Giving more power to parents Principal Vadillo said while she was studying at Cal Poly, she was staunchly opposed to a voucher system. But as she began her master's thesis on the subject in 1993 and did more research, she began to like the idea. Vadillo acknowledged that voters are afraid schools will start cropping up on every street corner, hungry for the voucher money and teaching an obscure religion or curriculum. But that fear isn't well-founded, she said. People need to trust parents.
Vouchers make education competitive.
Most parents are fussy about education, Vadillo said, especially private school parents. It's true that private schools are not required by law to have credentialed teachers. But schools without qualified teachers or an accountability system, such as standardized testing, won't attract parents. Vadillo explained that all of St. Mary's teachers are credentialed and fully qualified to teach the school's 275 preschool through eighth-graders. All the Christian Life School teachers are also credentialed, said Ron Brown, the administrator for the Santa Maria Foursquare Church affiliated school.