OP-ED Articles

Typical of child abuse?

Eric Bauman, right, was endorsed by Equality California for state Democratic party chair

[Editor’s Note: This is the third in a series of open letters to American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten. The earlier letters may be seen here and here.) Dear Randi, It has been almost two years since my last contact with you. A lot has gone down. A 70 year-old gave birth in India and Donald Trump became president. (I know the election must have been particularly tough on you and your BFF, Hillary.) I am worried about you. Last week you co-authored an op-ed called “School vouchers don’t just undermine public schools, they undermine our democracy.” Oy vey! I would think that as the president of the country’s second largest teachers union, you would have been more thoughtful and done a better job of fact-checking. First, the headline. Do you think that by letting some families (typically poor and minority) escape their failing, zip code-mandated, public schools, that our democracy is imperiled? What? Letting people make their own choices is the most American and democratic of ideas. While your piece centers on the president’s plan to sink $20 billion into national vouchers, your underlying theme is that any movement away from the traditional educational arrangement – where the government not only pays for a child’s education but delivers it as well – is awful. While I concede that a federal voucher program may not be a good idea, your irrational antipathy to any kind of school choice is wrongheaded and frankly, meshuga. You write that vouchers don’t benefit children who receive them. Later in the piece you claim they actually “hurt student learning.” That is, to be polite, horsefeathers. EdChoice’s Greg Forster looked at 18 empirical studies of choice programs. He found that 14 of them improved student outcomes, 2 found no effect, and 2 reported a negative effect. Both negatives were from Louisiana whose voucher program is poorly designed and over-regulated. University of Arkansas researcher Patrick Wolf also found very similar positive results in a study released in March. The only “evidence” you offer is a recent study of the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program. That study has been shown to be flawed in many ways. You write that public schools have “never fully recovered from the Great Recession” and that we need to “invest” more in them. The $670 billion we throw at public schools isn’t enough for you? According to The Literacy Project, 45 million Americans are functionally illiterate, unable to read above a 5th grade level. Half of all adults can’t read a book at an 8th grade level. And you want to “invest” more in that archaic, one-size-fits-all 19th century model? You insist that “taxpayer money should support schools that are accountable to voters….” But it is the private schools that are truly accountable. If they do a good job, people naturally flock to them. If they do poorly, they close due to a lack of business. When the traditional public schools do a bad job, what happens? You and other education traditionalists demand more money. Ridiculous. If a school is an Edsel, it should go the way of the Edsel. Near the end of the piece, you single out tax credit scholarships for special derision, asserting that in some cases “donors have been able to make a profit off the backs of taxpayers and ultimately kids.” No, this is hardly a bwahaha! moment. Tax-credit scholarships allow taxpayers to receive full or partial tax credits when they donate to nonprofits that provide private school scholarships for kids. Eligible taxpayers can include both individuals and businesses. So your claim is, frankly, absurd. No one “makes a profit” by simply lowering their income tax bite. Mr. Sand, a former classroom teacher, is the president of the non-profit California Teachers Empowerment Network – a non-partisan, non-political group dedicated to providing teachers and the general public with reliable and balanced information about professional affiliations and positions on educational issues. He may be contacted at the www.californiapolicycenter.org

President Roosevelt

Kathy Griffin, center, and attorney Lisa Bloom, right

Mr. Elias

Ms. Chaffee

Mike Hennessey

Mike Hennessey

Joshua trees