To normal people, it means public charter school and non-neighborhood based traditional public schools, including magnet schools.

To super right-wing folks, it means public $ vouchers for private, many times religious, schools with no accountability.

Speaking of... I listened to Jeb Bush's speech on 'Education' and the subsequent speech by Frantz Placide and I'm very unimpressed with this young man. His speech sounded canned and lacked feeling and imagination.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Where we live it means that kids can go to any public school even if it's not in their district--if the school has space for them and the parents provide the transportation.

You have got to be joking?
Did you not hear about the thread where one grumpy man heard that the school boundary was on his road and the people across the road were sending their kids to his boundary school and wanted advice on how to report them?

that thread has nothing to do with school choice. That had to do with boundaries in an already overcrowded school where people were taking advantage of a glitch in the system.

We don't have much school choice in this area that I am aware of. In FCPS, there are the magnet schools (lottery and test for TJ), the immersion schools (lottery), some NCLB transfer options based on availability and the AP/IB choice options. This is not the same as how public school choice works in other parts of the country.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Where we live it means that kids can go to any public school even if it's not in their district--if the school has space for them and the parents provide the transportation.

You have got to be joking?
Did you not hear about the thread where one grumpy man heard that the school boundary was on his road and the people across the road were sending their kids to his boundary school and wanted advice on how to report them?

No, I'm not joking. That's how it is. We were torn about sending DS to an IB elementary school in another district where he was given a spot, but decided to stick with our neighborhood school. I don't know what the thread you cite has to do with it.

Anonymous wrote:Where we live it means that kids can go to any public school even if it's not in their district--if the school has space for them and the parents provide the transportation.

You have got to be joking?
Did you not hear about the thread where one grumpy man heard that the school boundary was on his road and the people across the road were sending their kids to his boundary school and wanted advice on how to report them?

Anonymous wrote:Not crazy about the idea of vouchers going to a religious school but, the public school choice sounds very fair. On what basis do liberal oppose school choice?

Liberals don't oppose choice of schools within the public system. They don't want tax dollars going to private ESP religious schools and making using public schools to become the underfunded repository for poor kids.

It's real simple School Choice - You don't have to foot the entire bill to keep your kids in a Lily white or upper middle class school The children of the wealthy go to private school and parents foot the entire bill

Anonymous wrote:Not crazy about the idea of vouchers going to a religious school but, the public school choice sounds very fair. On what basis do liberal oppose school choice?

Probably because of stuff like this...http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2012/07/photos-evangelical-curricula-louisiana-tax-dollars

"Under Gov. Bobby Jindal's voucher program, considered the most sweeping in the country, Louisiana is poised to spend tens of millions of dollars to help poor and middle-class students from the state's notoriously terrible public schools receive a private education. While the governor's plan sounds great in the glittery parlance of the state's PR machine, the program is rife with accountability problems that actually haven't been solved by the new standards the Louisiana Department of Education adopted two weeks ago.

Many of these schools, Kopplin notes, rely on Pensacola-based A Beka Book curriculum or Bob Jones University Press textbooks to teach their pupils Bible-based "facts," such as the existence of Nessie the Loch Ness Monster and all sorts of pseudoscience that researcher Rachel Tabachnick and writer Thomas Vinciguerra have thankfully pored over so the rest of world doesn't have to."

Anonymous wrote:Not crazy about the idea of vouchers going to a religious school but, the public school choice sounds very fair. On what basis do liberal oppose school choice?

I think the opposition is to vouchers, not to open enrollment among public schools, based on not wanting to see public money going to private schools -- especially religious ones (raising First Amendment questions).

Not crazy about the idea of vouchers going to a religious school but, the public school choice sounds very fair. On what basis do liberal oppose school choice?

Where we live it means that kids can go to any public school even if it's not in their district--if the school has space for them and the parents provide the transportation.

Anonymous wrote:So does it mean that the govt vouchers can ONLY be used at private educational institutions? Or does it also mean what I say above, that everybody gets school choice?

As an educational topic, it includes providing families with options inside of public schools, and this falls under the category of "open enrollment".

But as a political issue it means using taxpayer money to pay for private school and maybe charter schools depending on the locality. The terms there are vouchers and tuition tax credits.

So does it mean that the govt vouchers can ONLY be used at private educational institutions? Or does it also mean what I say above, that everybody gets school choice?

It means the government pays for Catholic school through the use of vouchers.

Could some R)s please explain to me, when you say you are for school choice, what does that mean? Does it mean that kids in poor neighborhoods can choose to NOT go to their local public school, and go to school in say, McLean instead?

Please enlighten me, thanks!