What people are saying:

• Secular Education Association: Here’s your reminder that every reaction and every comment drives the algorithm. By all means, keep commenting regurgitated propaganda you’ve been fed by those who wish to keep your children stupid and easily controlled. We reserve the right to delete comments for no reason at all, so don’t waste your time.
  • Secular Education Association: Facebook User sounds like you want a fight. Go somewhere else with your gotcha crap. “Education types” as opposed to whatever you are?
  • Facebook User: Secular Education Association what ignorant tREUMP rednecks so pure scu,m
• Secular Education Association: They say “money follows the child.”

  We say: public funds, public schools, public accountability.

  Public schools belong to everyone.

  • Facebook User: Secular but public schools kinda aren’t performing. So… think of the kids. Not your money.
  • Facebook User: Facebook User my daughters’ public school is great. And now very concerned about funding. So what about those kids?
  • Facebook User: Secular Education Association yah some places let it stay for a school year at a PRIVATE SCHOOL PLACE.. when the PRIVATE SCHOOL THEN DIS- ENROLLEES SAID CHILD for what ever reason said PRIVAE SCHOOL COMES UP WITH. including the disability or chalice said child may have.. or the fact of the family the child may come from.. they dont even have to have a reason.. or come thought with nay explanation if the dont feel lile it. athe standards have been difrent for the PUBLIC SCHOOL THAN THE PRIVATE KINDS…
  • Facebook User: Secular Education Association Charter schools choose their students and are not held accountable!
  • Facebook User: Secular Education Association are you going to take all children? Or only the ones that for your ideals. Also are going to take state tests as well.
• Facebook User: Absolutely
• Facebook User: Public schools are required to accept/enroll every child. They are not “serving” every child…far from it.
  • Secular Education Association: Facebook User you contradicted yourself. But keep commenting. It helps our reach.
  • Facebook User: I’m happy for your post to get more reach. It’s an important discussion!
    Surprised you’re not able to see the distinction I’m pointing to, though. Accepting a student into your school does not mean you’re able to equipped to serve them effectively. This is why ESAs and school choice programs are becoming popular. We all want education to be accessible to ALL, but we also want choices and freedom in how we design and approach education — teachers want and need that to be good at their job and truly serve kids well. Public schooling has siloed learning and institutionalized education so much that it can’t respond to the needs and desires of parents and children.
  • Secular Education Association: Facebook User We actually do understand the distinction you’re making….we just don’t think it leads where you think it does.

    No school system, public or private, can perfectly meet every need for every child all the time. But public schools are uniquely obligated to attempt to serve everyone who walks through the door, including students with disabilities, behavioral challenges, language barriers, poverty, trauma, unstable housing, religious differences, and families with limited resources or alternatives.

    That obligation matters.

    Many “choice” models become easier to celebrate precisely because they can limit, shape, remove, counsel out, decline, or selectively structure who they serve and how they serve them. Public schools generally cannot.

    And when we continuously divert public funding away from the one system legally required to educate all children, we often worsen the very problems being cited as justification for abandoning it: overcrowding, staffing shortages, lack of specialists, reduced programming, burnout, and inequitable access.

    Parents absolutely should have freedom to make educational choices for their own children. But that is different from restructuring public education around individualized consumer preference rather than a shared civic obligation.

    The question for us is not:
    “Can every child thrive in the exact same environment?”

    Of course not.

    The question is:
    “Do we still believe there should be a strong, universally accessible public system that belongs to everyone — including the children who are hardest and most expensive to educate?”

    We do.

  • Facebook User: I completely agree that education should be publicly funded and universally accessible.

    You can see the private school and the education choice market as a bunch of places that pick and choose the students.they’re going to serve as some sort of selfish process to make it as easy as possible for them, but that would be an outsider’s opinion and view for sure.

    From the inside, it’s passionate educators who are unable to creatively engage in their profession in the public school system and now are creating unique learning environments that meet the needs of so many families have been failed by public schools, despite their obligation to enroll them.

    There are plenty of things you could be critical about in terms of the universality gaps that the school choice movement leaves, but the popularity is hard to deny because families and educators want for freedom and flexibility and how they approach learning and raising kids.

    Because I share your common value of having education would be publicly funded and universally accessible, while also believing people should have the freedom to create and choose learning environments that are the best fit for them and their children, I’ll continue to advocate for both!

  • Facebook User: Facebook User You are shilling hard for Linda McMahon. Just stop. You’re transparent.
  • Facebook User: Facebook User if I am unhappy with the current state of military affairs, should I be able get a defense voucher for that portion of my taxes and use it, instead, to hire a private army? Would that be beneficial to national defense?
• Facebook User: There is no public accountability for funds going to private and parochial schools and much less for homeschooling.
• Facebook User: If I can’t get my tax dollars to help fund homeschooling my kids (which we’ve had to do because of the schools policies, not because it was our plan), then private schools absolutely should not.

  Before anyone comes at me, I want to make it clear that I’m not suggesting I should get money to help, just that they absolutely shouldn’t. I still support public schools and am fine with my tax dollars going there and still support our school tax levies too.

• Facebook User: Tax payer dollars should follow tax payer children wherever they go.
  • Secular Education Association: Facebook User nope. You pay taxes for the collective good. For PUBLIC SCHOOLS. Where you send your kids is your choice but your taxes should only pay for the public service. Keep commenting, it helps our reach.
  • Facebook User: Facebook User the irony of your last name being swindle. 🤣
  • Facebook User: Facebook User then the public expectation should be the same for all schools. It’s not though. Private schools can accept whomever they want and kick kids out for any reason. They don’t have to do state testing like public schools, and therefore their funding dollars are not dependent on that. It’s a very broken system
• Facebook User: Public School dollars should go to public schools.
  • Facebook User: Facebook User, only if the student who those funds are designated for decides to attend public. Parents using taxpayer money designated for their child or children to attend private or even religious schools, is no different than college students using their student loan money given to them by the government to attend a religious college/university.
  • Facebook User: Facebook User It is vastly different! Basic education is a public good and necessary to the functioning of a Republic. I’ve never needed the fire dept, but I pay taxes to support them. I’ve never called the police, but I pay taxes to support the police force. If I’m a pacifist, my taxes still support the military. Money for schools is not “designated” for a particular student any more than these public funds are designated for a specific person.Funding based on population is not the same as “designated” for an individual in the population
• Facebook User: Emphatic Yes: Public School Dollars SHOULD FOLLOW Public School Students!
• Facebook User: Tax dollars should follow taxpayer’s children
  • Secular Education Association: Facebook User nope. Taxes are for the public good. NOT the individual. But keep commenting. It helps us get more views and reach.
  • Facebook User: Facebook User money designated for public schools should go to public schools.
• Facebook User: With out question
• Facebook User: amen.
• Facebook User: If you want a private school education for your kids great. Then PAY for it yourself.
• Facebook User: 💯 agree
• Facebook User: Yes yes yes! We have LAWS for this!
• Facebook User: Just fyi: If a student goes to a charter school and leaves at anytime during the year then their alloted state money stays with the charter school!
  • Facebook User: Facebook User where is that the case? In Ohio, student funding is calculated based on the fraction of a time they are enrolled in that school. So a student who is enrolled at a public charter school for half the year is counted as 0.5 FTE and is funded for that fractional time.
• Facebook User: Agree !😊
• Facebook User: My state still has that. It does include public charters, but no private charters or voucher privates.

  But many states are changing. It is unacceptable! Be vigilant! Everyone you know has to vote in November!

• Facebook User: Public funds should only be are for the public education.
• Facebook User: This should be obvious to anyone and everyone!
• Facebook User: It is for public schools! If you choose a private school then you should pay for it.
  • Facebook User: Facebook User, wrong the money is designated for the children.
• Facebook User: Yes!!! 100%!!!
• Facebook User: And zipcode shouldn’t determine the amount. Spread the money equally
• Facebook User: Absolutely!
• Facebook User: Tax dollars should not support the religious indoctrination of children. No vouchers! Separation of church and state!