NEVADA DRIVEN BY GREED

The Washington Post carries some bad news from time to time, but they yesterday published they worst story I have read in a long time. They titled the story as, The ultimate in school choice or school as a commodity. The legislature in Nevada passed a law saying that in the coming year, “any parent in Nevada can pull a child from the state’s public schools and take tax dollars with them”, the ultimate in voucher programs Republicans from around the country are advancing this program. The chief executive of the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice has been working for this for years, and it finally happened. Of course, the name ‘Friedman’ in his title refers to the free marketer Milton Friedman, who happens to be the economic equivalent of political philosopher Ayn Rand; if you are rich great, if you are poor screw you—you just do not count. People who are interested in education know laws like this have nothing to do with education but have everything to do with tax dollars. Show me a Republican who is willing to pay to educate someone else’s children and I will show you a pig that flies; however, that is exactly the principle on which our ancestor built America. Every child in our country is given an equal opportunity to do well. That dream died in the Nevada legislature. Freidman presented the idea in 1955, and it died, as it should have. He presented the idea as the “ultimate expression of free choice for families”. Everyone but greed-driven Republican, joined by some economically depressed Democrats, recognized this law for what it is. Republicans designed the legislation to cut the costs of public school, which in turn means tax cuts. They argue the tax dollars go with the student as a voucher, so the tax is still collected. The truth is children of rich families move leaving the poor children in poorly funded deteriorating school. Also, from the social point of view, the private schools use the money for such nonsense as teaching religion, which Republicans designed to ally churches with their party, which gets us to the debate about Common Core. Church-affiliated school demand the constitutional guaranteed freedom to teach what they want but even the best teachers object to meeting “government” standards of excellence even when they know intelligent high school graduates that do not know how to read, write and do arithmetic but can cite a flawless summary of the principles of Christian religion, which means they can pass grades if they know religion, but academics do not count. Church schools object, to the government telling them what to do. They demand their constitutional guaranteed right of free speech. Of course, a tax cut mantra is always popular as a vote getter because it is one or more steps removed from the consequence. The consequence, in this case, is a poorly educated class of children. In the Republican mindset, this is OK as long as it is not “my children”, just as Ayn Rand feels it is ok to starve if you are of low IQ, crippled or otherwise handicapped as long as it is not her. The only way someone would vote for this type of legislation is if driven by greed. URL: firetreepub.blogspot.com Comments Invited and not moderated