Posted on 01/30/2006 4:42:56 PM PST by Coleus
Teachers unions keep telling us they care deeply, profoundly, about poor children. But what they do, as opposed to what they say, is behave like the Borg, those destructive aliens in the "Star Trek" TV series who keep coming and coming until everyone is "assimilated."We saw it in Florida this month when the state supreme court struck down a six-year-old voucher program after a union-led lawsuit. And now we're witnessing it in Milwaukee, where the nation's largest school choice program is under assault because Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle refuses to lift the cap on the number of students who can participate.
Milwaukee's Parental Choice Program, enacted with bipartisan support in 1990, provides private school vouchers to students from families at or below 175% of the poverty line. Its constitutionality has been supported by rulings from both the Wisconsin and U.S. Supreme Courts.
Yet Mr. Doyle, a union-financed Democrat, has vetoed three attempts to loosen the state law that limits enrollment in the program to 15% of Milwaukee's public school enrollment. This cap, put in place in 1995 as part of a compromise with anti-choice lawmakers backed by the unions, wasn't an issue when only a handful of schools were participating. But the program has grown steadily to include 127 schools and more than 14,000 students today. Wisconsin officials expect the voucher program to exceed the 15% threshold next year, which means Mr. Doyle's schoolhouse-door act is about to have real consequences.
"Had the cap been in effect this year," says Susan Mitchell of School Choice Wisconsin, "as many as 4,000 students already in the program would have lost seats. No new students could come in, and there would be dozens of schools that have been built because of school choice in Milwaukee that would close.
(Excerpt) Read more at opinionjournal.com ...
In Florida, it wasn't so much the teachers union as it was the Supreme Court.
If the Teachers union had their way, each worker in the private sector would be taxed up to the maximum amount before he decided to just quit and go on welfare. And all of the tax money would be put into the school system which would then take over education of children and all other public policy in each state. And the education would still not improve.
Paycheck protection is the fastest solution to this kind of extortion and corruption. A new law repealing the exemption for unions from the Sherman Anti-Trust Act of 1934 would be the ultimate solution.
The teachers union in Wisconsin absolutely owns Jim Doyle, the Governor of Wisconsin. The City of Milwaukee has a public school budget of over One Billion Dollars (that's with a B) and graduates from High School less than 50% of the entrants in a K-12 system.
The voucher schools have taken hold and have produced amazing results and success rates in the city of Milwaukee. Jim Doyle will negate all of this because of his slavish dependence on the teacher vote and PAC money that got him into office.
Jim Doyle is not a good Governor and has no intention of helping minorities in Milwaukee get out of the sewer of the Milwaukee Public School System, because he owes his soul to the teachers union.
Ping!
We have to stop talking about "public education" and start warning people about "government-controlled factory schools." I believe there is a group calling for "separation of school and state" which deserves widespread support.
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Thanks for the ping on this article, BC. I meant to ping you on my post #11 above.
Certainly, one point to be taken from this is that Wisconsin's Governor has placed his preference in serving the teachers' union, over the best interest of poor...often minority...kids.
However, there is something else that this story should remind us of. And that's the fact that the National Education Association places virtually no priority on the best interest of the kids in public schools.
Teacher unions are poison to the potential success of public education, and they should be outlawed.
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