss, Tom Favia? If so, she may be right.
Parents, by nature, are the best representatives of their children's interest and are most likely to secure for them that which is best. But in any regard, poor parents should never be forced to send their children to schools that are failing, and taxpayers should not be compelled to pay for them.
But personally, I believe that if our public schools were forced to compete they would in fact get their act together. The enormous energy that education providers show in securing benefits and tenure would instead be re-directed towards actually improving education.
Indeed, vouchers would not "decrease accountability" where currently there is almost none.
Two final points deserve response.
Bartoletti's concern about discriminatory practices betrays her lack of knowledge regarding urban education. Our thoroughly integrated private and parochial schools stand in sharp contrast to many of our government schools, which are as segregated as those which once existed in Alabama and Mississippi.
Moreover, private schools are required by law to obey all of the civil rights laws of the nation.
Finally, questions of constitutionality are also a bogus issue. For 50 years, GI's have been free to use GI Bill benfits at religiously affiliated colleges as well as at secular colleges. The Supreme Court has also upheld the right of parents to use federal vouchers for religiously affiliated day care services.
As long as benefits desperate parents the chance to secure hope and opportunity for their children now, before it is too late. This is critical, because these parents don't have time to wait for another five-year reform plan.
Children whose families are unable to live in better suburbs and afford the tuition paid by Tom Favia should not be used as pawns to secure a system which only serves its providers.
If bartoletti and other union officials defending the status quo are so sure that vouchers will not improve education and provide greater educational opportunity, then let us test her thesis in a controlled experiment in place like Jersey City, which has little to lose but has demonstrated a desire to try school choice.
Several years ago we attempted to put a non-binding school voucher referendum on the ballot. This would have allowed the citizens of Jersey City to express their will on this subject. Tom Favia's associates went to court to strike such a question from the ballot. He knows that, when given a choice, most people will choose freedom.
People want the freedom to secure the best education for their children, and they want an education which is consistent with their own values, beliefs and goals.
An educational sytem that respects the rights of parents to make one of the most important decisions any parent will make is the only system which reflects American ideals of liberty and justice for all.