Thursday, July 21, 2011

Featherbedding again

Once again, teacher unions in Florida are proving that the government schools are operated for the purpose of providing safe, secure, highly paid jobs for adults, not for educating children.
A proposed amendment to the state constitution is under legal attack by the unions. What it would do is remove a 19th century provision with roots in anti-Catholic bigotry.
It also is a device the unions use in trying to prevent poor children from escaping dysfunctional, unsafe government schools. They succeeded in destroying one successful program and would like to eliminate all other competition.
It costs about $8,000 to $10,000 per year for a child to attend government schools. Many families can afford to send their children to a private school when they are not getting what they paid for in a government school.
Poor families cannot afford to escape failing government schools.
However, vouchers allow them to send their child to a school that is safe and actually provides an education.
If the voucher is $5,000, that saves the taxpayer $5,000 for each child getting an education.
Union leaders such as Andy Ford are unable to do basic math. They say it costs money when a child transfers from a government school to a private school with a voucher.
But they also say that it costs money for every child who attends a school. You can't have it both ways. There cannot be a cost both for educating a child and for NOT educating a child who attends another school.
All unions want is to force as many children into government schools as possible, whether they get an education or not. Each child has a price tag because the state funding formula funds government schools on a per-child basis. The more money the schools get, the more money unions get. The more money they have, the more they can spend on electing liberal politicians who will vote to give them even more money.
There is no correlation between spending money on schools and educating children.
If the unions want to convince the taxpayers that it is better to discriminate against Catholics, or that they should oppose vouchers, fine.
But what they seek to do is prevent the taxpayers from voting on an issue. They are against democracy.
Vouchers have nothing to do with religion. The parents make the choice where they use the voucher and it could be at a school run by Catholics, Jews, Protestants or any other religion or one that is non-denominational.
It is the state's job to educate children and it is failing miserably, yet at great cost. This is true not only in Florida but in every other state. One major reason is that government schools have no incentive and no accountability. Even good teachers, of which there are many, are handcuffed by red tape and bureaucracy.
The choice of a school for their children should be left to parents.

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