flapjack, if polls were the sole criteria used to understand and debate a policy prescription, you might have a point. The truth is, the only time you support polls is when it's convenient to do so. Pointing to polls, in order to justify not having an open mind to consider vouchers, is a pathetic anti-intellectual path only a coward would take.
Vouchers are a revolutionary out-of-the-box solution to our education problem. It's so revolutionary, the NEA and it's union thugs are shaking in their boots unable to debate the merits of the case. Instead, they quiver in the corner and cry "don't pick on me, look at the polls, the polls, the polls!".
You want more out of the box solutions to our government education problem? Simple, force the Teachers, Principals, Administrators and every government official involved with a failing inner city school system to send their own kids to those public schools. Perhaps then, we wouldn't have so many phony politicians like Bill and Hillary Clinton doing everything they can to prevent the adoption of vouchers, while hypocritically keeping their own children as far away from those government schools as possible.
Recently, I read a report that 40-50% of public school teachers and 60-70% of congress send their own children to private schools. Imagine going to a restaurant where the same percentage of cooks, waiters and waitresses refused to eat there? Would you believe the place is serving healthy food if that were the case? The desire to fix a system you're completely divorced from ever needing is severely diminished if you're a Kennedy, a Rockefeller, or wealthy enough to afford a private education for your own children.
The battle cry of Democrats is "the hell with those other kids, let them rot in ignorance and poverty as long as we can keep our union NEA power".
Vouchers are not a fix all snap your finger solution. But they are *one* tool, in a series of tools, we shouldn't unilaterally throw aside and toss a "Republican feel good" platitude at simply because it threatens the NEA power structure.
Lastly, the tired old playbook of "more money, more money, more money" is not the answer either. Money may help in some local jurisdictions, but overral, we are spending far more today per-pupil (adjusting for inflation), then we were 40 years ago, yet we're getting far worse results. The problems is structural. And one effective way to attack it is through vouchers.
I would never be so dogmatic in my views to completely close my eyes to a possible solution the way you're doing. Unfortunately, this open minded attitude is not shared by many liberal Democrats, or leftists union workers in the NEA. |
