CPAC 2013 - Eric Cantor

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) spoke at the Conservative Political Action Conference Friday (3/15/2013).

Cantor struck a somber tone and used anecdotal stories of inner-city children in a narrow speech arguing for school choice. "School choice is the answer," Cantor said.

His speech was not particularly partisan, although at one point he urged President Barack Obama and Democrats "to see the light."

Cantor went on to invoke an adage from former President Ronald Reagan: "If we can't make them see the light, we'll make them feel the heat," Cantor said. The House Republican leader closed his remarks with a plea for Republican solidarity.

"Conservative ideas win," he said.

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Austin Hill - Score One For The Kids: Washington and Georgia Produce An Election Night Highlight

You’ve probably seen the post-election headlines: private sector employers in the U.S. have begun slashing jobs, attributing their economic hardship to President Obama’s healthcare and environmental policies. But did you hear how some Americans actually voted for some really good things – things that can make for a brighter future?

It’s sad to see what our country has chosen. Barack Obama campaigned in 2008 on a pledge to “bankrupt” the coal industry (if you don’t believe me watch this video from Youtube), and the Obamacare taxes and fees levied against healthcare technology companies are downright onerous. So once it was evident that we chose “more of the same” last Tuesday, it was not surprising to see both the coal energy and healthcare technologies industries announcing thousands of layoffs – they simply can’t afford to continue operating at the same pace, given the President’s policies.

But the good news on election night came from the states of Washington, and Georgia, where residents voted to expand educational choices for children. This is to say that a state which overwhelmingly voted to re-elect President Obama (Washington), and a state that overwhelmingly voted to replace the President with Mitt Romney (Georgia), actually both agreed that increasing kids’ education options by expanding the number of charter schools is an across-the-board good thing.

Charter schools, if you are unfamiliar, are k-12 schools that are partially funded with taxpayer dollars (and partially with private donations), but are usually managed by private individuals and organizations. While each state has their own precise rules, generally speaking charter schools can reach beyond the bureaucratic, one-size-fits-all constraints of the local school district and customize their educational content and approach.

That’s why many charter schools offer academic specialties. Got a kid with an interest in engineering? Some charter schools offer an emphasis in science and mathematics. Does your son or daughter want to be a film maker? A charter school with a fine arts concentration might be a good choice.

The important point is that kids and parents should have these choices available. Charter schools allow people’s tax dollars to be put to use in ways that address the unique needs of students and parents, first and foremost, and in ways that the often self-serving established public schools don’t. Fortunately, Georgians and Washingtonians voted last week to allow even more of these options to flourish.

However, not every good effort to ensure wise use of educational tax dollars was rewarded last week. In Idaho, Indiana, and South Dakota, voters lashed out against state policies that forced local school districts to be transparent with how they spend taxpayer dollars and negotiate labor union contracts, and which provided educational technology in public school classrooms. Initiatives like these may seem like good ideas- and objectively they are-but if you’ve got enough money to spend on advertising, you can successfully portray them as evil.

Who, really, wants to argue that educational tax dollars should be spent on things that don’t benefit students? And who, really, wants to argue against government transparency?

Nobody would try to campaign on these points. But if you’re the AFL-CIO and your teacher’s union members are vested in the status quo, then you want nothing to do with transparency in government, and you certainly don’t want your union members to have to adapt to the “change” of using more computers.

So big labor spent millions in advertising dollars demonizing the education reform laws in Idaho, Indiana and South Dakota, while trashing the policy makers that brought them about. Scrutinizing the negotiation of labor union contracts was equated to “hating teachers,” while using online computer technology was characterized as “trading teachers with laptops” - and the costs of the computers were allegedly going to bankrupt the respective states, according to the teachers’ union’s advertisements.

A quick price comparison between an inexpensive laptop computer purchased in bulk (with enough digital space to store several digital textbooks) and a single hardbound text book suggests that school districts could actually save money with more computers. And expanded internet access can allow kids in the most rural of regions to connect with world class educational content from top universities. But neither of these realities mattered. This wasn’t about the kids, it was about the labor unions – and on election night voters in all three states chose the union’s agenda.

Both the expansion of charter schools, and enhancing transparency and technology in traditional schools, are fundamentally economic agendas: both initiatives have to do with a more efficient use of taxpayer money, and spending money for its intended purposes (improving kids’ education).

Yet one agenda was embraced (by both a “red” and “blue” state), and the other was rejected. The charter school movement has become so successful and popular that even the AFL CIO usually can’t stop it (although unions generally hate charter schools because they produce better academic results while spending less money). But scrutinizing - let alone “changing”-conventional public schools is apparently too uncomfortable. So in three relatively “conservative” states, voters chose with education reform like a majority of voters around the country chose for presidential leadership: they opted for “more of the same.”

Let’s hope that government transparency (even for school districts), and a respect for private enterprise, can become acceptable agendas like charter schools – so more Americans will stop choosing “more of the same.”

Austin Hill

Austin Hill is an emerging American voice, addressing culture-defining questions through books, talk radio, web, speaking, and interviews. His recent books "White House Confidential" and his new title "The Virtues Of Capitalism" show his range from whit-infused writer to thought-provoking expert on the intersection of philosophy, religion, politics & culture. Hill helps to make the complex seem simple when exploring capitalism, socialism, and other "Isms".

He is an editorial contributor to national publications such as U.S. News & World Report, a columnist with TownHall.com, and is a popular expert-host on radio from leading stations in Washington DC, Chicago, Phoenix and Los Angeles, and nationally with networks such as Fox NewsTalk Radio.  He hosts the "Austin Hill Show" weekday mornings at Fresno, California's Talk Radio 105-9 KMJ-FM,  and weekday afternoons at Boise, Idaho's Newstalk 580 K I D O radio.

Hill holds a Bachelor's Degree in English Literature from California Polytechnic State University at San Luis Obispo, and a Master's Degree in Philosophy of Religion and Ethics from Biola University in California.

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Star Parker - Chicago Strike Shows Why we Need School Choice

It says something about today’s public education reality that the two sides in the teachers’ union dispute in Chicago are the union and the mayor.

Allegedly the point of schools is to educate children. But which side in this dispute has sole interest in children and their parents?

The answer, of course, is neither side.

Unions are about the economic interests of the teachers. The mayor is about his budget and the economic interests of the city.

No one solely represents the interests of the kids.

It’s not to say that the union or the mayor has no interest in the quality of education being delivered. But this is just part of their agenda.

Do union members have to worry that their jobs will be gone if children don’t get the best possible education? No. Does the mayor have to worry that his job will be gone or his career over if children don’t get the best possible education? No.

In private sector labor disputes, sitting across from the union representative is the representative of a private company. The survival of that firm depends on its ability to serve its customers. Its labor cost is one line item in the cost structure of the products it sells.

The firm negotiating with the union does have to be concerned that union demands will drive it out of business – that it won’t be able to deliver the best, most competitively priced products.

This helps explains why private sector union membership has dropped dramatically. In the mid-1950’s, 36 percent of the private sector labor force belonged to unions. Today it is less than 7 percent.

Union demands that cause uncompetitive pricing or poorer quality products threaten the survival of the firm because it cannot serve its customers. The customer is king.

If the customer doesn’t like what he’s getting, that customer will go somewhere else.

But what about parents and kids? They have no where else to go. In Chicago, they are stuck with whatever outcome the confrontation between the mayor and the union produces because there is no competition.

Beyond this, even the best public school teachers have their hands tied because they cannot provide what so many of these kids need. A structure of values, discipline, and a clear sense of meaning and right and wrong.

The New York Times’ Nicholas Kristof writes, “In fairness, it’s true that the main reason inner city schools do poorly isn’t teachers’ unions, but poverty.”

But now we have a chicken and egg problem. Are kids not getting educated because they are poor or are they poor because the public schools, generation after generation, provide such poor education in these communities?

Poverty is preponderant among single parent households, and single parent households have grown dramatically in black communities over the last half century. In 1970, 38 percent of black births were to unmarried women. Today it’s over 70 percent.

Should we consider it an accident that over this same period a cultural transformation took place in this country? Court decisions removed prayer and traditional religious values from our public schools. Is it worth considering that the purge of traditional values from public schools and widespread family breakdown were two sides of the same cultural coin?

I think so. But whether you agree with me or not, parents who want their children in a school teaching traditional values, rather than the moral relativism endemic in K-12 public schools today, should have this choice in an allegedly free country.

Eighty six percent of the kids in Chicago’s public schools are minority kids from low income families. Meaning and teaching of right and wrong is what these kids need. Whatever compromise the unions and the mayor reach won’t matter to them.

What they need is school choice.

Star Parker

Star Parker is founder and president of CURE, the Center for Urban Renewal and Education, a 501c3 think tank which explores and promotes market based public policy to fight poverty, as well as author of the newly revised Uncle Sam's Plantation: How Big Government Enslaves America's Poor and What We Can do About It.

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Related Post: Behold! Your Public Sector Unions at Work.
Related Post: Union Man - by Glen Shulfer
Related Post: The Barack Obama 'System'
Related Post: Government Union Monopolies Are Bankrupting America

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Thomas Sowell - The Path To Better Schools

"One of the schools I researched years ago that impressed me the most -- in fact, moved me to the verge of tears -- was a ghetto school in a run-down building, located in a neighborhood that caused a friend to say that I was "brave" -- he probably meant foolhardy -- to park a car on the street there.

The children in that school scored above the national average on tests. In their classrooms, they spoke the King's English, behaved like little ladies and gentlemen, and made thoughtful answers to the questions they were asked. Yet these kids came from poor homes, often broken homes, and many were on welfare.

You can't buy that quality of education for any amount of money.

It has to be created by people who have their priorities straight. Don't tell me it can't be done when I have seen it done with my own eyes."
Dr. Thomas Sowell

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Rhonda - Opting for School Choice is Easy for Rahm Emanuel

School Choice is easy for some. Americans with the financial means are able to send their children to the best schools available and reside in neighborhoods that offer successful public school education. All too often, the very worst schools in America are located in impoverished areas where parents have no choice but to send their children to failing schools.

Politicians, who hold the power to change our educational system in America, are exempted from the catastrophe that they foist on US citizens. They frequently possess the means or connections needed to send their own children to the very best, successful schools. Recently, Rahm Emanuel, Chicago’s new mayor, was asked in an interview where he planned to send his own children to school. His abrupt change in demeanor illustrated his indignation and intolerance for such a pointed question. The mayor stormed out of the interview as if his personal rights somehow had been violated. Predictably, his children will attend the elite private University of Chicago Laboratory School in Hyde Park just as President Obama’s daughters did.

(Rahm Emanuel interview)


While Rahm Emanuel may escape close scrutiny over his misplaced outrage, Gov. Chris Christie has not been so conveniently overlooked. He, likewise, reacted angrily to inquiry about where he planned to send his children to school with a curt “None of your business!” He did go on to explain that he values parochial education and is concerned about the educational needs of all students in New Jersey. Additionally, Christie emphasized that he pays $38,ooo in property taxes that primarily fund public schools.

When the newly elected President moved to Washington D.C., he and his wife CHOSE Sidwell Friends School over D.C.’s notoriously failing schools. His daughters will receive the same privileged education that also benefitted Chelsea Clinton and Amy Carter before them. The Obama family’s statement to the public was simply that

In the end, the Obamas selected the school that was the best fit for what their daughters need right now.

The reality is that, in the end, Barack and Michelle exercised their privileged status that allows them as parents the freedom of school choice. However, school choice is denied most Americans who must attend the school that is forcibly mandated based on a zip code.

School choice includes public charter schools and voucher or scholarship programs. These innovative approaches to education vary from state to state since education is primarily the function of individual states.

Rahm Emanuel and the Obama administration led the charge against school choice in Washington D.C. when Congress sponsored the SOAR Act that reauthorized the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, which provided school choice scholarships for a small number of children from low-income families. D.C. public schools are ranked 51st in the nation. The results of this scholarship program have been outstanding, as highlighted in the highly awarded documentary, “Waiting for Superman.”

In the Wall Street Journal article, “The Evidence is in: School Vouchers Work”, the following key points were made:

In a study published last year, Patrick Wolf of the University of Arkansas found that voucher recipients had graduation rates of 91%. That’s significantly higher than the D.C. public school average (56%)

A recent study of Milwaukee’s older and larger voucher program found that 94% of students who stayed in the program throughout high school graduated, versus just 75% of students in Milwaukee’s traditional public schools. And contrary to the claim that vouchers hurt public schools, the report found that students at Milwaukee public schools “are performing at somewhat higher levels as a result of competitive pressure from the school voucher program.” Thus can vouchers benefit even the children that don’t receive them.

Empirical data obtained in states that expand school choice options for parents consistently indicate positive results.

Rahm Emanuel’s response to the reporter who dared ask the mayor about his choice for educating his own children is an appropriate defense for the desperate necessity of granting ALL parents the right of School Choice and Educational Freedom despite their economic status:

No, no, no- you have to understand- I’m making this decision as a father. And that’s a decision we’re gonna make, and anything less than that, would be less than how I think of myself and wanna be as a father.

Dear Mayor, every American deserves this same privilege of making a decision on school choice- and nothing less.

Rhonda

(For more information on School Choice, please see my earlier post “School Choice: Vouchers to Charter Schools”, linked here.)

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Rhonda is a stay home mom of two and was a teacher for ten years. She is a graduate of Clemson University and lives in Georgia. She is dedicated to the conservative, Constitutional principles that have made America a great country.
Visit Rhonda's Blog - One Conservative Voice

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Related post: The Failing Promise of Public Education
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