North Carolina is now officially in a “state of emergency.” After the announcement by North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper (D), citizens may be justifiably confused on whether they should move inland. The cause is not a developing storm over the Atlantic, but an approaching democratic vote in Raleigh. Legislators are preparing to override his veto to allow greater school choice under the state voucher system, so Cooper declared that override to be akin to a Cat 5 hurricane. Cooper wants citizens to move politically, not physically.
Seven in ten North Carolina voters favor greater school choice. Nationally, the figures are the same with 72% favoring greater choice with huge majorities among both Republicans and Democrats. So the emergency is the combination of the voters and democratic change.
Cooper declared “It’s time to declare a State of Emergency for public education in North Carolina. There’s no Executive Order like with a hurricane or the pandemic, but it’s no less important.”
I do not question the significance of this democratic vote, just the invocation of emergency power to stop it.
I recently wrote about how public schools and boards are making the case for school choice advocates with failing scores and rising controversies. Despite massive school budgets, public school systems continue to fail their students, including Baltimore where 23 schools in Baltimore City had zero students who tested proficient in math. Those schools include 10 high schools, eight elementary schools, three Middle/High schools and two Elementary/Middle schools. The state found that 2,000 students who took the state test could not do math at grade level.
We also discussed how a high school student almost graduated near the top half of his class after failing every class but three in four years. He had a 0.13 GPA. His mother objected and went public.
Faced with school boards and teacher unions resisting parental objections to school policies over curriculum and social issues, states are on the brink of a transformative change. For years, boards and teacher unions have treated parents as unwelcome interlopers in their children’s education.
That view was captured in the comment of Iowa school board member Rachel Wall, who said: “The purpose of a public ed is to not teach kids what the parents want. It is to teach them what society needs them to know. The client is not the parent, but the community.”
State Rep. Lee Snodgrass (D-Wis.) tweeted: “If parents want to ‘have a say’ in their child’s education, they should home school or pay for private school tuition out of their family budget.”
As public schools continue to produce abysmal scores, particularly for minority students, board and union officials have called for lowering or suspending proficiency standards or declared meritocracy to be a form of “white supremacy.” Gifted and talented programs are being eliminated in the name of “equity.”
Once parents have a choice, these teachers lose a virtual monopoly over many families, and these districts could lose billions in states like Florida and North Carolina.
Gov. Cooper is accurate that this is a whirlwind of change for schools, but it has been developing on their radar for decades. Rather than address the parental concerns, teachers and unions struck out at the parents, shifted focus to social agendas, and lowered standards.
To use Cooper’s analogy, they sat on the coast watching as this growing democratic system approached without taking any real measures to safeguard their schools by making meaningful changes.
Cooper declared that “the Republican legislature is aiming to choke the life out of public education. I’m declaring this state of emergency because you need to know what’s happening.” It was an ironic statement since these districts and teacher unions have been choking the life out of our public schools for decades while dismissing the concerns of parents.
North Carolina has been ranked 16th on school quality under one study and 29th in another depending on measuring testing scores as opposed to broader criteria. Florida is ranked number one overall, but just implemented greater school choice options.
As I have previously written, this trend has been particularly hard for many of us who are ardent supporters of public education. Growing up in Chicago during the massive flight of white families from the public school system, I remained in public schools for much of my early education. My parents organized a group to convince affluent families to remain in the system. They feared that, once such families left, the public schools would not only lose diversity but political clout and support. They also wanted their kids to benefit from such diversity. My wife and I also believe in that cause and we have kept our four kids in public schools through college. We believe public education plays a key role in our national identity and civics. It shapes our next generation of citizens. My children have benefitted greatly from public schools and the many caring and gifted teachers who have taught them through the years.
I have no doubt that Cooper’s alarm will be shared by many in the media who will send reporters to the eye of the democratic hurricane to be shown on live national television being buffeted by the high political winds and threatened by the voting surge.
However, Cooper’s invocation of emergency powers leaves voters with a chilling message: they are the threat. The developing storm is the hazard of democracy. Just as many Democrats now claim that free speech is harmful and needs to be curtailed, it appears that democracy itself is an emergency that requires immediate state action.
Cooper is detecting a sharp drop in political atmospheric pressures just before an election season. For a politician, that is nothing short of an emergency.
In the state of Illinois there are 53 schools where not one student can do math, reading and writing at grade level. This should say it all.
Independent, if you haven’t already seen this video or read the transcript, this says it all. Thomas Sowell explains his book on charter schools and devastates the arguments against them. This page is for the transcript but about one page down, click for the video.
https://www.hoover.org/research/economist-looks-90-tom-sowell-charter-schools-and-their-enemies-1
How many private schools in IL are the same? Without testing requirements for privates, how can a parent accurately choose the better option?
I am pro-INFORMED school choice. Only allow those dollars to be spent if the school is subject to the same testing criteria as public schools.
Here’s another interesting outcome of school choice legislation in Indiana, students attending private school plummeted and showed that public schools outperformed private schools.
“know much of the rhetoric about school choice claims it is designed to destroy public education. If so, it has been a colossal failure. Since Indiana began its path to school choice, private school enrollment in the state plummeted by more than half. In 2000, more than 134,000 or 12 percent of Hoosier children attended private schools. Today it is under 61,000 or 5.4 percent.
Much of that change cannot be attributed directly to school choice. The introduction of nationwide school performance measures in the mid-2000s revealed what public education advocates have long argued. Many of Indiana’s local public schools outperform nearby private schools, which certainly led to part of the exodus of private school students to public schools. The broader policy goal of school choice always was to cause schools to compete for students on issues of quality. The stark reality is that when it came to competing for students, Indiana’s local public schools absolutely dominated the competition. By the 2019-20 school year, local public school share of students rose from just under 88 percent to more than 91 percent of students. This doesn’t include the large number of students enrolled in charter schools that are operated by local public school corporations.”
Indiana where school choice has been in place for decades is nowhere near the top in student achievement rankings. What school vouchers are really for is to save private schools from closing. Especially those who set up shop in states to make a profit.
Svelaz facts are correct to a point. The school systems in Indiana are excellent, it is a moderately conservative state, School boards keep tight reign on their charges, and they have steadily improved. My children spent their entire 1-12 schooling in public Indiana schools except for 2 years. The real wonder around 2000 was why the school choice was needed. It was not and there were some scandals involved in some of the charter schools and other private schools and it permeated much of the system, and they did not perform up to snuff. That gave people a somewhat sour taste about the charter and private schools in the Indiana Experience. Just because it was done wrong in our state does not mean it was wrong everywhere else. Use it as a lesson on how not to run a school choice program. Also the state legislature strictly limits the influence of teacher’s unions and what they can negotiate. A very tight reign.
I think school choice could make a fundamental change in major cities where, like Baltimore, the schools obviously are atrocious. When major cities with large populations have such abysmal results, no wonder the children fail there and in life. It’s like tossing a kid in a pool of water and with his hands and feet tied and saying “ok swim”. Some will make it, a lot will not.
GEB, the problems experienced in Indiana are showing up in other states where they implemented similar programs. In Oklahoma the program exploited by private companies running charters defrauded the state of tens of millions and spent two years in court prosecuting the company. It exposed the problem of little to no oversight of these school choice programs and the lack of accountability measures in the law. It harms students and cost the state millions that would otherwise have been spent on public schools that were already underfunded to begin with.
It’s easy to promote school choice when you don’t offer a lot of details on what exactly that choice intails and what real choices you have.
students attending private school plummeted and showed that public schools outperformed private schools.
School choice works.
“Governor Roy Cooper is urging state legislators to make major investments in education . . .”
Here’s an idea:
Bozo Corporation continuously produces shoddy products and offers terrible service. So let’s give Bozo more money.
Those who are advocating for school choice often avoid the ugly truths behind such programs. For example in Oklahoma there was a massive financial scandal with their charter schools that are supposed to facilitate their school choice program. The company chosen to run charter schools there turned out to be just one big fraud machine and cost the state tens of millions of dollars and did NOT improve outcomes for students.
In Indiana where school choice and vouchers have been in place well over a decade have shown no significant improvement in student outcomes. In fact the most recent studies show those who have been using school vouchers to send their kids to private schools have fared worse than expected. You won’t hear about these problems from school choice advocates because the whole idea of school choice is based on making a profit and subsidizing wealthy families private school tuition while less affluent families are competing for “limited seats” that are NOT guaranteed to those families AND they still have to pay far more than they would by sending their kids to public a schools. The idea of having a ‘choice’ quickly evaporates and reality sets in.
“While it might seem that choice and competition would then improve educational outcomes for students, the evidence tells quite a different story. A study by researchers at the University of Notre Dame found Indiana students using vouchers were not benefitting, but instead falling behind academically. This is not an isolated finding, but a consensus in the research. Indeed, every study of statewide voucher programs has found large negative impacts on learning, and no academic advantages. Similar studies — including some by pro-voucher organizations — in other states also find large, negative impacts on students. And the scale of these negative impacts is eye-opening. Louisiana’s voucher students saw relative learning losses in math that were more than twice as large as those caused by Hurricane Katrina. Ohio students using vouchers fell behind at levels almost double the learning loss caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.”
https://www.indystar.com/story/opinion/2023/01/23/school-vouchers-another-education-reform-idea-doesnt-work/69827665007/
“The company chosen to run charter schools there turned out to be just one big fraud machine and cost the state tens of millions of dollars and did NOT improve outcomes for students.”
And what do we call monopolized public schools? As success with no fraud and is helping students?
“Despite massive school budgets, public school systems continue to fail their students, including Baltimore where 23 schools in Baltimore City had zero students who tested proficient in math. Those schools include 10 high schools, eight elementary schools, three Middle/High schools and two Elementary/Middle schools. The state found that 2,000 students who took the state test could not do math at grade level.”
Gee, this looks like one big fraud machine and, they have a monolpoly.
Jim22, public schools ‘monopoly’ does not result in states losing millions to sham companies making easy money just by enrolling students. The more you enroll the more money they make. The educate in the cheapest possible way in order to make the most out of that money coming in. The incentive to make money goes before education. That’s what happened in Oklahoma and students were left with little to poor education in the end. Those students had to be sent back to public schools to make up for the failure of the private charter schools that closed as a result of the fraud.
Svelaz: thank you. The “for profits” (as I like to call them) hire people right out of college with no real-world teaching experience, because they can get away with paying them less than experienced teachers. Experienced teachers know there are many ways to effectively teach, how to assess the best methods to reach their students and how to recognize learining disabilities and other barriers to learning–something that only comes with experience. Experience comes at a price–higher pay, which people who have devoted their lives to teaching deserve. But, that eats into profits.
does not result in states losing millions to sham companies making easy money just by enrolling students.
So paying $100’s of millions to public schools that turn out children unable to support themselves upon graduation….in NOT A SCAM?
You so intent on spewing your nonsense, you ignore the fate of the CHILD. That sir is the real, scam, the destructive, debilitating product turned out by schools. But you are fine with the harm cause to the child, and society.
For what? What are YOU trying to accomplish?
Professor Turley,
This is a sensationalist clickbait article, and you are better than that.
The full quote from the Fox News article: “It’s time to declare a State of Emergency for public education in North Carolina. There’s no Executive Order like with a hurricane or the pandemic, but it’s no less important,” Cooper stated.
Yet, you compare it to hurricane and discuss his executive power. This is just a speech. How could he “invoke” any “emergency powers” without an Executive Order?
The problem is that the Fox News article you based this blog post on ALSO didn’t explain any “emergency powers” Governor Cooper supposedly invoked. It just scoured Twitter for talking heads to trash his speech.
As a North Carolina resident and former North Carolina teacher, I was alarmed after reading your post. But, clearly, it was a false alarm because Gov. Cooper didn’t actually do anything other than give a speech. Do better.
Again, Turley is reporting what is going on The Governor said ‘state of emergency’, ‘hurricane’,’ executive order’
The Democrat governor used the imagery. The Democrat Governor will his power to veto bipartisan legislation. The Republicans AND Democrats will use their power attempting to overturn the veto.
You and the governor are the ones sensationalizing the language, Turley only shines the light on the circus.
You must not have read Turley’s post.
Turley said: “I do not question the significance of this democratic vote, just the invocation of emergency power to stop it.”
No one has invoked emergency power. That is a complete mischaracterization of the situation. If you disagree, can you please tell me what EMERGENCY powers Gov. Cooper invoked?
If you cannot, then would you agree that Professor Turley is fueling the “age of rage” by spreading disinformation about seemingly statist actions of Democratic politicians?
It is time to learn the basics of the English language and stop using it to promote your deceit.
“It’s time to declare a State of Emergency for public education in North Carolina.” __Cooper
Public school budgets receive increasingly large amounts of state funding every year in our state yet student test scores continue to plummet. And this has been going on for decades. While I’ve never been a public-school teacher and claim no expertise in this area, I can certainly understand why parents are looking for educational alternatives given these results. Thank you, Jonathan, for an excellent article.
In my town in NY, we spend about $20K per student. Parents should be allowed to use this $20K for what ever education they want for their kids including home schooling.
Garland should command the FBI to investigate the parents who vote for choice as terrorists.
Anonymous, when the hell are these parents going to stop having kids!
Turley is not being completely honest. NC public schools have historically been underfunded for decades. School choice sounds great on paper, but it’s often not reality. Under this bill, universal vouchers won’t be equitably distributed. The average cost of private school tuition ($9,648) in NC outpaces the value of the means-tested voucher ($6,492). As high-income and currently enrolled private school students become eligible, demand for vouchers is expected to increase while the number of seats available at private schools remains relatively the same. This will drive up the cost of tuition causing it to further exceed the value of the voucher. Working-class families will struggle to pay the difference, while affluent families take advantage of the discount. The attraction of school choice is based on the idea that private schools are better, they are not. Including the ones the poorest working class parents still won’t be able to afford. All this will do is privatize education so that private companies would make a profit without any real accountability for outcomes.
Then there’s the problem of private schools not being required to accept any student. They can pick and choose those that only will make their educational outcomes look better rather than educate regardless of where they are on grades and achievement. It’s funny that Turley uses the worst possible examples from other states to amplify the problem without mentioning the fact that NC public schools have been badly underfunded for decades. Universal vouchers are still not going to fix the problem of underfunding public schools. It’s going to make the problem worse and the wealthiest families will benefit from them because it will subsidize their private school tuition for students who are already enrolled in private school. Students from underperforming public schools are NOT going to be accepted into these schools or be left out of the ‘choice’ because they don’t have the room for the extra students. That is a dirty little secret kept from parents who are being told about those wonderful choices they will have. Reality won’t be kind to them when they figure out they won’t have much of a choice in the first place.
My town pays 20K per student for the public monopoly to indoctrinate kids against their parents. Parents should be allowed to use that 20K for whatever school they want including homeschooling. Forcing kids to stay with a crappy indoctrination camp is not helping the kids.
Jim22,
Well said.
Indoctrination is not education.
10-20 years from now, we will have an entire workforce unable to communicate effectively, read, write, do math but sure can throw a fit over a miss used pronoun!
Meanwhile those parents who took command of their children’s education by way of private schooling, charter schools or home schooling will be successful and contributors to society.
Unless the Democrats some how pass a law that public educated grads be given preferential treatment in hiring.
People in New York State either need to take their kids & flee for their lives or turn & be prepared to defend their families & themselves with all force necessary at this time, I believe.
******
New York Democrats Vote to GIVE THE STATE FREE REIN OVER MINOR CHILDREN = NYS Assembly So-Called “Health Committee” Votes YES to Allow Minors to TAKE DRUGS with NO PARENTAL CONSENT! MUST-SEE VIDEO of Furious Parents Telling off POLITICAL HACKS at Hearing!
by Cara Castronuova May. 23, 2023 8:45 am427 Comments
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/05/new-york-democrats-vote-give-state-free-rein/
I can think of no better purpose in the discussion of reparations than for those parents that have been forced to pay for private education while their tax dollars funded a failing public education system.
👍👍
Professor Turkey is never honest! Never, never, never. Enough with your dishonest word salad excrement.
LOL. If only the NC schools were as funded as, say, the Baltimore City Schools or the KC, MO schools.
Funding increases do not increase student outcomes – there is ZERO evidence of that.
You need to get with the times, the new excuse for lame public schools outcomes is that the kids don’t get SAT-prep paid for by parents…lolol. As if everything was the same before…idiots
“Turley is not being completely honest. NC public schools have historically been underfunded for decades.”
Students in NYC inner schools are not proficient in math or English when they graduate. Their lives have been destroyed. Most of the children in those charter schools the public school competes with head to head, are proficient. Yet the charter schools are reimbursed only 75% of the per student cost.
Public Schools have huge competitive advantage over private schools. They have better physical facilities and pay teacher better, and have better benifits, like retirement plans, health plans, days off, etc. On the numbers, Private Schools dont have a chance. Unless the public schools believe thier own lies, instead of listening to the customer.
“Once parents have a choice, these teachers lose a virtual monopoly over many families, and these districts could lose billions in states like Florida and North Carolina.” This here is the main reason widescale change will not happen. Add to the money situation, the power the media has (almost all Democrats), and the political winds in your area. The unions raise hell and make the lives of those who desire change a living hell. Parents for the most part fall in line. “Oh, we love our teachers” is the usual pablum often heard. Public schools mainly exist for the teachers and administrators, not the kids. It’s a massive (lifelong) jobs program with big benefits in many states.
Four things have happened in the schools in the last few years that have changed the dynamics in favour of school choice:
1. Covid closures and masking. The public schools, influenced by teachers unions, shut down in blue states and required masking when they reopened. This was contrary to sound scientific evidence and to practices in private schools, in red states and in Europe. None of those saw waves of illness or death among students or teachers. In Sweden, which never shut down primary or middle schools and never required masks, not a single student died, and the mortality rate among teachers was lower than in society overall. The educational, social and psychological damage to students caused by the shut downs in largely blue state public schools was immense.
2. Critical race theory. Parents learned that students were being taught that they were inherently oppressors or oppressed depending on their place in the intersectional matrix. This destructive ideology was being pressed into the public schools by the growing DEI cadres, particularly after the George Floyd riots. So-called affinity groups, segregated by race, ethnicity and sexual orientation/identity, began to appear, sponsored by the schools.
3. Transgender ideology. Students are now taught in sex education that gender is your choice, because at birth a doctor makes a “guess” and “assigns” you to one or the other. It is arbitrary, and only you can know what you are. Even the language is distorted, with boys and girls replaced by people with penises or vaginas. Social transition is hidden from parents at the request of students.
4. Academic decline. Parents are witnessing a huge decline in academic performance as measured by standardised tests. The response is not to spend more time learning but to lower the standards for what counts as acceptable.
The Republicans have a huge opportunity here. Parents have had enough.
“Public schools mainly exist for the teachers and administrators, not the kids.”
If this is a problem in a district, then parents and taxpayers need to step up to the plate to rectify the problem to make sure kids are getting well-educated.
The best teachers know that teaching is all about the kids and doing the best for them and their future. Maybe our expectations for teachers needs to be higher. Too many people trot out that snide “if you can’t do you teach” garbage. Plenty of people can’t teach so they do. Teaching is an honorable and excellent profession that gets vilified because of motivated propaganda.
Good pithy insight
“purpose of a public ed is to not teach kids what the parents want. It is to teach them what society needs them to know. The client is not the parent, but the community.””
Everything belongs to the State. The individual controls NOTHING, not themselves, nor their children. EVERYTHING is controlled by the State. No surprise Public Schools where going behind parents back and and counseling children about what sex they “felt like” and normalizing homosexual sex acts with minors. Using books in elementary school explaining BJ’s Education degrees make students stupid. Politics is down stream of culture. Which is why public school teacher are spending time grooming children for sex.
“However, Cooper’s invocation of emergency powers leaves voters with a chilling message: they are the threat.”
How true. People think the left is after Trump. But he is just the effigy….that represents ALL voter that do anything less that full throated advocacy of the lefts agenda. Democrats hate all the voters, even their fellow Dems, because those in power trust no one. That’s the reason for the unhinged paranoia. The trans thing is dying a quick death, because now the Queers are ashamed of how stupid the trans demands sound.
What specific emergency powers did Gov. Cooper invoke?
The official power to stamp his feet and hold his breath until he turns blue(ur?).
So, nothing. Right?
This has the functional equivalent of saying — “Guys, this is important!” So why does Turley (and Fox) want to deceive by inferring that NC is under a real state of emergency?
“They” aren’t. Only the governor of NC and the Unions that support him are. Turley is simply stating the obvious, ‘the emperor has no clothes’ and you seem to already agree.
The Dems – pro-choice on killing your kids, anti-choice on where to send them to school.
School choice for parents and students is long overdue. By allowing school choice, we are opening the door to competiton among schools for the best teachers and the best results. Competition is the answer to almost everything that is ailing this country. The teachers and their unions failed their students during the COVID-19 pandemic. They are failing them by secretly implementing critical race theory. They are also failing them by keeping student abortions secret, secretly encouraging students to become transgendered, and by failing to report violent crimes against the students. Teacher’s unions protect the teachers, not the students. Lousy, abusive, talentless teachers remain in the system. It’s time to try competition among schools and school choice for parents and teachers.
Fascists will use EVERY MEANS for Power!
Republicans will always try to be nice and bi-partisan
Reminds me of Neville Chamberlain and German socialists/fascists 1930’s
Republicans should not raise the debt ceiling…and FORCE pay as you go government!
You’re dumb. I expect this sort of drivel from Kyle Turley. My brother is Jonathan and if he wrote this, we would take away his Turley card(it’s a family thing). As the member-at-large of the Stakeholders Association, i am officially nominating you for this week’s stinker, the Turley Turkey.
If you write better opinions, I’m willing to pitch in and buy you JonathanTurley(dot)com. But this ain’t gonna make the grade hoss. Send me corrections and an updated essay by Friday along with a cover letter detailing your understanding of the importance of supporting public education and teacher’s unions.
Grade:
F+ loren ipsum boiler plate propaganda. I like your blog layout. Abhorrent political nonsense.
Action plan:
Revise and submit second draft by Friday.
I apologize for writing the above comment, written in a state of confabulation and apoplexy due to my drug dealer cutting me off of my regular supply of crystal meth. My new dealer came through (shout out to Hunter Biden), and I take it all back. Better life through chemistry
bug, Svelaz, or whatever my sock puppet should be, since the meth hasnt quite kicked in
😉
Governor Cooper is totally ineffective. Even though it is obvious – the Democrats hold both the state senate and house, with a veto proof majorities, he continues to move further and further left, each time reducing his own chances of actually getting things done. It’s as thought he is a puppet being run by the Obama Third Term committee.
Cooper is a Dem
State house and senate are Republican majority
What does it even mean to declare a “State of Emergency” in this context? Isn’t it just a rhetorical flourish? It can’t possibly give him real additional power – that would be absurd.
Democrats declare a “State of Emergency” to steal power and money
It’s a rhetorical declaration. Nothing more.
Nothing. Yet, Turley and Fox News want to stir up the GOP base by inferring that he somehow has seized power. It is dishonest and stirs the “age of rage” that Turley yelps about rather frequently.
“Cooper declared that override to be akin to a Cat 5 hurricane. “
Cooper stirred the pot and you didn’t notice.
I have to call out Jonathan on this one – yes, he sends his kids to public school, but based on where Jonathan lives, his kids go to either Langley High School or McLean High School, two of the most elite public schools in the country from one of the wealthiest enclaves in the world – McLean, VA. The “diversity” at these schools breaks down by who drives a BMW to school or a Range Rover.
And why is anything about Jonathan’s family in any way relevant to this discussion?
If you can’t refute the message, attack the messenger.
Did you read the part where Jonathan brings his family into his article?
so are you pro choice or against Freedom?
It is not that simple.
That “choice” destroys taxpayer recourse for their tax dollars. They lose representation. It breaks down the republican system of governance. It becomes taxation without representation.
Maybe the schools are lousy because parents and taxpayers really aren’t paying attention. Maybe it’s lousy because their school board members aren’t paying attention, deferring instead to the administration. Some of the deterioration can be laid at the feet of garbage coming from the federal Department of Ed and corporatists trying to create worker bees rather than citizens. Schools are succumbing to a “FutureReady” version of industrial education.
“That “choice” destroys taxpayer recourse for their tax dollars. “
Your solution for the inner “ghetto” schools is to fund only public schools so the children graduate without being able to read or count. Yet many children and their parents prefer charter schools where they can graduate proficiently in English and math while having an opportunity to attend college.
There is something wrong with thinking that the end product advocated for children is an uneducated life living on the streets rather than educated children with jobs and perhaps advanced degrees.
Let the money follow the child. That seems to be in everyone’s best interests except the teacher’s union.
Where are the children and taxpayers in these districts demanding better education? If they are trying but are not heard maybe the districts are too darn big and bureaucratic for the relationships necessary to effect change to get a foothold.
It is not in the best interest of taxpayers or the future of our constitutional republic. Corporatists will gain even more control over our systems than they already do. The citizenry are supposed to direct the course of education through their representatives–not special interests directing education to their own, narrow ends.
Where is the teachers union pushing to make sure our children are well-educated? The union represents teachers who are educated and pits them against parents who are not.
The money should follow the child and if the child isn’t adequately educated the money should be returned. Let’s stop paying for failure.
“Maybe the schools are lousy because parents and taxpayers really aren’t paying attention.”
Maybe the deli sandwiches are lousy because customers aren’t paying attention. And maybe the grocery store’s produce is rotten because shoppers aren’t paying attention.
Or maybe it’s because they are *incompetent*.
Or if you spend your spare time watching Seinfeld or The West Wing re-runs
So what you’re saying is that Turley is truthful but you don’t like the truth. I guess that’s to be expected. Democrats hate lots of things, especially reality.
DBC, that was my thought as well. If JT is going to use his family to declare the benefits of public education, he needs to explain that his public schools would be top shelf private/charter schools in other areas of the country.
Based off the good professor’s previous articles on public education and to include this one, I am under the impression his children did attend public schools and college.
That may have been in a location other than his current home, like Chicago.
Cannot say for certain but I believe his children are out of college or close to it.
“Florida is ranked one number”, perhaps should be number one?