The money Washington, DC public school system spends is $13,000 per student. In more thoughtful times, Congress approved a voucher program which allowed low income DC families receive vouchers allowing them to send their children to private schools. The voucher amount was $7,500 a year. Washington, DC schools are a total failure ranking right at the bottom among other disastrous urban school systems in every measurable standard of pupil achievement. Figures concerning discipline and student behavior problems show a system out control. What’s not documented are the thousands of kids who never receive a standard education with the proper skills in reading, writing, and math and knowledge base in how society and business functions so they can become constructive members of society on matters not captured by the “take your pick” standardized tests as they do not accurately assess the student’s ability to apply critical thinking skills or their ability to apply and synthesize content to the real world.
How many kids are intimidated by bullies? How many kids having no constructive alternatives fall in with the bad crowd? How will they be given any opportunity to develop character and leadership skills in a totally morally bankrupt setting?
Kids from very modest conditions, the kinds which would normally become just another statistic of failure in DC schools, have grown and succeeded working side-by-side with children of much more bountiful backgrounds, the kinds of people they’d never meet in the prison of an urban public school. Likewise, the kids in the schools where voucher recipients attend get to know kids with challenges and life situations they’d never encounter in their well-to-do born-to-succeed environment enriching their understanding of the world. There is never a downside to a child from any background receiving a top quality education. Private schools have another component that is outlawed in public schools – the teaching of spirituality and the values such learning contained within.
Who helped lead the charge against this highly successful program? Senior Illinois Senator Dick Durbin is responsible. As one of the highest ranking Democrats in the Senate, Durbin has tremendous clout. He’s also a steadfast tool of all the evils Liberal politics carries with it – contempt for free enterprise solutions, excessive attention to politically created victim groups, and unconditional support for organized labor. Who are two of the largest contributors to Democratic candidates? The teachers unions, NEA and AFT, are not only huge sources of donations to Democratic candidates they are also the most persistent opponents of any kind of true educational reform. Where educational reform results into fewer students subject to unionized teachers, the unions will use all their political clout with an army of members ready to write letters, make phone calls, and stir up a lot of noise armed with union supplied misinformation and propaganda to defeat or reverse such reforms. As such charter schools, private and parochial schools, and home teaching are always in their target. Their opposition to the voucher program can never be justified on the benefit to students which implicitly concedes their product is inferior. Instead, they attempt to be acting as if they are safeguarding, as if they are standing on some moral high ground, the separation of church and state. God forbid vouchers could be used to send kids to Catholic schools. Those horrible Catholics are against same sex marriage and abortion, two pet causes of the radical left. Listen to the sincere union true believers speak on home teaching and you’d realize they’d have parents who sacrifice so much to commit their lives to their children’s learning arrested for child abuse. How could any rational parent possibly deprive a child of all the benefits of a public education?
Well, let us count the ways.
Quality education is a huge threat to the liberal world and survival of politicians like Dick Durbin. Liberal forces have controlled school curriculum for decades and the results are obvious given how poorly American students are performing but there are also the failures not revealed through testing – the amoral approach to teaching values, the contempt for religion and patriotic expression, and a generally socialist view of politics and economics.
Liberal politics seeks control of the message. Just as they seek to censor the radio through what they call the “fairness doctrine” that would balance out conservative content. Just as the card check program would result in strong arming unions into the workplace where some might like a less confrontational, more constructive employee/management relationship, denying choice in education assures parents can’t enroll their children in schools that have a more favorable moral climate. Naturally, taxing the rich and going after their ability to write off deductions to private schools plays right into this nonsense.
Inner city schools are prisons for the willing to learn forced to lie low and pretend to be invisible surrounded by unruly thugs and incompetent often mean spirited teachers. Elsewhere, public schools are generally mediocre pushing secular humanist content that strangles critical thinking, clear expression of traditional values, and any consideration of faith.
Several thousand children in Washington dc schools will be dumped into the hell of dc public schools thanks to the ability of the Democratic party to flex its power. We’re all losers in a society willing to let this happen.
How many kids are intimidated by bullies? How many kids having no constructive alternatives fall in with the bad crowd? How will they be given any opportunity to develop character and leadership skills in a totally morally bankrupt setting?
Kids from very modest conditions, the kinds which would normally become just another statistic of failure in DC schools, have grown and succeeded working side-by-side with children of much more bountiful backgrounds, the kinds of people they’d never meet in the prison of an urban public school. Likewise, the kids in the schools where voucher recipients attend get to know kids with challenges and life situations they’d never encounter in their well-to-do born-to-succeed environment enriching their understanding of the world. There is never a downside to a child from any background receiving a top quality education. Private schools have another component that is outlawed in public schools – the teaching of spirituality and the values such learning contained within.
Who helped lead the charge against this highly successful program? Senior Illinois Senator Dick Durbin is responsible. As one of the highest ranking Democrats in the Senate, Durbin has tremendous clout. He’s also a steadfast tool of all the evils Liberal politics carries with it – contempt for free enterprise solutions, excessive attention to politically created victim groups, and unconditional support for organized labor. Who are two of the largest contributors to Democratic candidates? The teachers unions, NEA and AFT, are not only huge sources of donations to Democratic candidates they are also the most persistent opponents of any kind of true educational reform. Where educational reform results into fewer students subject to unionized teachers, the unions will use all their political clout with an army of members ready to write letters, make phone calls, and stir up a lot of noise armed with union supplied misinformation and propaganda to defeat or reverse such reforms. As such charter schools, private and parochial schools, and home teaching are always in their target. Their opposition to the voucher program can never be justified on the benefit to students which implicitly concedes their product is inferior. Instead, they attempt to be acting as if they are safeguarding, as if they are standing on some moral high ground, the separation of church and state. God forbid vouchers could be used to send kids to Catholic schools. Those horrible Catholics are against same sex marriage and abortion, two pet causes of the radical left. Listen to the sincere union true believers speak on home teaching and you’d realize they’d have parents who sacrifice so much to commit their lives to their children’s learning arrested for child abuse. How could any rational parent possibly deprive a child of all the benefits of a public education?
Well, let us count the ways.
Quality education is a huge threat to the liberal world and survival of politicians like Dick Durbin. Liberal forces have controlled school curriculum for decades and the results are obvious given how poorly American students are performing but there are also the failures not revealed through testing – the amoral approach to teaching values, the contempt for religion and patriotic expression, and a generally socialist view of politics and economics.
Liberal politics seeks control of the message. Just as they seek to censor the radio through what they call the “fairness doctrine” that would balance out conservative content. Just as the card check program would result in strong arming unions into the workplace where some might like a less confrontational, more constructive employee/management relationship, denying choice in education assures parents can’t enroll their children in schools that have a more favorable moral climate. Naturally, taxing the rich and going after their ability to write off deductions to private schools plays right into this nonsense.
Inner city schools are prisons for the willing to learn forced to lie low and pretend to be invisible surrounded by unruly thugs and incompetent often mean spirited teachers. Elsewhere, public schools are generally mediocre pushing secular humanist content that strangles critical thinking, clear expression of traditional values, and any consideration of faith.
Several thousand children in Washington dc schools will be dumped into the hell of dc public schools thanks to the ability of the Democratic party to flex its power. We’re all losers in a society willing to let this happen.
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