It's My Money and I'll Cry if I Want to!

Note: This started to be an answer to the first comment on my previous blog but turned into much more so I decided to make it a blog.

I'm not surprised by the comments. First of all you must realize a few things. Vouchers cost more than you put in locally. Therefore no state can offer every child a voucher for the school of their choice. So that leaves an option of lowering the voucher amounts to provide a small amount for everyone or a decent tuition amount for some. Dollar for dollar your best bet is public schools. I think you would be hard pressed to find a private school that could educate your child/ren for what you pay for schools locally and state tax combined BUT....

I do believe that many changes are needed for the public school system to compete and be successful. The following comments I picked out from the above mentioned poll in the Arizona Capitol Times. The comments indicate to me that people are fed up with the take all you can attitude from employees while our kids continue to languish with mediocre and poor scores.

"I have a family member who is a teacher. I have seen first hand how the school administration is populated with cronies who care only about their salaries, and who only care about their student's education now that the students have to pass standardized tests. Why should a parent be "forced" to send their child to a school that cares primarily about the status quo, while education of the children is secondary. If teachers are hamstrung by administrators, parents should be able to send their children elsewhere. Like I said, many administrators care primarily about their paycheck - education doesn't even come in a close second. "
-- Ned Weatherby

"Parents put the child first in education. Educators put themselves first in the education of children. The parents should have vouchers to back up their selection of school educators."
-- Phyllis J. Clark

"Parental choice in school selection will do for education what consumer choice has done for all other facets of markets: increase quality and reduce cost. We all win except those beneficiaries entrenched in the status quo."
-- Kathy Gornik

"Freedom of choice fosters competition. Competition breeds excellence. So it is with every other aspect of our society. Why would we not want the same principles to benefit our children's education?"
-- Jim Ferrin

"Tax money is OUR money, not the government's. They take our money, and then tell us that our kids have to go to failing government schools. Lovely system... "
-- Tom Jenney


"Choice inevitably raises quality."
-- Steve Murphy


"School Choice should be a right of every parent....just as voting. My support of School Choice is my vote for who will lead my child's future."
-- Tracy Richardson-James


"The formulation of the question shows a bias. The money belongs to the tax payer he/she should be able to spend in in the way he/she sees fit. We need choice in education like we want it everywhere else. The public schools need competition...badly."
-- Steve Balog

Some of the themes I see here are waste, need for reform, and a voice that goes with our money. My favorite line out of this is “competition breeds excellence”.

Some questions we need to ask ourselves:
Why do administrative positions continue to be added as student population declines?
Why is so little being done at the state level to give all our kids an even playing field? I.e.: Mandating districts fund every aspect of special needs children with no funding to support these laws. Letting charter schools operate with sub standard scores then move to a new address and continue to operate under a new name with the same sub standard services. Oh wait, I know why that is. David Brennan and the likes of him are able to donate up to $30,000 to each and every one of our legislators. Impossible you say. There is a $10,000 cap on donations. Yes there is. But when you personally donate 10K and your wife donates 10K and your foundation donates 10K….Gee it’s not hard to figure out how failing charter schools continue to operate under the current law. I bet the couple of charter school operators that stole taxpayer money and fled the state really ticked ‘em off. They didn’t even get their cut. Or did they?

Competition can happen when we have an even playing field. The next time you see your state legislator and he or she tells you how much the state has increased funding to education in the last 8 years or so ask them this question: How much of that increase went to vouchers or charter schools and how much went to my public schools? If you can muddle through all the BS they feed you and figure out the answer, let me know. I know the answer. Verrry little.

I want us to be competitive. But when we are fighting the state and feds who force us to teach an archaic curriculum and focus on passing tests, instead of looking at what is going on globally in the market place, we will never be able to compete. The pocket lining will go on regardless of who we elect. But we need to elect people who will at least allow us to focus on the world we are becoming.

I hear about Japan, China and India surpassing us in education and our jobs going over seas. Right or wrong these are also countries that segregate their populations early in life. Usually by the age of 8 or 9. Performance is a ticket to a path down a vocational or labor career versus a higher education. A focus on the capabilities of the person rather than unrealistically thinking that everyone can- and has the desire to learn the same things as everyone else. There's a lesson for us all to learn from that.