Redstate

Way to Go Utah!

Sonny Perdue just passed School Choice Vouchers for Special Ed
this is a start for real school choice in Georgia

That plank would throw every NEA vote and all of their contributions right over to the Democrats. Wow.
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If "pro" is the opposite of "con", what is the opposite of "progress"...
Senior Writer

Veritas magna est et praevalet.

Two thirds of the world is covered by water, the other third is covered by Champ Bailey

I'm getting frighteningly good at snark.
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If "pro" is the opposite of "con", what is the opposite of "progress"...
Senior Writer

I cannot imagine a society that has moved to economic freedom somehow turning back the clock. This is a great, important step. Expanding the program, etc, are secondary matters.

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Social Security Choice - Club For Growth

Russia
Venezuela
The EU
And so sadly of late the U.S.

Veritas magna est et praevalet.

This is momentus. Lets just celebrate for now. :-)

Choosing where to send your children to school is a wee bit different from choosing to kill your child before he/she's born. Good for most Utah people for being "pro-choice" in the first context but not the second.

I also think liberals hate the idea of school vouchers because it terrifies them to think that so many more kids will be going to private schools that have a religious influence.

Actually what scares the liberals is that we'll raise a generation of kids who have an actual education --- a populace that can actually think spells the deathnell for the Democrats.

John
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Liberals: Alchemists who have mastered the ability to transmute Lead into a denser form of Lead

Democrats are beholden to special interests groups, to include teacher's unions. The unions know competition spotlights their teachers' and schools' piss-poor performance. People vote with their feet...

I know you believe you understand what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.

to some degree, because it means they can demand more money, since the liberal answer to every problem is money.

Why are public school failing? We don't fund them enough.
Why are inner city schools failing? Because they don't get enough money.

Etc.

The problem with education isn't the education itself, but how much money education receives.

So, while it isn't on the NEA plank to keep failing in some ways, and they would never admit it openly, I think deep down somewhere, having at least some schools fail allows them to demand more money.

It also ignores the fact that private schools 9 times out of 10 more successfully educate kids on a fraction of the money.

And before anyone comes along and brings up SPED kids-I will caveat that it costs more money to educate children with special needs, and the public school system is burdened more heavily with this set of kids than private schools are, but that isn't an excuse for why the non SPED kids get kicked through the cracks in public school, while they do well in private schools, when given the chance.

An open "education marketplace" will benefit [good] teachers far more than anyone apparently realizes, including the teachers themselves.

- no longer held hostage by a bureaucratic chain of command 8 layers deep, where decisions about which teaching methods are or are not effective are made by people who generally either have never taught or havn't taught in the last decade, rather than by the people actually doing the teaching.

- no longer subject to political winds that filter down through the chain and push or pull in opposite directions every four years.

- empowered to seek out and gain employment at educational entities that cater to a subset of children that the individual teacher is best able to serve, and that accept teaching methods and use curriculum that the individual teacher is most capable with.

- empowered to choose employment at educational entities that set strong standards for parents and hold them accountable for their children's behaviour and attendance, as well as the parent's involvement. (Of course there will still be some good teachers who, thankfully, are willing and eager to work with the most difficult children and least supportive parents as well.)

- empowered to seek out the best pay/benefit package possible for their experience, education, and references from a variety of educatonal entities.

- the very best teachers, those in greatest demand by parents, may well be able to work completely independant of any educational business, setting their hours and setting their own "admission standards" for the children they teach. I wouldn't be surprised at all if the top tier make six figure incomes.

- also, don't discount the value to the better teachers in being able to work for educational entities that do not hire and retain the poor teachers.

Everyone seems to assume teachers are against this because they've weighed the pros and cons for themselves and think the current situation is the best possible. I assert this is inaccurate: teachers feel under siege because they unfortunately hear too many promoters of an open education marketplace blame them, as opposed to the system itself, for the ills of the current situation. Rather than attempt to sell these benefits to good teachers, many promoters push them to feel as though they're under siege, and the only logical place for them to go in that case is to the organization that purports to work for them. It's really no wonder the NEA is so powerful.

But an educational marketplace has equal promise for both parents, who can seek individual solutions to their individual needs, as well as teachers, who can find individual positions that best match their individual teaching strengths and interests. Promoters would do well to remember that.

I meant what I said and I said what I meant. An elephant's faithful 100 percent.

"The problem with education isn't the education itself, but how much money education receives."

Let's say that it's not how much money education receives, but where that money is spent.

If teachers were compensated on performance, you would see the poor (and ideologically driven) ones leave for less challenging work while the stars would be compensated accordingly.

Add to the mix some simple rules regarding how much money could be spent on administration and the transformation would be complete. I'm all for boosting the money that goes to schools but only for an ROI that makes it worth spending the money.

contempt, but honestly I would love to see more executive and/or legislative branch people tell judges to go blow smoke.

have shopped for the perfect judge, and will have all the briefs written, be waiting outside the clerks office to file the second the signature hits the bill-don't even think it will take a nanosecond.

Although more seriously, this seems like it would have to be a state court filing rather than Federal court, what are the courts like in Utah? Most of the other states where vouchers ended up losing seemed to be more blue type states.

up the courthouse steps? That's the only question. The usual playbook calls for putting the question to the state court that can also raise a federal question if unsuccessful in state court. That gives two bites at the apple and allows plaintiff to keep the question in play until the next election in which they'll try to rain Hell on everyone who voted for it. Never had it on the voucher question here, but that's the playbook for "civil rights" and environmental stuff here.

Don't know about Utah, but lots of large, sparsely populated Western states have an express constitutional provision that the state will be responsible for education, so that gives an "equal protection" hook.
In Vino Veritas

They can until they can make it go away.

Veritas magna est et praevalet.

of why it is so very, very hard to UNDO or change direction of anything in government. If one accepts socialism as the norm in both state and federal government, and I posit that after 50 years of Democrat hegemony in both it is, then Conservative/Republican governments must disassemble both the legislation and the apparatus supporting that socialism. This must be done with both legislative enactments and administrative actions, each and every one of which can put you in front of a judge or administrative tribunal. Anyone who believes that Law is the search for truth has never sought truth there; it is the search for political advantage.

The playbook calls for just as soon as a conservative/Republican government does something the Left doesn't like, they run straight to a friendly forum or court and seek to tie it up so that it can be kept in play into the next election cycle. The Left can then attempt to change the governing coaltion that passed the offending legislation or took the offending action. There is a deriviative of this that is even more insiduous; a Republican executive can rarely trust his lawyers. Often there is an elected AG who has his/her own ambitions or even a different agenda from the Executive's agenda. Even in governments with an appointed AG or other head attorney, the staff lawyers are usually Democrats to a man and woman. This fact is exacerbated by the fact that Republicans steadfastly refuse to take out the trash on assuming office. It is incredibly easy for a government attorney or administrative advocate to lose a case and choose the grounds of his losing so that something is pending appeal come inauguration day. If the Ds are successful in getting a new Governor or Mayor or in changing the governing coalition in a legislative body, the appeal just becomes trade goods on the transition.

A legislative coalition has a life of two years before it stands election. Anything meaningful MUST be done in the first year because courage is a very scarce commodity in an election year. An executive term is normally four years and an Executive can't do much of anything in the second and fourth years because of impending elections. Consequently, there is a very, very tight window to get anything done that can be undone by a legislature or the courts. If you do take some action that gives the Left offense in your first year, it will not get to court, at least not decided by the courts, until well into your second year. Judges do read the paper and will frequently sit on decisions until after an election. So, if the initiative requires legislative support and you lose your governing coaltion in the second year, your initiative dies. If the matter is going into the federal courts after the state courts it can take longer than even a gubernatorial term; if you lose or are succeeded by someone with a different agenda, the initiative goes away.

It is all about playing for time. There are ways to overcome it, but you must be very agressive and be willing to accept the slings and arrows; not many are.

In Vino Veritas

Though I dont remember ff the top of my head just how Much less time a femtosecond is than a nanosecond...

Only two defining forces have ever offered to die for you:
Jesus Christ and the American G. I.
One died for your soul; the other for your freedom.

I just did a google news search on Utah school vouchers and got a total of 80 hits

Almost all of which look like they are from media outlets in Utah. Its being buried for sure.

Veritas magna est et praevalet.

Although I doubt it will change, I think one should wait for the Senate to pass it and the Governor to sign it before judging the media coverage. Like I said, waiting may not change the verdict.

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Social Security Choice - Club For Growth