The school voucher bill that failed in the Illinois House last week may surface again later this year, according to its sponsor, Rep. Kevin Joyce (D-Chicago). Meanwhile, the Wednesday vote spurred some interesting debate among Chicago bloggers. Megan Cottrell kicked it off on True/Slant, writing that the lawmakers opposing the measure had "doomed thousands of poor children to an inferior education." Gapers Block's Ramsin Canon called that rhetoric "too loaded" and highlighted the "hundreds of thousands of children who would be left to fail if
privatization initiatives like this one are implemented piecemeal." Eric Zorn framed his opposition to vouchers in a similar light, writing that the "good they do for some students, will, in the long run, be outweighed by the harm they do to other students." And we used the vote as an opportunity to remind folks that we know what works when it comes to raising student achievement in the public school system: adequate, equitable funding.
