Senate Bill 6 in District 11: Rauch says drop testing, give all students vouchers

Recently, Representative Debbie Boyd voted no on the controversial senate bill SB6, which would, among other things, require students to pass a standardized test for every subject taught, as well as decide teacher’s pay in accordance with their students’ test scores.

The bill had educators across the state up-in-arms, as many felt its passage would be detrimental to the curriculum, as well as push good teachers to leave the state for better paying jobs in places like Georgia or Alabama.

The bill did pass the Senate and the House with a great majority of support, but thankfully for the teachers, the bill was vetoed by Gov. Charlie Crist. However,  the overwhelming support for the bill in the legislature shows the need for education reform.

Terry Rauch, a Republican candidate with opinions, said he thinks the thing to do is get rid of standardized testing completely and give every child a voucher to get in to whichever school they’re parents choose.

“It gives power to the parents,” Rauch said. “It would create free market enterprise and make education a product.”

Rauch argued that every three months a parent should be able to evaluate their child’s education, and should they find it lacking, pull their child out of the school and transfer them to another with a better reputation. It doesn’t matter if it’s a neighboring public, private, denominational school or otherwise.

Rauch believes such a strategy would force schools to recruit better teachers, who would in turn create better a curriculum. he said he didn’t think such a plan would be too costly. He also didn’t seem too concerned with how students who take the bus to school would be effected by all this travel.

Another interesting idea from Terry Rauch, if not a little half-baked.

– Kat Bein

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