Alison Turner, president of the Nevada PTA, inked a letter-to-the-editor in the RJ on Friday in which she claimed that “Effective family engagement is the single most highly correlated factor with student success.”
She was writing in opposition to proposed legislation which would empower parents to vote to convert the state’s worst public schools into charter schools or give parents vouchers to send their kids to private schools. Not surprisingly, she wants taxpayers to dump more money in the public school systems.
But wait a minute. If parental involvement is the key to student success, then shouldn’t Ms. Turner be promoting home-schooling rather than public schools?
Ms. Turner also makes the ridiculously absurd argument that in a state without a voucher program that there isn’t the “capacity” to provide enough classrooms if we were to offer vouchers.
This is just complete ignorance of supply-and-demand market economics. There aren’t enough classrooms TODAY because there are no vouchers TODAY. If in the future thousands of Nevadans are waving $5,000 vouchers in the air, the market will find a way to take them.
