Parents’ choice at your expense

Guest Column | Norman Sherman

I hate to admit this, but I’m a dim wit. I try to hide it from myself. After all, I remember to put my pants on one leg at a time when standing. I lock the stall doors in public toilets, and I stay inside during tornadoes and never go near the windows.

Here’s what’s troubles me and makes me feel dumb. English is my native tongue, but I don’t speak or understand a local dialect, Kimian. I haven’t been able to figure out. whether Gov. Kim Reynolds and other Republicans in public office believe what they say. Do they really believe that vouchers to private schools help public schools get better? Do they really believe that less is more. Do they really think that my tax dollars should go to a parochial school which teaches its students that abortion should be outlawed, that our private lives are their business?

I want more money for public schools. I want women to have the right to abortions if they want one. I want kids to be able to say “gay.” Why should people like me, in either political party, subsidize what we think is bad policy?

Beyond those policy issues, there are other things that bother me.

Parochial schools don’t have to accept students with limited abilities or some disabilities, and they don’t. Public schools do. Is it more work for an already overworked teacher. Of course, but we do it because it is the democratic thing to do.

For years, I’ve thought private schools were private. They existed on private money from people, generally religious folks, who can afford it and chose not to enroll their children in the no tuition public school.

Public schools gather very different children from very different homes. But they study together, eat lunch together, ride the bus together. They learn by their daily experience that different isn’t evil. Diverse is not a four-letter word.

Most of us find public schools a wonderful part of our lives. Students can come from an isolated farm or from public housing onto a school bus on the way to careers as doctors, nurses, teachers, clergy. They become the fabric of society that makes life what is in this special nation. Public schools prepare them for democracy as they have since 1839 when the first school started. Public schools since then have given kids of all religions, all ethnicities, all income levels a sense of one nation.

Even if the governor were right about vouchers, her actions don’t benefit the whole state which really is her responsibility. We have 183 non-public schools in Iowa, but they are in only 42 of our 99 counties.

This coming school year, those private and parochial schools will get at least $107 million During the next four years we will give away about $878 million. Proponents like to talk about per student voucher because it disguises what public schools lose.

When I was a kid, I went to the movies on Saturday morning. One regular cartoon feature was called “Looney Tunes.” Kim Reynolds has made me feel young again. But Loony Tunes was funny. She isn’t.

An elementary school teacher who recently retired after 41 years summed it up for me. “It’s criminal.”

Norman Sherman of Coralville has worked extensively in politics, including as Vice President Hubert Humphrey’s press secretary.