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I would love to see "School Choice" and "Student Vouchers" as an option for every student. We should have a say in the way are children are educated; I would love the option to send my child and my tax dollars to a new state of the art charter school, where there are no teacher's unions to deal with. If I feel the school department, the teacher's union and the teachers are being disingenuous to my child and do not have my child's best interest in mind then I should be able to request my tax dollars be reallocated to a charter school along with my child. As tax payers, we pay the school department for a service and that service is to provide the best education possible for our child and if we feel the service is no longer up to our standards, we should have the right to refuse the service and go where we feel we will receive superior service and the best return on our investment.

Here is an example... People have either Verizon or Cox Communications in their home. However, it wasn't that long ago when we had limited options to choose from in RI other than Cox Communications. So, year-after-year, we would pay Cox Communications for their service, they would raise our rates, modify our subscriptions and remove channels pretty much whenever they wanted and we as a consumers; we were limited as to what we could do. We were for the most part at their mercy. Then one day, Verizon moved into the state and all of a sudden we had "options," and almost immediately Cox Communications had to rethink their business plan, they no longer held a monopoly within the state, there was market competition and with that, we the consumer had much more leverage. If we didn't like how we were being treated by Cox Communication, or we felt we were not get our moneys worth from the services they provided, we could simply cancel our subscription and move to another provider.

I think our school department should be treated the same way, you provide a service to the students and parents within our city, we have to pay for that service every year in the form of taxes, every year that same service has cost us more money and we really aren't getting any better service. As a consumer, I shouldn't have to pay for a service from a provided that I am not happy with. I should be able to choose who gets my money and who provides my child the service that I feel they deserve, right? Now, add a couple charter schools in the mix and the option to send your money and your child to that school and all of a sudden, the school department looses a lot of its leverage and clout and with that its monopoly status. All of a sudden they need to rethink their business plan, do they continue with the status quo, and lose their consumers (students) to another service provider or do they get more humble and try compete with this new found, union-less competition?

Happy Waning Gibbous Moon Phase Everyone

Rhode Island Freemason

The Taxpayers' Freemason