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Parents, in the early seventies, should have been able to send their children to the public school of their choice, also. The busing situation, school redistricting and all that garbage about integration was just that - garbage - according to this voucher plan. Why didn't I think of that then instead of fighting with the school board that my son was in the minority (the only white student in his class) and wanted to go to school with his friends who lived down the street?

We were buying a house in an all white neighborhood and eventually we got some really nice black neighbors.

"Well, you know we are under court order," the superintendent of schools told me, "but, we'll try with ethnicity." Of course, that failed.

Pretty soon it was established that if the student lived within a mile of the school, as the crow flies, he would have to walk or someone would have to bring him and pick him up. Still, I complied with the court order, taking him before I went to work and using my lunch hour to pick him up and take him to the child care.

I finally gave up, gave another address and took my children to the school they wanted to attend. Of course, the principal was alerted and told me they couldn't come back the next year. I told him oh yes they can. I was fed up and tired. If I was going to take them, it would be the school of my choice. So, I sold the house and moved.

If that wasn't enough, in Jr. High, a group of blacks brought with them their ghetto ways and three times gave my son a beating for his lunch money. So, this was integration? My son was afraid and would not reveal their names. The third time I went to the school, names were revealed, the principal jumped to attention and students were expelled, never to come to that school again.

Later, in that same school, my daughter was being manhandled by a little black boy. I guess he was so infatuated with her he didn't know that you just don't put your hands wherever you wish on a girl. Or was that his upbringing? My daughter called from school, crying, the principal, a black lady, couldn't make the little boy understand and he would not understand that my daughter said, "no". After I left, after talking with him that day, he never put his hands on her again. I'm not saying it was because he was black, it's just that it turned out that way.

In high school, even though I couldn't afford it, the children went to a private school. I paid for it. It would have been a great help had the voucher system been in effect then.

Sure, public schools will eventually be abandoned if the voucher system is successful, but, then, how will the federal government have a hand in it if someone yells, "discrimination!"?

I am, all the way, for a school voucher system.

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