Quote of the Day - Michelle Rhee Edition

Here’s the question we Democrats need to ask ourselves: Are we beholden to the public school system at any cost, or are we beholden to the public school child at any cost?

Michelle Rhee on her transformation of supporting school vouchers.

Sadly, we already know the answer to this question.

Politico's Winners and Losers of Shutdown Deal

Politico has an article of which they assess the winners and losers of Friday night's last minute deal to avoid the federal shutdown.  Winners include Speaker Boehner and Planned Parenthood.  The losers include Nancy Pelosi and The District. 

They point to the lack of federal funds being used for abortion and the voucher program as the reason why DC has lost.  The most obvious thing one can say about the abortion issue is this is just further proof that federal money isn't used for the funding of abortion is an outright lie.  But when it is convenient the left will trot out this mantra yet again. Now the district is very left leaning so it is likely that the majority of the residents are pro choice.  This being a classified as a loss for The District is understandable from that point of view. 

What I don't understand is why the voucher program is considered a loss.  The expert that congress hired to look at the program without an political agenda has concluded that the program was successful.  It is brought down the shamefully high number of high school drop outs in DC.  The voucher program is less expensive than the DC public school system and generates a higher rate of graduations and a higher level of college acceptance.  How is that a loser?  We are spending less money to get better results.  In no way does this program take money away from the public school system.  The program actually gives twice as money to the public/charter schools than it does to the vouchers.  If a parent wants their child to continue in the current public school they are in they have the right to do it.  But for the parents who realize that their child is in a school that is failing them or in a dangerous neighborhood they have the choice to put them in a better school.  An education is the key to lifting the poor out of poverty. 

Here is a commenter on the Politico article:

Why do the right hate education so much?

OK, my first question to this person would be did you go to the DC public schools?  My second would be why do you keep insisting that voucher program isn't designed to help the poor?  The only people who can rationally believe that this program is a loser is someone who is so blinded by the liberal left orthodoxy of how unions are the answer to improving our educational system.  Even when the facts bear out that this program is a winner. 

Not only will these children get a chance at a better education and are more likely to graduate and go onto college.  They will help lift themselves and their families out of poverty that will reduce their dependency on the government dole.  Yes, that sounds like a loser to me. 

DC Scholarship Program One Step Closer to Reinstatement

Today the house passed a bill to reinstate the DC Voucher program.  It gained very little democratic support.  Shocker, I know.  The dems actually had the nerve to say:

Democrats opposed it as an inappropriate use of federal funds and an unwelcome intrusion into local affairs.

If the dems really felt that education was a local affair why do we still have the Department of Education.  That is an intrusion into local affairs.  They then go into the mantra that it will adversely affect public school funding.  The problem is that is wrong.  This funding will only give 1/3 of the funding for the bill to go to the voucher program.  $100 Million going to vouchers and $200 Million to the public/charter school system.  For those that are not aware, the school system in DC is federally funded.  The reality is that the vouchers for high school students is 12K per year as opposed to the 28K that is paid for the public school system.  It is actually cheaper to send the kids to private school and the graduation rates are significantly higher and does have higher rates for reading comprehension.  Read an additional report here.  You can also read a letter from a parent who talks about the change not only in her daughter's life but her own. 

Its lead author, Patrick J. Wolf, told a Senate committee last month that the program was good for students

But, why would the democrats let facts get in the way when they have the unions to protect? 

Here is Speaker Boehner on the topic today on the floor of the house.  There is hope in the house.  Sen. Lieberman is a sponsor of the bill and there has been Dem support for vouchers when it passed several years ago.  It then falls onto to President Obama.  Will he veto a bill that will give under privileged students access to the same school his two daughters attend.  I have said this before, Obama knows that vouchers is part of the solution, does he have the backbone to stand up to the unions?   

And here is one of my favorite congressman.

The Minions Speak Up about a Sucess Story

PJ Mom posted about a letter written in The Washington Post about the school voucher program.  Anyone who reads my blog regularly knows that I have written about school choice many times and about the scholarship program in DC in particular.  This is an issue that I am very passionate about.  My feelings are that there is not point in saving our country if the next generation is a bunch of idiots.  Our failing public school systems is a issue of both national and economic security.  We cannot stay competitive on the world stage if our young are not educated. 

Let's take a look at the comments to this very thoughtful letter of a proud mom and her newly confident daughter.  A daughter that is now applying for college, something that her family didn't think was possible only five short years ago:

Great. Now what about those kids who are left behind, in schools with even less money and even less support? Parents who are working three jobs just to get by, and can't afford to send their kids to private schools even with the vouchers? Kids who are atheists or of minority religions in an area where the only private schools are religious? Are those kids less important, less deserving than Jerlisa?


How about we try to make education work for EVERY kid, not just those fortunate enough to get a voucher and to be able to make up the difference between the voucher and the private school's tuition?

The children remaining in public schools are not losing money, they don't need money for students that are not there.  The public schools still get just as much money per student as they would without the voucher program.  My answer is close down every failing public school in DC and give them all vouchers.  We would save money and give these kids a better education.  What this woman is really saying is that no one deserves a better education.  All the kids in the DC public school system should fail.  I guess with liberal logic that is fair. 

The government is in the business of supporting the government. Any diversion of funds to the people is wrong and immoral. Those $7500 should have been given to the teachers union where it would have been properly spent on political contributions to keep the whole game going. Any expenditure of education funds on children is a complete waste and probably illegal

I am hoping that this is snark. 

These voucher schemes are nothing more than an attempt to starve public education.


At at time when our public schools (as well as state and local governments nationwide) are facing unprecedented cutbacks and budget slashings, we should be focused on how to provide more resources for our public schools and our children, not less.

Public education is to provide education to ALL students - not just a few. It is time for home schoolers, private schoolers, right-wingers, and other Anti-public school zealots to stop their full-scale assault on public schools and to stop trying to rob public schools of much needed funds and students.

See, I think it is time that union leaders and far left liberals stop forcing children into bad school systems and failing them at every level.  Why do we have teenagers that only read at elementary school levels?  The public school system is not working in every area of the country.  They just don't.  Instead of throwing good money after bad, lets fix the problems.  How many kids are we going to fail with this logic?  We gave the unions and the department of education 4 decades to improve our schools.  They are not getting better, matter of fact we are falling further behind.  How many more decades to keep to a failing plan in order to make the unions happy?  I guess forever to some. 

The Average American?

Every three years The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development conducts testing on 15 year olds from 34 different countries.  The results of the U.S. is nothing less than disappointing.

 

The U.S. scores of 500 in reading and 502 in science, on a 1,000-point scale, were about the organization's average, according to the report. The U.S. math score of 487 was below the average of 496.

The Department of Education spends $70B per year.  What exactly are we getting for that?  It is time that we admit that our current system is just not working and we look at different way of thinking in order to tackle this problem, because a problem it is.  Our poor educational system affects both national and economic security for future generations of our country. 

We keep thinking that simply throwing money at the problem is the answer, when clearly it is not.  We have recently added dinner programs to some of our public schools.  This after we have been feeding breakfast to these students as well.  The rationale behind adding the breakfast was that students who are not eating well don't learn as well.  While that may very well be true, it obviously has not had the desired effect.  Our scores are not going up. 

The one size fits all program of No Child Left Behind has not worked, and President Obama has come out with a new program, Race to the Top.  At least with Race to the Top the government is allowing the individual states to make more of the decisions, but it is still being federally focused instead of locally focused. 

There are some administrators in the state of New Jersey that get higher salaries than the governor.  That is not an effective way to use the limited funds.  The majority of the money should be going to improve the classroom instead of paying for high salaries and a lifetime of benefits that the average person does not have.  We have done nothing to make easier to get rid of the teachers that are no longer performing up to par.  While it is true that the vast majority of teachers are dedicated and do a very good job, it should be every teacher.  We entrust our children's future to the staff at a public school and if they are not up to the job, then they need to find a new line of work. 

The time has come that left admit that high-flying rhetoric is not only failing our children, but is endangering the future of our country.  We can longer accept the fact that students in major urban areas don't deserve the same education as the students in suburban areas.  One needs to look no further than the cities of Chicago and Washington, DC.  Both school systems spend large amounts of money per pupil and continue to have lower than average scores and graduation rates.  Since, on a whole, our school system is only average, think of how bad the schools in these two cities are. 

If we continue to fail our children in this way, how will we stay competitive on the world stage?  How will we have enough educated people to perform such tasks as national security?  This is road that we no longer can afford to continue going down.  We need to look into using more charter schools and more voucher programs.  We can't continue to wait for the failing schools to improve.  That obviously is not happening. 

For me, it's a massive wake-up call," Education Secretary Arne Duncan said Monday. "Have we ever been satisfied as Americans being average in anything? Is that our aspiration? Our goal should be absolutely to lead the world in education."

Time will tell what steps Arne Duncan will take now that he has his "wake up call". 



Cross posted at Potluck