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Public Money is for Public Schools

Take Action!
A National Disaster Should not be used as an Opportunity to Push Through a Partisan Agenda

President George W. Bush is proposing to give public money to private and religious schools as part of the relief package for Hurricane Katrina. Everyone supports aiding students displaced by the hurricane, but this tragedy should not be used as a platform for advancing a divisive political agenda. AAUW opposes the creation and use of school vouchers in all forms and believes public funds should only be used for public education.

Over the course of the past week, President Bush has publicly recognized that government systems at the local, state, and national levels failed to meet the challenges posed by a natural disaster of this magnitude. In the wake of this tragedy, the public education system has worked quickly to absorb nearly 370,000 displaced students and has proven to be a shining example of goodwill in responding to tragedy in a way that many of the other emergency systems have failed to do. To draw funds away from their already successful efforts would be a gross injustice to both the school systems as well as the survivors of the hurricane. Now is not the time to push forward divisive, ideologically driven programs that do not serve the needs of all students. Moreover, this proposal is categorically unnecessary since there are other, less politicized strategies that would better serve the students who now face rebuilding their educational futures as well as their lives.

Private and religious schools are not required to observe federal nondiscrimination laws, such as Title IX. Private institutions are allowed to discriminate on the basis of religion, gender, disability and language proficiency. Further, private and religious schools can reject a student based on the school’s own admissions criteria and discriminate against a student in access to classes, guidance counseling, extracurricular activities, and other aspects of education. Vouchers are a failed experiment, and the survivors of Hurricane Katrina deserve better.

Take Action!
Click on “Take Action!” in the upper right corner to tell your members of Congress that public money should only go to public schools and that this human tragedy should not be used as an opportunity to push through an agenda to sidestep anti-discrimination laws. (If the link doesn't work then copy and paste this URL into your browser's address bar:http://capwiz.com/aauw/mail/oneclick_compose/?alertid=8038711 )

Read AAUW’s position paper on school vouchers: http://www.aauw.org/issue_advocacy/actionpages/positionpapers/vouchers.cfm