George Will is devastating today about the black humor of President Obama's order to his cabinet to find $100 million dollars to cut from their budgets.
Monday morning the government braced for austerity, as the government understands that. Having sent Congress a $3.5 trillion budget, the president signaled in advance -- perhaps so his Cabinet members could steel themselves for the new asceticism -- that at the first meeting of his Cabinet he would direct the 15 heads of departments to find economies totaling $100 million, which is about 13 minutes of federal spending, and 0.0029 percent -- about a quarter of one-hundredth of 1 percent -- of $3.5 trillion.
But there is one tiny program that Democrats are happy to cut - vouchers for inner-city, minority school children stuck in the District of Columbia's miserable school system.
The president has set an example for his Cabinet. He has ladled a trillion or so dollars ("or so" is today's shorthand for "give or take a few hundreds of billions") hither and yon, but while ladling he has, or thinks he has, saved about $15 million by killing, or trying to kill, a tiny program that this year is enabling about 1,715 D.C. children (90 percent black, 9 percent Hispanic) to escape from the District's failing public schools and enroll in private schools.
The District's mayor and school superintendent support the program. But the president has vowed to kill programs that "don't work." He has looked high and low and -- lo and behold -- has found one. By uncanny coincidence, it is detested by the teachers unions that gave approximately four times $15 million to Democratic candidates and liberal causes last year.
Not content with seeing the program set to die after the 2009-10 school year, Education Secretary Arne Duncan (former head of Chicago's school system, which never enrolled an Obama child) gratuitously dashed even the limited hopes of another 200 children and their parents. Duncan, who has sensibly chosen to live with his wife and two children in Virginia rather than in the District, rescinded the scholarships already awarded to those children for the final year of the program, beginning in September. He was, you understand, thinking only of the children and their parents: He would spare them the turmoil of being forced by, well, Duncan and other Democrats to return to terrible public schools after a tantalizing one-year taste of something better. Call that compassionate liberalism.
After Congress debated the program, the Education Department released -- on a Friday afternoon, a news cemetery -- a congressionally mandated study showing that, measured by student improvement and parental satisfaction, the District's program works. The department could not suppress the Heritage Foundation's report that 38 percent of members of Congress sent or are sending their children to private schools.
The Senate voted 58 to 39 to kill the program. Heritage reports that if the senators who have exercised their ability to choose private schools had voted to continue the program that allows less-privileged parents to make that choice for their children, the program would have been preserved.
Remember this story next time you see Democrats mouthing platitudes about how they care about results-based programs to improve education. If they truly cared, they'd be debating how much to expand this successful program. But all those hypocrites care about is making teachers unions happy.
10 comments:
"... the program that allows less-privileged parents to make that choice for their children"Wait! I thought you were against free handouts to the undeserving poor?
That they are only poor because they are lazy? Surely if they want to send their kids to exclusive private schools, the right answer is not to be lazy, work hard, get rich and pay for it themselves?
Why are you advocating free handouts for the poor?
Jaw Bone,
Betsy teaches at a public school. When has she ever advocating that govt shouldn't educate children? DC schools spend an extraordinary amount of money and fail miserably at educating children. Democrats make it impossible to reform the DC schools. I agree with Betsy that spending a little more money to help a few children get a decent education is a good idea. Especially when doing so helps provide us with data that can be used to break the liberal education stranglehood that chokes the lives of poor, black children.
I've read just about everything that Betsy has ever posted here. If you can find a post where she advocates against public education spending, I'll be shocked.
Of course, you won't find such a post and you have no interest in doing so. You're too busy constructing straw men and crafting ridiculous arguments.
The kids in the voucher program are more likely to finish high school with certain large lacunas in their knowledge base. Many of them will not know how to use a gun or a knife. They might not learn the proper etiquette for lockup.
I think that the students in the district Obama represented in the state legislature had few such gaps.
"If you can find a post where she advocates against public education spending, I'll be shocked."Betsy has many times argued that those worst off in America, should get no help from those better off. And the reason is because, in regressive minds, it is all the fault of the poor and disadvantaged.
So it is indeed surprising to see some advocacy for free handouts for people moving out of the public education sector. I wonder if that advocacy is more because of the bad effect on public education and teacher unions, than the good effect on those moving? Nah, surely not.
ahooThat's utter nonsense and I'll join Stan in asking for a citation that would prove such an outrageous claim. What has been argued here is that money should be spent to educate all citizens and not make any distinction between the status of any. But the primary responsibility for this must remain with the parents when the local governments simply fall down on their end of the bargain and become simply a jobs program for one particular special interest group.
And if Jaw Bone has even the slightest actual curiousity all he has to do is click on Education at the end of this post and read through all the others and the comments. That's how I found that Jaw Bone, Bill B and master.of.destruction were one in the same by simply comparing their comments and noting the exact same wording being used ad nauseum.
Betsy has many times argued that those worst off in America, should get no help from those better off. And the reason is because, in regressive minds, it is all the fault of the poor and disadvantaged.This is deranged thinking. Too much Marx in your diet, Jaw.
Conservative Americans have a long and rich tradition of helping out the less fortunate. You are oblivious to this. Our difference is that we don't think the government is the proper vehicle for this help.
The issue with schools is one of choice. We think the disadvantaged should have the choice not to send their children to violent failing schools. Your position is that these parents should not have such opportunities.
And your argument is that WE don't care!?
No. My argument is that regressives should not be allowed to improve things for themselves, by making things worse for everyone else.
Example: coal companies should not be allowed to grind the tops off mountains in Kentucky to rip out the coal, and just leave the spoil there contaminating public watercourses.
Take a look at thatsome time. That is GOP policies in action, wrecking America.
It's a huge leap from funding schools to "mountaintop removal mining" (MTR), even for "Jaw Bone's" phantasmagorical reasoning.
MTR had its origins in the 1973 and 1979 U.S. oil shortages, so it was in use long before Bush was elected. Carter and Clinton occupied the presidency for 12 years while MTR was in use, and since 1974, 7 of the 8 Kentucky governors have been Democrats. But like Magic Mouth Obama, "Jaw Bone" is still consumed with BDS and everything under the sun is Bush's and the GOP's fault.
Since they had the opportunity, why didn't any of those Democrat presidents or governors fix the MTR problem, "Jaw Bone?" Gee, it looks like some progressives/liberals/Democrats don't care much about the poor, right?
Jaw Bone,
I don't think I have what it takes to think on your level. I'll admit that I never realized before that damage to the environment proves that Betsy is against helping poor children get an education.
I appreciate your pointing that out for us.
Over the last 32 years, I'm not spending much more time on this, the Democrats have controlled the Governor's office, the Senate and the House chambers of Kentucky for 26 years of that period. The Martiki mine, is owned by MACORP, which gave campaign donations to the current governor of Kentucky, Steve Beshears (D). The Martiki mine has been in operation, above and below ground for at least 50 years so I'm sure if there are violations, and none are mentioned in the article then the blame can be apportioned equally. Unless of course Jaw Bone believes that the mine sprang from the ground in 1995 fully formed and operational just like Athena.
This getting off topic simply means to me that Jaw Bone did not find one single post or comment by Betsy concerning his allegations and cannot bring himself to apologize to her. Or didn't bother to look beyond an almost five year old article written by a man whose own father fired him from running the newspaper.
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