I oppose Gov. Mike Kehoe's plan to privatize education in Missouri. ("Can Kehoe sell Missouri lawmakers on the rest of his agenda? It includes school choice," March 24.)
While I have been a Missouri resident since 1987, I grew up in Pittsburgh and went to public schools in that city. The education was good enough such that I was admitted to Penn State where I studied engineering.
While I can understand the desire of many parents to move their children to better schools, we need to think about how everyone either benefits or loses when we take away money from our public schools to fund private schools. Currently, the situation is that the more prosperous communities have good schools with good teachers while less well-off communities are stuck with poorer schools. This is what happens when you rely on property taxes to fund public schools.
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Kehoe's plan will make matters even worse and the result will be even less money to fund the public schools while the private schools in wealthier communities thrive. And in rural Missouri, the result will be a disaster as these communities don't have the resources for even halfway good public schools. Is this what we really want?
The best approach would be to increase state funding for all public schools so that all Missouri students can get a good education in the K-12 school years.
Jim Rhodes
Webster Groves
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