The tide of discussion concerning school vouchers comes in and goes out.

The gist of voucher debate is whether parents should have the right to choose private education for their children over public education and receive "vouchers" for the funds their children are not using in public schools.

Though we parents have a constitutional right to "direct" our children's educations, I am not sure diverting public school monies to private education would offer widespread benefit.

Funds aren't my concern. My concern is one day, should vouchers become practice, parents will rush to private schools, not because they know anything at all about the schools or about private education, but because of widespread misconception that private schools always provide better education.

My child and his first grade classmates were harmed physically and emotionally by a woman in a private school who was hired to teach first grade. She had skipped from private school to private school for decades, slapping, pinching, punching, belittling, demeaning and otherwise battering children, before landing a job in my son's private school.

How could this happen? For starters, the owner of the school failed to run a criminal background check or check references for this serial abuser because she was in a bind after the loss of another teacher. The owner's desperation and negligence cost my child and his classmates dearly.

More importantly, we found the state we lived in does not require much of anything of private school teachers. They are not required to have any specific level or field of education. They do not have to hold state-issued teaching credentials. And, though education code in that state requires private school owners obtain criminal clearance on all staff through the state's Department of Justice, there is no penalty for failure to comply, making "code" nothing more than a wish.

In public schools, a chain of command exists from the classroom upward, all the way to the state's Department of Education. Hiring includes background checking. Teaching credentials are required.

Though no set of safeguards ensures child predators or incompetent teachers never make their way into classrooms (as evidenced almost daily in local news), I find a measure of comfort in knowing someone is accountable by law for hiring, supervising, firing and, in short, protecting students.

Though church affiliated private schools are subject to church oversight, in many private schools the buck stops with the owner. Unless a child has been injured in a private school severely enough to require medical care, or unless adult witnesses are willing to testify to abuses occurring within, chances are local law enforcement will not come to the aid of parents whose children were harmed in a private school.

One investigator commented in our case, "Private schools are like country clubs. You pay your money and you take your chances."

That investigator was wrong. In most states country clubs operate under more legal controls than private schools.

My advice isn't stay away from private schools. My advice is parents educate themselves fully before sending a child to one. Know state laws concerning oversight of private schools. Ask tough questions of parents and staff. Who are the owners and teachers? What are their levels of education? Do teachers have state teaching credentials? Were criminal background checks conducted before their being placed into classrooms? Demand proof.

Private schools are often wonderful and children perfectly safe within them. But, in absence of state oversight, parents only have hope in their corner, not law.

To learn about individual state laws related to private schools:

http://www.ed.gov/pubs/RegPrivSchl/intro.html