… to make the right choice for their children’s education.
BULLETIN: Channel 3000 is reporting that “Several schools in Madison were on lockout status Wednesday morning because of a shooting, according to the Madison Metropolitan School District. Sennett Middle School, East High School, La Follette High School and Nuestro Mundo Community School were affected.
When you don’t have facts or reason, you try to drown out the speaker. Which is what protestors at the WI State Capitol attempted Tuesday (01-28-2020) in Madison as Vice President Mike Pence promoted school choice in the rotunda of the Wisconsin state capitol in Madison WI.
If you are The Capital Times, servile mouthpiece of the ruling liberal-progressive-socialist hegemony here in Madison — you hurl spittle-flecked diatribe invectives. Only “lackeys” of “the usual cabal of billionaire[s] support school choice, says Dane County’s Progressive Voice.
Let us pause, then, to study closely the photograph on page one of today’s Wisconsin State Journal (01-29-2020). Pictured behind VP Pence is a rainbow coalition (the term is not copyrighted) of pretty happy young people. That’s not just political campaign optics.
Their parents “chose” their schools. The Capital Times and their allies in the teachers union and their “lackeys” (the term is not copyrighted) in the Democrat(ic) party are determined to wipe those smiles from their faces. They would herd those kids back to Milwaukee, Racine, and Madison’s failed and failing public schools.
Eeek! There’s Betsy DeVos, U.S. secretary of education and a Republican billionaire (as distinguished from Mike Bloomberg and Tom Steyer).
We’re supposed to summon righteous outrage that billionaires are spending money to provide poor families alternatives to failed schools? Could even Orwell imagine that reformers like Kaleem Caire, Howard Fuller, Brother Bob Smith (formerly) of Milwaukee Messmer high school, and Pastor Marcio Sierra at Lighthouse Christian school in Madison — men of color — could be described as “lackeys”?
Or for that mater, the 42,393 students (two-thirds of them in Milwaukee) enrolled in voucher programs — give each of them an average of 1.5 parents and you’ve three times Trump’s razor-thin, Wisconsin margin of victory in 2016. All statutory required to be low-income; the majority are of minority race.
Democrats versus low-income minorities
“Black and Hispanic parents, longtime supporters of Democratic Party politicians, are now the biggest supporters of charter schools and voucher programs, policies directly at odds with teachers’ unions, a traditional and powerful Democratic constituency.” — Civitas Institute
State financial aid follows the student. Interesting that the public school district retains the property tax for students who choose to learn (and succeed) elsewhere. Or that the average cost per WI public school student: $12,333 for grades K-12; school choice voucher funding $7,754 for grades K-8 and $8,400 for grades 9-12.
Sure enough, Wisconsin Democrats led by the failed former statewide schools boss, Gov. Tony Evers has tried to curtail school choice. (Why he boycotted the veep’s visit.) State Rep. Jonathan Brostoff, D-Milwaukee, introduced legislation Tuesday to end it altogether.
The Democrats presidential front runners are no better. (“Warren supporters shout down Black parents for school choice” and “Brostoff bill supporters repeat debunked school choice myths.”)
Blaska was an early supporter of school choice, hosting Annette Polly Williams, D-Milwaukee (R.I.P.) at a conservative downtown lunch group I ran. She and Tommy Thompson, the greatest governor of the second half of the 20th Century, founded America’s school choice movement 30 years ago.
Which is why the vice president of the United States and all those happy, multi-hued kids were celebrating Tuesday in Madison WI. Which is why school choice is growing. Would that it be so in Dane county, which has only 285 desks available in four schools (in Madison and Middleton listed here) when the city would be allowed 1,100 under the state’s cap (which should be removed entirely).
Blaska’s Bottom Line: Competition is the surest reformer.
For further study: “Liberalism causes achievement gaps” and School choice in Wisconsin.
What do YOU think?
Blaska Policy Werkes 
4 responses to “Liberal elites do not trust parents”
On one of the local TV stations covering the Pence event, a young lady who looked like a UW grad student in education or sociology or one of the grievance studies departments straight from central casting called the VP’s appearance “an act of violence.” Typical of Madison types who simply can’t endure the briefest brush with a reality outside the one the nurtures their narrow-minded narcissism.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Good catch, Gary. Thanks. One hasta wonder what/why any local news media would give that “act of violence” phrase traction. However -“Forget it, Jake. It’s Chinatown…”
LikeLike
Whenever the lefties flap their word holes about education, it always has a whiff of the manor house addressing the serfs about it.
LikeLike
Another “know nothing” headline. Liberal elites do in fact trust parents to make the right choices. That why we want parents to be able to properly feed their children even if it means taking SNAP benefits, the benefits rightwing morons want to cut, That’s why we feel parents should make family supporting incomes, that’s why we feel all families should be covered with healthcare, we do draw the line when our tax-dollars flow to some religious or for profit corny school. I can’t understand why conservatives support such an unamerican policy as giving cash to religious organizations., or paying tax-dollars for unbid services. Must be the inherent hypocrisy of conservatism.
LikeLike