Lets See If We Can Help Johnny Read. Step One, NO UNIONS!!

Okay, I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. I know I did, and now it’s on to Christmas. Holidays are kind of a big thing around my house, so the minute one is over, it’s on to the next one. Think of my wife as a younger Martha Stewart. Of course she’s not quite as talented. Martha, I mean.

Anyhow, lets get back to the topic we were discussing before our Thanksgiving post – School Vouchers. Generally speaking, liberals as a group oppose school vouchers. I can understand why the liberal leadership does, because they are beholden to the NEA (National Education Association), one of their largest donors. It’s funny how liberals are always accusing the right of being the puppets of “special Interests” such as big oil, pharmaceuticals and tobacco, even though about 40% of donations from oil and pharmaceutical companies go to Democratic candidates, and tobacco donations are about 50/50.

What they never do however is refer to the NEA and the Trial Lawyers Association as “special interest” groups, even those both of those groups are among the biggest donors to Democratic candidates, and neither of those groups donate more than 10% to Republican candidates (some years it is less than 3%). And if you look at Democratic voting records, you can see the NEA and Trial Lawyers hands all over them.

But that’s the leadership. Why do the Liberals themselves oppose a voucher system, a system that would give untold opportunities to those who need them most, those who are stuck in poor performing schools and are too poor to have any options other than hope? Why? Well part of it is a lot of liberals blindly follow their leadership, as do many conservatives. As for the rest, the so-called “intelligent” liberals, hard to say. I guess after years of being lied to, you start to believe anything.

Actually, I think I have a good idea of why? Liberals have a dislike of the wealthy, so anything that they think will help the rich, they oppose, even though it will help a lot more of the poor. And actually, by helping the “rich”, they are actually helping the poor, even the poor that choose to not take advantage of vouchers. I’ll explain in a minute. You know, if 15% of America were poor, and a Republican had a plan that would knock that down to 5% - but would also help the upper 5% of wage earners, while not effecting the rest of us, the left would say “no way”. In their hurry to “punish” the rich, they don’t care who gets hurt, even those they claim to champion.

Now if I were a cynic, I would say the reason was because of “The Man”. You know “The Man”, the one who keeps the (insert: poor, minorities, etc) down. Didn’t know he was a Democrat, did you. Again, IF I were a cynic that’s where I would go, that by keeping “certain” groups down, the Dem’s have created a perpetual voter pool. What I can’t figure out is why that “pool” doesn’t wise up and see who’s “keeping them down”. But again, if you’re told the same lie long enough, it becomes your truth.

That said, lets bust a few more liberal myths about school vouchers. Actually, thanks to my rant, I only have time for one myth today, But we’ll jump right to it tomorrow and bust our final few myths.

MYTH: School Vouchers Hurt Public Schools. TRUTH: Vouchers IMPROVE Public Schools. Look, for all practical purposes, the public school system is a monopoly. Sure, there are private schools out there, but not enough to make a dent in the school system, and besides, a lot of people can’t afford private schools, so for to many students, where you are is where you are.

Without competition, schools fail. Look at other monopolies. Remember when the phone company was a monopoly? You had a black phone that they provided, long distances was REALLY expensive, and it was illegal, that’s right, illegal to hook up an answering machine. What about the post office. Before FedEx and UPS came along, it was impossible to ship overnight. Of course those two showed that in fact it wasn’t impossible, and now even the post office can get it there overnight (sometimes?)

I worked for Kinko’s for over 16 years. Early on, there was no one else doing what we were doing. Oh, there were mom and pop shops, but nobody came close to us on a national scale, and after awhile we slowed down as far as innovation was concerned. And as soon as Staples, Office Max and others started gaining on us, we got our butts in gear. And because of that competition, that company has reinvented itself and is 100 times stronger today than it would have been if we had not had competition. And the real winner: Their customers, just as the students would be the real winners with the competition that vouchers would bring.

“But you’re taking money out of the schools.” Are we? Wednesday I told you that the average amount of tax dollars that are spent per students is $11,178. However, where vouchers are tried, the amount of the voucher is rarely anything near what the tax dollars are. And why should they be, since most private schools cost less than the amount the government spends. As a matter of fact, the average tuition at a Catholic school is less than $5,000 – less than ½ what the government spends – and the average Catholic school student scores much higher than his or her counterpart.

So lets say you have a High School – grades 9-12 – and you have 300 students in each grade. So you’re receiving $13,413,600 from the government to educate those students (1200 students x $11,178). But assume 20% of those students seek other schooling, each taking with them a $5,000 voucher. That means we lost 240 students, and we lost $1.2 million in funding. But what that REALLY means is I now have 960 students, and I receive $12,213,600 to educate them. That breaks down to $12,722 per student, so now I actually have $1,544 MORE per student to spend on their education.

But what kind of education are those “left behind” students getting? Consider this: In 1980, the city of Milwaukee created a voucher program. Robert Peterkin, Milwaukee School Superintendent remarked “The idea that competition is just going to spark improvement for all schools is something that has no basis in fact.”

The results: The students that took the vouchers (which were $3,878 less than what the government was spending per pupil) to go to private schools saw their scores improve. And the public schools saw a 8.1% increase in math, 13.8% in science, and 8% in language. Those are AMAZING numbers, and if that doesn’t present a solid case for competition, I don’t know what does.

So my liberal friends, what’s your argument against vouchers now. Before you answer that, wait until tomorrow when we deflate the few remaining arguments you have.