Since the beginning of the school year, more than a quarter of voucher students in Miami-Dade County have returned to public schools. The reasons most kids and parents cite for abandoning their new private schools? Transportation difficulties, too tough a curriculum, too-strict discipline, culture shock and a lack of familiarity with new teachers, peers and school grounds. That's hardly an indictment of school choice or the Sunshine State's Opportunity Scholarship program. While choice opponents have been quick to seize on the transfers as evidence that vouchers don't work, they do acknowledge that the state's extra funding and oversight of failing schools - the schools that kids are exiting - have led to "dramatic improvement" there. What better argument to continue and expand the program? "Many reject vouchers, return to public schools," by Daniel A. Grech, The Miami Herald, November 3, 2002
