Ben Sargent's cartoon (1/27/01), portraying school vouchers as a wrecker about to demolish a school building, illustrates more than you intended -- specifically the unsophisticated level of your understanding. Although I know many wonderful teachers in the public school systems, there is also great cause for concern. Ideological warfare is being waged against families and traditional morality. And educational fads cheat countless students out of a decent education before the programs are generally recognized to be counterproductive.

If parents think that their children are being indoctrinated as part of an ill-conceived social experiment, or if their children are not even being given the basic tools needed to become competent adults, should those families really be required to pay twice for an education? There are relatively few in that case who can afford private school or home school and thus the misguided educational zealots, who think they know better for the kids than the parents do, have no motivation to even listen to complaints which they have come to regard as just an annoyance.

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