Single Most Evil Democrat Policy? Tough Call, but I’d Say it’s Opposing School Choice
Progressives have many, MANY wrongheaded ideas about the economy, incentives — and generally “what works” and HOW it works. But there’s one area that particularly galls me — perhaps the most evil Democrat policy of all — their fanatical opposition to school choice.
There is NO rational reason to oppose giving parents such choice. The results have been proven to usually be superior for students — and never worse. The article below discusses some of these studies, and is worth reviewing.
But the Democrats’ allegiance (at least the Democrat LEADERSHIP’S primary concern) is the health and wellbeing of education unions and their members. If that means minority urban kids are limited to a substandard education in dangerous schools — so be it. The KKK fully agrees!
BTW, many Democrat blue collar and poor parents DO want school choice. But their party does not. And for too many such hapless folks, by continuing to vote Democrat, they are demonstrating that their party loyalty is more important than their kids’ future. Or perhaps they just don’t connect the dots.
In general, studies comparing public vs. private/charter schools reach one of two conclusions (depending on how ideologically liberal the researchers are).
1. School choice improves the lot of kids who take advantage of it.
2. School choice works no better than government monopoly schools.
But here’s the thing — NO reputable study (even biased studies) concludes that school choice — especially private schools — provides an INFERIOR education. This is a KEY point.
Here’s why: Education vouchers and/or tax credits provide as good or better an education than government schools –at a significantly lower cost. Every kid that chooses to take advantage of vouchers/tax credits reduces the cost of “public schools.” Hence there is no rational reason to continue this government monopoly — at the very least, we should offer students and their parents lower cost school choices.
Perhaps the most dramatic example of this cost disparity is our nation’s capital. It has a pathetic little voucher option for a few hundred students — picked by lottery from a FAR larger pool of hopeful qualified applicants.
The D.C. education vouchers are for $7,500, though only about $6,700 is actually expended per student on their private schools. Contrast that with the $23,000 per student D.C. district outlay for government centers of learning.
Our San Diego County Board of Education has an annual budget exceeding $450 million! Good luck finding budget info on their website — a PR puff website that hides the budget info in a sub-menu not easily located. And even then you have to “thumb” through the auditor’s report to get the (outdated) information.
http://www.sdcoe.net/business-services/internal-business/Documents/Audit%20Report%2012-13.pdf — page 15
And let’s not forget the budget for the California state public schools bureaucracy — not to mention the cost of the U.S. Department of Education. None of that is counted in the cost per student of a government education.
http://riderrants.blogspot.com/2012/11/swedens-school-voucher-system-is-model.html
———–Here’s the article I recommend. Not too long or wonky. Indeed, it takes apart several education labor union straw man arguments.http://unionwatch.org/debunking-the-debunkers/

Debunking the Debunkers
Lie #2: Your student’s teacher has an easy and over-compensated job.In all my reading on education, I don’t recall anyone ever writing that teaching was easy. It’s not. As for “over-compensated?” She tries to make her case using a New York Times story which points out that, “The average primary-school teacher in the United States earns about 67 percent of the salary of an average college-educated worker in the United States.” Neither she nor the Times bother to mention how much time the average teacher works – typically 7 hours a day, 180 days per year – compared to the average college-educated worker, most of whom work over 8 hours a day and 240-250 days a year. Nor does either mention the very generous health benefits and retirement pensions that most teachers get. For a much more honest look at teacher pay and perks, there’s “Assessing the Compensation of Public-School Teachers,” an American Enterprise Institute report, which concludes that
• Ten empirical studies have used random assignment, the gold standard of social science, to examine how vouchers affect participants. Nine studies find that vouchers improve student outcomes, six that all students benefit and three that some benefit and some are not affected. One study finds no visible impact. None of these studies finds a negative impact.
• Nineteen empirical studies have examined how vouchers affect outcomes in public schools. Of these studies, 18 find that vouchers improved public schools and one finds no visible impact. No empirical studies find that vouchers harm public schools.
• Every empirical study ever conducted in Milwaukee, Florida, Ohio, Texas, Maine and Vermont finds that voucher programs in those places improved public schools.
• Only one study, conducted in Washington D.C., found no visible impact from vouchers. This is not surprising, since the D.C. voucher program is the only one designed to shield public schools from the impact of competition. Thus, the D.C. study does not detract from the research consensus in favor of a positive effect from voucher competition.
• The benefits provided by existing voucher programs are sometimes large, but are usually more modest in size. This is not surprising since the programs themselves are modest — curtailed by strict limits on the students they can serve, the resources they provide, and the freedom to innovate. Only a universal voucher program could deliver the kind of dramatic improvement our public schools so desperately need.
Lie #5: Your student’s teacher sees your constructive involvement in your child’s education as an annoyance. Rawls has this one right. But it’s hardly worth mentioning. She tries to make her case by quoting one teacher who says “I have felt bashed by parents who mask either their children’s failings or their own failings by the rhetoric of school failure.” I taught for almost 30 years, and this type of attitude is quite rare. I and my colleagues were well aware that involved parents are a crucial component for successfully educating a child; we certainly never thought of them as “annoyances.” On the contrary, we did everything we could to encourage and increase their involvement.
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