Posted on 01/22/2020 4:04:59 AM PST by Kaslin
Sometimes the timing of events is so auspicious that it is hard to attribute it to coincidence.
The week of Jan. 26 is National School Choice week.
First observed in 2011, for the 10th time, events will take place around the nation that are focused on raising awareness about parental choice in K-12 education and the options available to parents and children.
A few days before National School Choice week, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the case Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue, which will address the constitutionality of the so-called Blaine Amendments, arguably the greatest obstacle to school choice the nation faces.
Named after Rep. James G. Blaine, who attempted but failed to enact a federal ban on funding religious schools, 37 states subsequently adopted the provision in their state constitutions.
In the case of Espinoza, the state of Montana passed a law allowing dollar-for-dollar tax credits for funds contributed to scholarship programs that parents could use for paying for education in private schools. In that some of these funds would be used for religious schools, the constitutionality of the program was challenged, and the state wound up trashing the whole program.
The hope of many, including me, is that the court will find the rationale behind the Blaine Amendments unconstitutional. It will be a victory for both religious freedom and education freedom.
It is perverse that the First Amendment, which is meant to guarantee religious freedom, has become a tool for discrimination against religion.
After all, when public funds are available for education of any kind and some parents use those funds for a religious school, this is a private choice, not a government mandate. How can this in any way be understood as government establishing religion? It most certainly interferes with the "free exercise" of religion, which the First Amendment protects.
A decision wiping out the Blaine Amendment prohibitions will also be another reason to congratulate President Donald Trump, who has given us this solidly conservative Supreme Court.
It's also another factor in why black voters may realign their political allegiances.
Education freedom is an issue that deeply divides Republicans and Democrats. And it is an issue on which blacks are more aligned with Republicans.
In a May 2019 poll by Education Next, 70% of black Democrats expressed support for targeted vouchers, 60% for universal vouchers and 55% for charter schools.
It makes sense. Black parents understand the importance of education. Yet their kids are trapped in the worst public schools in the country.
Black parents understand the simple logic of education freedom and the benefits of parents having the power to choose where to send their children to school.
President Trump is now advancing Education Freedom Scholarships, which would provide for up to $5 billion in annual tax credits for donations made to scholarships that fund education-choice opportunities.
The Democratic presidential candidates across the board want to slam the door on charter schools and education choice. They all see one answer to K-12 education: more federal dollars for public school monopolies. Democrats have their eye on political contributions from teachers unions, not on what children, particularly black children, need.
The electoral model that Republicans need to follow for 2020 is that of the 2018 Florida governor's race. Ron DeSantis defeated his black opponent, liberal Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum, by a margin of 0.4%. DeSantis got 14% of the black vote and 18% of the black female vote. By most analyses, the explanation for this unusually high black support is that DeSantis is a stalwart on education freedom and parental choice.
Education could, and should, be a defining issue in 2020, and be what makes a critical difference in moving black votes into the Republican column.
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Giving the parents say over where their kids go to school is the first step towards some sort of accountability for the educational bureaucracy
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And the economic slaves paying taxes w/o usage/benefit??
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If a two-house majority and state legislative majorities can bring about school choice, the Dems will not be able to scream “racism” loud enough to dissuade minorities from voting Republican. Trump can make it happen.
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& if frogs had wings, they wouldn’t bump their asses when they hopped.
I don’t recall ANY State re-affirming their 9th/10th A. authority, let alone the feckless (R)-wing of the Uniparty (when’s the last time A1S8 was uttered by EITHER chamber of Congress??).
The (R)N(C) hasn’t done *poop* about it in 40yrs+ (GROWN it, actually), there’s NO way the President has *any* authority over the matter.
And the economic slaves paying taxes w/o usage/benefit??
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The parents ARE the economic slaves. Even if they rent, they are paying the taxes their landlord pays because he charges his tenants the cost. As for income tax, which goes towards, inter alia, welfare checks and subsidizing public schools, it’s a huge benefit that the children get to go to a school that actually teaches something, because then, instead of another generation of welfare dependents and/or criminals, the better schools will yield a crop of employable adults, and the failed public schools will have to lay off or fire ineffective teachers and administrators due to the fall-off in income. Win-win.
& if frogs had wings, they wouldn’t bump their asses when they hopped...blah blah blah.
OK. We’re all doomed. Surrender. Good luck.
The white vote will save Trump, or sink him.
The black vote can sink the Democrats without even voting. Because the Democrats need the black vote, and if it doesn’t turn out, Trump wins.
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As for income tax, which goes towards, inter alia, welfare checks and subsidizing public schools, it’s a huge benefit that the children get to go to a school that actually teaches something, because then, instead of another generation of welfare dependents and/or criminals, the better schools will yield a crop of employable adults, and the failed public schools will have to lay off or fire ineffective teachers and administrators due to the fall-off in income. Win-win
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Wait? Schools ‘teach’ something? That alone validates the (economic) enslavement\Rights trampling of others??
Lastly, WHEN was the last time a govt school was CLOSED? 10-15 yrs after (while any private/charter is done IMMEDIATELY)? Let alone the time/cost/trouble to FIRE bad teachers+
Govt uses taxpayers to subsidize its failures
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& if frogs had wings, they wouldn’t bump their asses when they hopped...blah blah blah.
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OK. We’re all doomed. Surrender. Good luck.
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Unless you can point to any elected poli critter articulating anything counter to the accepted ‘truth’....Or are you of the ‘cont. to pull the same party lever, expecting diff. results’ crowd?
Wait? Schools ‘teach’ something? That alone validates the (economic) enslavement\Rights trampling of others??
You keep pretending that there is a difference between tax payers and tax beneficiaries. The question is, how to arrange the benefits and the taxes so that they work to create the result desired, more productive taxpayers. Under the present system, they do not. The economic enslavement and rights trampling goes on, producing illiterate burdens. Producing functioning citizens means producing people able to produce and provide for themselves, and share the burdens of citizenship, thereby relieving the “others”. They become taxpayers, rather than remaining burdens.
“Lastly, WHEN was the last time a govt school was CLOSED? 10-15 yrs after (while any private/charter is done IMMEDIATELY)? Let alone the time/cost/trouble to FIRE bad teachers+
Govt uses taxpayers to subsidize its failures”
So therefore the thing to do is continue to produce failure and continue to subsidize it. Take the money away and the school will either shape up to attract the money back, or ultimately close down.
“Unless you can point to any elected poli critter articulating anything counter to the accepted ‘truth’....Or are you of the ‘cont. to pull the same party lever, expecting diff. results’ crowd?”
Try coherence. This is unreadable.
Do you believe that Trump is going to abolish the Income Tax and defund everything except the post office and military? Dream on.
School choice is what you do when education is going to be funded no matter what, in order to make the funding smarter and more effective, and throw a wrench in the machinery of multi-generational dependency.
That goes: Payers==$$ Out for “education”, $$ Out for welfare moms, $$ Out for prisons, $$ Out for fake rehab programs, $$ Out for more welfare moms, $$ Out for more “education,” and $$ Out for more prisons. Repeat until society collapses.
School choice isn’t extra money out, it’s allocating the money that’s already going out in a way that might end this vicious cycle. I say might. But you say, if it costs money, blahblahblah it costs money. I have yet to hear a constructive alternative from you. You’re opposed to public education. I’m opposed to keeping it as it is.
So are a great many minority voters who have been victimized themselves—not by “white supremacy” or any of those other fake bugaboos, but by the public non-education system, and the welfare state that it’s designed to perpetuate. I agree with them. You disagree with everyone.
If I’m wrong, give me a real alternative that is right.
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School choice is what you do when education is going to be funded no matter what, in order to make the funding smarter and more effective, and throw a wrench in the machinery of multi-generational dependency.
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Ye got plenty of ‘school choice’...not much of a ‘wrench’ so far.
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I have yet to hear a constructive alternative from you. You’re opposed to public education. I’m opposed to keeping it as it is.
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Please. You can search & see positive, constructive and (only/wholly) *legal* “alternatives”
- Elim property taxes (restore prop. Rights)
- Elim welfare state (restore GOBS of Rights)
- Return to user pays upon service(s) rendered
NOBODY cares more about the cost, quality & efficiency than the one writing the check.
‘Vouchers’ merely shift from govt being the 3rd party payer to parent(s)\guardian(s) telling govt where to the send the TAXPAYER supplied check + a bit of their own $$.
Better education? Cheaper? Seems...until govt can put down the jack-boot (and they ARE a trying...& winning).
But, of “course”, you’re right. You say so yourself *rolls eyes*
True, school choice would benefit inner city Blacks the most, and it is a Republican initiative. This should be a major reason for Blacks to support Trump imho.
Two things-
1) Most state constitutions require the state to provide education to the children of that state.
2). My friend who is a teacher said one time when we were talking about every parent paying for education that half the kids in his district would never set foot in a school then.
Nice conversation you’re having with your navel. I wish you luck in convincing it that you’re right. If you would at least explain to the rest of us what you mean, we could evaluate and respond.
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