School Choice/Vouchers can help
by Rick Lowe
The Nassau Institute has been suggesting the Ministry and Department of education at least try School Choice (and Charter Schools among other ideas) for at least a decade now. Of course the "stakeholders" (teachers, administrators and politicians) keep denying any possibility of success for these ideas. Meanwhile the national average continues to decline.
This recent post prompted me to look back at some of the older articles realting to education at the Nassau Institute site ( find more here… http://www.nassauinstitute.org/articles/?cat=4 ) and I was pleased to be reminded of one from June 2008 entitlted School Chopice for Bahamian Students - an example from the Commonwealth.
It is well worth your time to read, and here's an excerpt:
These initiatives have been taken in a country that is mired in government red tape and regulation. But, because they have decided that Globalisation is the most sensible route to empowering the population of India, they have begun taking bold steps to improve their educational system.
Meanwhile, The Bahamas seems content to allow the majority of its children to leave school with the most rudimentary literacy skills, and only tweak the educational system at the edges, in the hope for reform and improved results.
Das believes that, if the CCS and some of the state governments in India continue to build on their successes to date "...India would become a rising star not only in the arena of economic reforms and growth within a democracy but also of the global school choice movement".
Let's hope that The Bahamas government considers school choice and vouchers as one of the options to finally improve education in The Bahamas. It is their moral responsibility if they choose to continue to control the educational system in the country.
It's a real shame that our public educational community will not get behind some of these ideas that will hopefully help our younger people attain a better future.
