Let parents make their own choice

Increasing the quality of education available to our young people should be a high priority. Universities and employers should be able to have confidence in the value of a high school diploma. We had some standards set by our elected representatives with several years for our public schools to adapt before these standards became a graduation requirement. Coming down to the wire, it became obvious that our government-run schools weren’t up to the challenge and, of course, the only solution was to remove the requirements (lower the standard).

Now new requirements are being proposed and you want to “Give schools the money and make sure they give students the math.” I’ve heard that one definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome. Our government schools already spend substantially more money per student than most of our private schools and get substantially lower results. It’s obviously not the money!

How about we give parents the choice of where to send their children for the best education? I’m sure you’ve heard of “choice.” Instead of giving the money to the government schools, which have shown some lack of ability to meet the challenge, let’s give it to parents and let them decide who can provide the best education for their children.

Let schools compete for the education dollars provided by the public.

Let the parents choose where to spend those dollars to best suite their child’s needs.

Fred C. Howard

Snohomish