More D.C. Voucher Shenanigans
The Tribune‘s editors were not amused at being treated like fools, and they called out the department and other voucher opponents on their double talk. So did the editors of the Washington Post. (Credit where it’s due — on this story, the Post‘s editors have been rock solid from day one, calling shenanigans on the department’s behavior even before the story was hot.)
Pretending to do one thing in front of the cameras while secretly doing the exact opposite in smoke-filled rooms may produce a victory for voucher opponents in D.C. this year, but make no mistake. Vouchers are losing because they’re winning. That is, they’re losing in the short term because they’re winning in the long term.
For five years now, the voucher movement has been getting steadily stronger and winning a long string of legislative victories nationwide. Last year was a great year for school choice — three new programs were created and two were expanded. Since 2004, twelve new school choice programs have been created — that’s half of all the existing programs. And older programs have been consistently expanding.
That’s why the hypocrisy and double-dealing of voucher opponents is really a result of the movement’s extraordinary success. The stronger the voucher movement gets, the more its opponents must hide their shenanigans from public view in order to win any battles at all.
Five years ago, no politician who wanted to oppose vouchers would say he was “undecided” while doing his dirty work off camera. They just said they were against vouchers and fought to stop them right out in the open. Things are different now.
Vouchers may lose in D.C., but that doesn’t mean they’re not winning in the long term. Every successful movement loses some battles. Indeed, the more important the cause, the more we should expect the entrenched interests of the status quo to invest in fighting it off. That will inevitably mean some setbacks alongside the victories.
Where would we be today if Martin Luther King’s letter from the Birmingham jail had just said, “Well, here I am in jail — I guess I’ve lost the fight”? King knew he wasn’t in jail because he was losing. He was in jail because he was winning.
And the cowards who put him in jail knew it just as well as he did.
Beck did a whole segment today on his show on Fox News about this very subject.
The hypocrisy of the Zero administration is so blatant it makes MY eyes bleed!
HOME SCHOOL, PEOPLE! If you have the wherewithal, do it. You can’t do any worse than these libtard teachers with their propaganda brain-washed teachings of history et al.
Parents who have illiterate children should stop having children. The public school system is a joke. Rely on THEM to teach your child and you’re a lazy parent. Stop poppin’ out kids if you don’t want to teach your child and help them learn what the inept, libtard teachers don’t teach to children.
Yes, there are SOME good teachers out there but it’s far and few between. The brain-washing begins in Kindergarten… Good luck trying to undo that sh*t.
I can imagine what Michelle Rhee is thinking!
What a surprise, on the air touting one thing while systematically shredding the same thing, along with our constitution.
Dock teachers pay when they go on strike, the teacher’s unions would collapse.
My dream scenario: Barack’s cute little girls come to him, asking why their little friends who depend on the voucher program won’t be able to come back to their school next year.
I certainly hope that vouchers win out in the long run, and I think that they might for the same reasons that this post mentions. It’s too bad, though, that we’re going to have to wait at least 4 years for a president with enough of a spine to stand up to the unions; being young and idealistic, I used to think there might be a sliver of a chance that Obama was genuinely more interested in education reform- “change”- than collecting a decent chunk of change from the unions for Obama 2012. Apparently I was wrong.
There is an entrenched bureaucracy within the education establishment. Part of it is the union that has demanded more & more money “for the kids” while they have only made things worse. Grades are down in public schools, kids are dropping out wholesale. Its just a factory system designed to produce community activist types for social change, while they can do not actual work & create anything but havoc.
The system protects itself. Even when a really bad educator is uncovered publicly, they cover for them & arrange for them to be placed elsewhere.
Now, finally, progress is being made exposing the liars for who & what they are. The DOE truly messed up on this one since most already knew vouchers were working in DC where it truly benefits poor kids. But, the union & establishment did not care about that. They want their way, more power over all, and of course, much more money to produce even more failures. Average kids lose out & never get to exploit their potential, while privileged kids w/ contacts get some education. Even that is tainted by the crowd promoting only social change, while doing little for those they say they are helping.
Despite an almost total national media blackout, the word is out that the Education Department fixed the results & hid real results.
Too many now know what they did & too many now know why they did it.
The battle “might” be lost in DC for now…. but the war is on its way to being won as we force educators to return to education or get out of the business for those truly interested in educating our futures.
5. kywrite,
You are so mean. That’s just WRONG. Whoops. I let out a giggle. he-he
1 Delia
the propagandizing begins in pre-school. There are so many homeschool supplies out there now, the opportunities will fit almost any family’s circumstances.
Many of the arguments the teachers unions and their supporters use against homeschooling is the socilaizaition of children. The homeschoolers I know do so becasue they DON’T want the socialization from the public school system.
#5
those poor little girls aren’t allowed to play with little girls who go to public school – and heaven forbid they be allowed to play with little girls in a voucher program. Nothing but children of the elites are good enough for them, because that’s who they have for parents.
The school voucher program study has the potential to “go wide” and change everything – this is hard evidence that children in DC would get a far better education for half as much money. Who doesn’t want a better education for their children. It would even win support of people who already put their kids in private school as it would save them money.
If a conservative revolt does happen (note for Neopolitano: a *political* revolt) I believe it will happen around two issues: school vouchers and illegal immigration. Both are completely indefensible policies that have the most terrible effects on the lowest income Americans (of any race) and help keep them trapped in the most miserable conditions. Illegal immigration is off-topic here, but the argument is simply that it imports crime and poverty that hits the lower income segment the most (as that’s where illegal aliens live and compete for jobs with). In both of these issues lower income individuals are clear voting for their own misery – and they know it.
It is time for these voucher parents to have their own version of a Tea Party?