Bob Nitz makes some good and accurate points regarding Bush’s No Child Left Behind program in his Oct. 3 guest column “School vouchers would give poor students a chance.” It does help students going to underperforming schools by getting them into better schools that will most likely improve their learning abilities.

What he fails to see, though, is that the program is leaving many children behind and is providing only a temporary solution to the problem. Using statistics from Chicago schools, 270,000 students were eligible to transfer schools because they were enrolled at a failing school, but only 19,000 actually applied for the switch. The worst part is that only about 1,000 seats were available to take in students.

Of those who applied, only five percent of them will actually be able to switch schools — that is a lot of children left behind. The Bush plan doesn’t help failing schools, it only helps students get out of them.

Failing schools essentially need more money. Schools in Chicago can’t get quality teachers because the suburbs can pay them more and offer better resources. Getting more schools passing is a much better idea than emptying out the failing ones and crowding up the ones that are already making the grade.

Phillip Ross

Alumnus