The voucher system, once investigated, is not as simple as some would like us to believe. As if Dan had a Deep Throat contact, he went on to claim that The National Education Association 4 and The American Federation of Teachers are members of some cloak and dagger, secret organization. Visit, for example, Martin Luther King Elementary in San Diego, California. Today, King is a very different place. The drug dealers are gone, test scores are up, and a community-based Friends of King Foundation supports the school's music and arts programs.
Teachers visit students' homes, and parents take evening courses at the school.
Twice as many of Alamo's middle schoolers now meet Texas academic standards as did before the community reinvolvement. Today, Willow Bend Elementary school in Palatine, Illinois, enjoys an attendance rate of 97 percent, and student test scores have gone from the bottom third to the top third in the district. Three years ago the educators at Willow Bend took a hard look at what they were doing and how they were doing it, and they reinvented the school. Raising the bar works. Set clear, high expectations for all students.