Understanding Why We Need School Vouchers
One would think that in the deep red state of Utah school vouchers would be the law of the land by now. Last February the legislature approved a universal voucher program, and for the first time the nation stood watching to see if all the hopes wrapped up in this challenge to the public school monopoly would change things. They never got the chance. Teacher’s unions put out a nationwide alert, funded a referendum drive and quickly got the courts to suspend it until they could kill it. This Tuesday Utahans are voting on that referendum to ban the school voucher program. Millions of dollars are flowing into Utah from education unions across the nation, flooding the media with radio, television and newspaper ads. They see how important it is that no state ever get the chance to enact school vouchers, and so the beautiful state of Utah has become a den of political mercenaries looking to defend union ground. Polls released recently declared that those against choice are ahead 60/40. How can it be that teacher’s unions could win anything but the enmity of parents?Let’s remind ourselves why we need vouchers; it’s truly for the children. American schools are failing, and in good part because of teachers unions, who care first and foremost about teachers and the union bureaucracy that live off of the dues they pay. Their arguments for preserving the monopoly they hold pale in comparison to the failure they represent, but money brings power, and while children are sent into the world ignorant, the unions have grown richer, more powerful and less accountable. School vouchers represent the only serious challenge to an institution that disrespects its customers and dismisses its responsibilities.
Consider this analogy: Public schools put out a product - government education; we’ll call it product A. Over the last five decades product A has gotten progressively worse, and part of the reason for this is that those selling it realize that their customers have no choice but to pay for what they’re selling regardless of quality. This is why public schools will unabashedly insult parents, usurp their authority and undermine their influence; there is no penalty for disrespecting the customer. If that customer leaves, they’ll see the same system at the next public school - big government directs public education to teach the values it holds paramount. Those who refuse to accept product A and leave the system altogether, opting for product B at a private institution, nonetheless are forced to continue paying for product A through property taxes even as they pay out of pocket for product B. This punitive scheme works well for public schools - the parent that opts out for the love of their child still pays for an empty desk - so the school gets something for nothing.
At this point in the debate you’ll start hearing cries of poverty from the teacher’s unions, even though in Utah the money for the vouchers would come from the general fund, so public schools wouldn’t lose a red penny. But public schools would be forced to compete for students, and that’s what the unions are really afraid of. Union members are the fat kids on the playing field, protected by bullies from ever having to earn the respect of their customers or succeed in putting out a decent product. Each year the numbers come out and, bewildered, we wonder why our kids are flunking or dropping out even as poor children around the world manage to excel with no where near the funding as American students. The union’s response is typically liberal - we need to pay them more. Then they’ll say that kids come to school hungry, tired, demoralized and unable to speak our language. Was there ever a time in America that children and their teachers did not have to deal with these challenges? Why is it that today we fail when in our past we found a way to succeed?
A lot of that has to do with the educating of our teachers. A friend of mine just earned her masters in education. I helped her every step of the way, and when she received her degree, I told her that now I knew why children were so horribly educated in this country. Her last year of university education had her concentrating on American racism, sexism, and the evils of capitalism. She had to study about education “revolutionaries” like Paulo Freire, who were praised for bringing Marxist theory into the classroom. The books she was assigned were often unabashedly antagonistic to any “melting pot” theory of assimilation, like ‘Identifying Race and Transforming Whiteness In The Classroom’ by V. Lea and J. Helfand. For all the hours she spent in intensive indoctrination, so few were spent on perfecting techniques to recognize educational obstacles plaguing students. It was obvious that political activists had infiltrated the educational curriculum in order to inculcate in our children values the left felt important. Those values often conflict with the values of the parents whose children they educate, and it has become clear that in the public school system, political, environmental and social indoctrination has become paramount. We live in a world now where it is more important that our children are multicultural, sexually informed and good stewards of the earth than able to read, write and think critically.
This is why we need school vouchers. It is not just because the monopoly abused by activist unions and government are harming the potential of our children, but because the system has changed the priorities of traditional education and seek more to ‘program’ our children than prepare them for a future that will demand more of them than high self esteem. School vouchers represent a challenge to a system that has lost respect for who it serves, and if Utah voters can’t see that, then they deserve the education their children get.
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It seems that everything these days is haunted by the change of priorities; as with the unions it is as you mention. All about keeping the sly sheister system going; children, nation and all be damned. This is disgusting.
Teacher's Union do not really want the youth of America to get well educated.. Good education begets good jobs, good jobs beget the need for good schools for their children who will hold teachers accountable and this is not part of the Do as little as possible and only teach Socialistic ideology agenda of the Teachers' union… it is the only way foir them to remain employed!!!
I think I agree with you on school vouchers, but the whole "It was obvious that political activists had infiltrated the educational curriculum in order to inculcate in our children values the left felt important," sounds more like a conspiracy theory I'd expect the far left to come up with.
Simmons - When you take your masters classes for education - I think you'll recognize what I'm talking about. It sounds outlandish that our educators are pushing environmentalism, multiculturalism, cultural relativism and sexual liberation to third graders, but just take a stroll through your local middle school. Yesterday I was in my nephew Mason's third grade class reading to them - the walls of their classroom are loaded with pictures of environmental degradation (their teacher is a big environmentalist), and when I asked Mason on the way home what the teacher tells him about the world around him, he said that people are destroying the world, and that if we don't stop it we're all going to die. No kidding - the boy thinks we're on the verge of annihilation! Here in California as of January 1 it is illegal to say in a classroom that marriage should be between a man and a woman (SB 777). Sexual politics is now part of the curriculum, driven by activists who believe they can dismiss parental concerns because they consider gay marriage a "civil right" like equality for black Americans. It's unfair to children that the battlefield in inside their classroom. It's not a conspiracy that leftists are getting to the children in order to influence the upcoming generation - it's smart politics. But is it right?
There was a time in America when unions served an essential purpose, and fought the good fight against the capitalist excesses of the Robber Barons and their Wall Street allies. Those times are long gone. As a past member of the Teamsters Union, I can only lament the present state and obstructionist mission of our current unions. Today their only concern seems to be preserving the status quo; even if that status quo has proven to be destructive to America's best interests.
Your state scares me Ev
Oh yeah I agree 100% that I learned in school all time that we should take care of the environment - but what's wrong with that? I (live in Massachusetts and) learned that homosexuality is A Okay. I have no problems with either of those statements only because it is a bipartisan concern that we should take good care of the environment (global warming or not) and that marriage isn't only between a man and a woman because it's true: marriage isn't only what one institution says it can be. That law - isn't that restricting freedom of speech? That's pretty outrageous.
Surprise, surprise…but I'm totally with Simmons on this one. Must be the Massachusetts tap water. In a way I think of our teachers like I think of our soldiers overseas. Yes, they chose the job (and both are valuable) but its neither is at fault for their lack of proper equipment, and somewhat distorted missions. Education needs some serious reform and I am empathetic to the teachers who toil and spend lots of cash out of their own pockets to give the kids somewhat of a proper education.
Uh, any educators in the house? I love comments regarding the infiltration of a student's mind by lefty liberals pushing the liberal agenda. I would think everyday public school teachers have little time–between getting kids ready to NCLB (fritter) another year away by teaching students how to take an annual test–to sway a kid politically one way or another. Oh, and by the way–it's unethical for a public school teacher to push a political agenda while instructing students. That's asking to be fired. Interesting aside regarding the use of the McKay scholarship, a Florida voucher of sorts used by parents of children meeting eligibility for exceptional education programs…after a year or two, these parents come screaming back into the public schools because the private schools can't (or won't) handle the special learning needs of the children. The extremely sad thing that should be discussed is how social studies, geography, current events etc. are barely touched upon during the school day. No Child Left Behind has turned our kids into good little test takers–no creativity, no historical connection to the past, but hey, great little robots that sure know how to produce a concise 5 paragraph essay.
One more point–I believe parents should definitely have a choice in schools…it's just uncanny how many come back home to the district schools once they've realized that the private schools (or the charters) simply don't live up to the parental preconceived notion of the School on the Hill. The home schooled kids–now that's a mess of an entire different making. I'll save that for another evening.
Outstanding article, and I voted for it a RCP! Let me share a story that happened in the 2004 election process, when my youngest daughter was in middle school. Nearly every day, she would come home and tell me the latest "Mrs. English Teacher" story that included bashing President Bush. Now this is in small-town, conservative Indiana mind you. One day she came home and said, "Dad, you won't believe this one! Mrs. English Teacher said that we had better be worried if Bush gets re-elected, because he will be bringing back the draft, and you will be draft-aged before he leaves office!" Just imagine what goes on in the liberal parts of the country!!!!
Sunny - my fiance is a teacher. For eight years we've been working through the educational system to earn her the masters she now proudly holds. I love it when people who know very little about the public school system deny that it isn't rife with political correctness and liberal indoctrination! Then they dismiss any attempts to flee from it "because the private schools can't (or won't) handle the special learning needs of the children." What hogwash! My nephew Mason has a learning disability - his parents tried like hell to get the public school system in San Clemente to give a damn. You know what they told them? ' We'll test him and maybe in two years we can get an opening in a special needs school.' His parents filled out enough paperwork to raise the Titanic, and then were told my another parent in the same position that they would have to stalk the district offices to force an opportunity to avail itself! Ultimately they paid out of their own money to have him tested, diagnosed his problem, and pay for his schooling in a private school that concentrates on disabilities like his. He's flourishing, but with no help from the public school system! You want government controlled education - you can have it. But it is failing the children, and until people start giving a damn it will continue to fail our children, and there is nothing that the Ted Kennedy written 'No Child Left Behind Act' is going to do about that!