n In her column Monday (“Liberals, here’s your chance to support choice,” page 4), Ms. Tara Stroll took on the issue of school vouchers.

After discussing the current voucher plan for the Gulf Coast, she took on the general issue of vouchers. During this discourse she made the very important statement that she is “not an education professional.” Keeping this in mind, I must question Ms. Stroll’s criticism of the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association. While I accept that these are organizations with agendas, one must still keep in mind the fact that they are the largest institutions representing educational professionals in the United States, and should therefore be respected as authorities on the subject of education, whether you agree with their organization’s views or not. Although the American Bar Association, the primary organization that represents attorneys, has an agenda representing their professional and political views, I don’t believe anybody would claim that they are unqualified to make judgments on legal matters.

Ms. Stroll made a point of covering the important role of economist Milton Friedman in creating the voucher movement. There are, however, some errors in the economic theories proposed. For example, the idea of a government monopoly, though obviously false considering the large number of alternative education choices, in education is quite consistent with typical political views that when a market outcome is inconsistent with social well being, the government should enter the market for the benefit of the populace. That is why the federal government builds highways and other infrastructure, manages social security and unemployment programs, and helps students like us pay for higher education. If education were privatized, the quite real possibility exists that some people would be unable to afford quality education for their children.

One of the major problems concerning vouchers is that the struggling schools from which many of the students receiving vouchers depart are generally struggling due to lack of funds. Most are in poor areas with small tax bases that often cannot afford essentials of education such as books. When a student departs from such a school and is given a voucher, the school has even less money with which to operate. As a result, all those students who remain find their school in even worse financial straits, compounding even further the effects such as high drop-out rates, poor test scores and generally inadequate educational resources.

The concept of public education rests on the facts that it is in the national interest to have a well educated populous, and that the government has a responsibility to achieve that goal and make it equally attainable to all of the nation’s people. Unfortunately, this is not currently being achieved. Through a combination of increased funding, incentives to attract more and better teachers to areas with bad schools, and a reconsideration of the new regime of standardized tests that most teachers, who are education professionals, decry as an impediment to education. Our goal should be to improve our system to ensure a good education for everyone, not to quicken its deterioration.

Patrick Shaughnessy CAS ’07