“Anderson said one private school rescinded his son’s admission after his diagnosis and the other private school, while extremely caring, did not have the professional training and services needed to help his son.“’If you want to make this bill work for families like mine, you would need to obligate private schools to honor the same educational requirements that public schools follow, but that would require removing application guidelines that those schools either can’t or won’t live without,’ Anderson said.”Simply put, as Judith Deedy, executive director of Game On for Kansas Schools, said, ‘private schools are free to chose students who are easier and less expensive to educate.'”In written testimony, Nolan Goldberg said his autistic child was rejected in kindergarten by a Kansas private school but was then ‘nourished in the Olathe public schools,’ and is now a college student.”Goldberg said, ‘Tax dollars are Kansans’ dollars. They are paid by the public to fund public goods. Public education is a public good. Private education is a private interest. Those who seek private education remain free to do so. We have a collective and legal obligation to fund public education, not private schools.'”In written testimony, Anita Parsa, whose three children attended Catholic school, said she opposed HB 2550 because supporting public schools was a civic duty. ‘We ALL properly fund the public schools, whether we use them or not, because good public school systems are critical to our success as in our neighborhoods, in our cities, as a state. We taxpayers — single people, childless people, the parents of newborn and toddlers, those whose parents have grown — some who use the public school systems and many who do not, all pay for the schools both because it enhances our communities and our property values and because it is our public duty,’ Parsa said.”
Facing another legislative push to establish a private school voucher-type program in Kansas, a number of parents say the proposal would harm special needs students in particular and the public good in general. Read in the KASB Newsroom: