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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Grainne who wrote (41884)	6/26/1999 1:59:00 PM
From: greenspirit	Respond to of 108807

Article...Jeb Bush chooses to save kids, not institutions (http://www.jewishworldreview.com) ON HEARING THAT THE FLORIDA LEGISLATURE had passed and Gov. Jeb Bush intended to sign the nation's first statewide school choice law, the president of Florida chapters of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Leon Russell, said: "We won't allow this to become law. We believe these opportunity scholarships -- aka vouchers -- dismantle public education.'' The public education system as we have known it for a century has dismantled itself. More than old buildings are falling down. So is the quality of education. It is especially bad for minority children whose interests Russell is supposed to be advancing. Minority parents favor school choice by a wide margin. It's time to shake up the system by ending the monopoly. We should be more concerned about what the children are getting than benefits flowing toward the teachers unions and the rest of the education establishment. The usual suspects will fight this in court, but they are swimming against a strong tide. It is unfair and immoral to force people to keep their children mired in public schools that fail to teach them the basic educational and moral skills they need to make a decent living and a satisfying life. The National Education Association, which regularly passes pro-choice resolutions on abortion, vehemently opposes choice on education for those fortunate enough to have been born. Why is choice sacrosanct when it comes to life and death, but unacceptable when it comes to education? It's because to allow parents to choose would erode the political power now enjoyed by the NEA and the rest of the education establishment that has put itself ahead of the best interests of parents and children in a shameless pursuit of self-preservation, not child education. Bush Under the Bush plan, Florida schools will be graded. If any school gets an "F'' two straight years, students will be offered vouchers worth $4,000 that they can use at the private, religious or other public school of their choice. The Supreme Court has indicated it is not hostile to the school-choice concept. Last year, it voted 8-1 to reject a challenge to Milwaukee's school-choice program. Thirty-four states and Washington, D.C., have passed charter school legislation. In the most exciting development of all, entrepreneurs Ted Forstmann and John Walton have begun a nationwide scholarship program designed to free inner-city minority youth from dead-end public schools. Forty cities are involved, with more sure to come. The response has been tremendous, quieting some politicians who have claimed that the poor don't want vouchers or scholarships. Early studies indicate positive achievement when students and parents get to choose. A study of New York's School Choice Scholarship Foundation by Harvard University and Mathematica Policy Research, Inc., found that 4th- and 5th-grade students in the program scored 4 percentile points higher than a control group in reading and 6 points higher in math. A Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup Poll last year found 56 percent of parents with children in public schools support school choice. The numbers are higher in many minority communities, such as the nation's capital, where a Washington Post survey discovered that 65 percent of African-Americans with incomes under $50,000 favor using federal dollars to send children to private or religious schools. New York pastor and former Democratic Congressman Floyd Flake has said:"I'm not against public schools. I am against public schools where educational mediocrity goes unchallenged.'' That's the point. Gov. Jeb Bush is opening previously locked doors to opportunity and hope. If the new law survives court challenges, there will be no stopping school choice. Children will initially benefit, but in the long run so will teachers and administrators because the system will be competitive and will foster improvement. If it doesn't, such schools, like any business, would be forced to close. Either way, children, parents and the nation win. Only the political power brokers lose. And that's not bad, either.

To: Grainne who wrote (41884)	6/26/1999 4:00:00 PM
From: nihil	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 108807

As to income tax, it is self-defeating, since the income of smart people chooses to be earned somewhere else (as in tax havens) leaving only those too poor or dumb (or too moral) to pay. Ultimately, when all is said and done, only an expenditure (or value-added tax) can survive human mobility. Taxing capital or savings or the returns on them and estates make them run away. As to Hawaiian independence the time is not yet. There is a lawsuit Rice vs. Hawaii going to the Supreme Court which challenges the exclusive right of Hawaiians (persons of part Hawaiian blood) to vote for trustees of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs. The Office of Hawaiian Affairs is engaged in suing the State for billions in compensation for the misuse and non-payment for use of the Republic's lands that were ceded to the Territory when Hawaii was annexed to the United States partially for the benefit of the aboriginal people. One solution is partitioning the ceded lands and for the Hawaiian's part to become part of the land base of a new Hawaiian state. In addition, all of the public lands that were subject to federal homestead laws were restricted to homesteading by Native Hawaiians (50% blood quantum) by a 1920 federal law (Hawaiian Homestead Act). These lands are inalienable by the State but are exclusively for the benefit of the Native Hawaiian people (are held in trust for). In addition, a huge fraction of the land is owned outright by the tax-exempt Bishop Estate (Kamehameha's personal lands) although it is mostly leased out for a term of years. Some Hawaiians hope that these land resources can form the land base for a new nation belonging to the Hawaiian people. They believe that the Congressional Apology for the illegal overthrow of the Kingdom in 1893 is a prelude to reversal of the 1898 Annexation. No one, I believe, seeks an extralegal route to independence or Hawaiian Sovereignty. Hawaiians are considering several difference forms of government. In "A Nation in Nation" Hawaiians and their beneficial land might constitute a non-contiguous state that was treated as if it were a recognized Native American tribe. Each Hawaiian would have rights as a citizen of the Hawaiian Nation, as well as retaining his or her rights as an American citizen. They would elect their representatives and magistrates, administer their laws, enjoy exemption from US and State taxes. There would usually be no barriers between Hawaiian land and US or Hawaii land. Everyone would be free to pass without clearing customs or immigration in either nation. The partitioning of the State into the Republic and the State could be done easily with no real complications at all. I think most residents would accept this solution as just and adequate. I think it would permit very great prosperity. The Republic could adopt laws that would make these islands a blooming paradise. No tariffs -- a free trade paradise. No federal or state taxes. No army or navy (the Kingdom never had them -- except for a couple of toys). The other models -- an independent state, for instance, have many more problems IMO.