Policing the rush to charter schools

01-20-2011

Editorial/Fort Wayne Journal Gazette

For perspective on Gov. Mitch Daniels’ education policy, consider the ramifications if a similar policy applied to Indiana’s city police departments. After all, the police departments clearly are failing. Each week, dozens of crimes occur in our city, and many of them go unsolved. As Hoosiers, we cannot allow this record of failure to continue. Remember when we were kids? We could walk to the park without our parents. We could leave our doors unlocked. Clearly, the police departments have gotten worse and worse. What we need is to give police departments competition and to give citizens choices. Indiana should empower a university with a criminal justice program – say, Indiana Tech – to authorize charter police departments. Citizens could choose to have the charter department, not city police, patrol by their homes and answer their calls for help. But that’s not enough. Rich people can hire security guards. Why shouldn’t all Hoosiers have the same access to safety? Let’s give every Hoosier who wants one a voucher financed with our tax dollars to purchase their own security if they choose. Of course, there will be no tax increase to finance these additional police forces, so money will have to come out of the city police department budget. (more…)

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