Posted on 06/25/2012 4:29:37 AM PDT by Kaslin
One area that awareness of the need for freedom from government control has penetrated black attitudes is in education.
The chronic failure of public schools to notably improve dismal test scores and high dropout rates of black children has made it clear to many black citizens of good will that there has got to be a better way.
Polls show black support for school choice. For example, in a poll done last year in New Jersey by the Rutgers-Eagleton Center at Rutgers University, 54 percent of blacks expressed support for school vouchers compared to 36 percent of whites.
Growing grass roots support among blacks for education alternatives surely influenced the Obama administration’s agreement, this past week, to ongoing support for the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program. The administration opposes the program and would have been perfectly happy to see its funding spigot turned off.
This is a modest program, with federal funds available now for 1,615 scholarships for kids in DC’s public schools to attend private schools. Its existence and potential for growth was at stake, with House Speaker John Boehner and Senator Joseph Lieberman carried the ball for it. The new agreement will allow it to continue, with a small provision for 85 new scholarships.
But this makes even more perplexing recent incidents where Republican state legislators have turned their backs on the education hopes of blacks.
Republicans in Pennsylvania can change the political landscape of their state by helping black aspirations for education freedom. But in a state that some analysts see as conceivably swinging into the Republican column, Republicans are blowing it.
The Pennsylvania state Senate passed a bill last year that would make vouchers available to kids in the worst 5% of public schools.
The public schools serving blacks kids in cities like Philadelphia are disasters. I know from my own survey of pastors in local churches there that hopes for this voucher initiative have been high.
Yet, by all indication it’s not going to happen.
The state House, controlled by Republicans, has been sitting on the bill. With no action before the end of the session on June 30 it will be dead.
There is talk of an alternative scholarship bill financed through tax credits. But the most optimistic estimate I have heard is that the scholarship would be worth less than half what the voucher would pay and therefore insufficient on its own to pay full tuition in a private church school.
Courageous leadership by Republicans could have captured black hearts and minds in Pennsylvania’s cities that might have paved a path to a new black relationship with Republicans.
But sadly, fear of union power rather than leadership and courage seems to be motivating these legislators.
In 2010, a similar disappointment occurred in Illinois.
In a genuine breakthrough, a black Democrat in the Illinois state Senate, Rev. James Meeks, who happens to also be the pastor of Chicago’s largest Baptist congregation, introduced a school voucher bill.
The bill passed the Illinois senate and then died in the state House, with only 25 of 48 Republicans supporting it. It fell 12 votes short of the 60 it needed to pass.
This is not an across the board indictment of Republicans. Two Republican governors – Mitch Daniels in Indiana and Bobby Jindal in Louisiana – have spearheaded passage of school voucher programs in their states.
In a new Gallup poll, only 29 percent, an all time low, express “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in our public schools.
The Republican Party is supposed to be the party of freedom and limited government. No where are these principles more needed than in education, and no community needs it more than blacks.
At a time when our country and our poor communities are hurting so badly, any failure of leadership by those in the party of Lincoln is inexcusable.
The only two problems with this are, that not everyone can afford private schools or is qualified to home school. So what do you propose parents do?
The reason why private school vouchers are such a threat to both the NEA and Dems power is because they show that there is a better alternative to shoveling more and more money to a failed system
As long as Dems can kill those alternatives, with help of a few Republicans here, they can claim that failing to spend more money is a ‘hating kids’.(more specifically 'minority kids')
What many here forget is that elected Republicans tend to be terrified of being accused of being against schools, so it continues.
In 2004 GWB cut a deal with dems on NCLB and Republicans claimed it was a brilliant political move for his re-election. You think Romney will be braver on this than GWB was?
>>The reason why private school vouchers are such a threat to both the NEA and Dems power is because they show that there is a better alternative to shoveling more and more money to a failed system<<
They are a threat, but they are not “the best”.
The homeschool community is growing by leaps and bounds. In states with loose homeschool laws, districts are fighting and innovating a way to get that growing community. They are offering alternative schools, alternative methods (virtual schools) and programs where students go 13 years and walk out with an Associates Degree. All of it to keep the students.
In the meantime, Homeschooling parents are joining the Christian schools to get taxes back. This is happening in our area. The Christian schools don’t want “government money”. Many won’t take vouchers. They don’t want the government getting it’s nose under the tent. They see their cash coming from parents and want parents to keep their money.
Vouchers fell in this state for just that reason.
We are the state of Hillsdale College, who will not take money from the Government. Michigan has lead the way in homeschooling. Our laws are very loose. You may see a change coming from us.
NO. His history shows he WILL NOT.
How much does the Fed Gov spend on education?
And what does it get us?
Nothing, absolutely nothing.
You think Romney will be braver on this than GWB was?Yes. I do. At least in general. (Not saying I'm overly optimistic on this issue.)
Bush is a better person than Romney, morally, but I think Romney is more determined to win. Much more determined to win. Bush (with Rove's help) came very close to blowing the 2004 election. Bush never, ever, really stood up to the media pukes, not once, in 8 years.
I think Romney truly has fire-in-his-belly. The problem is, what is his fuel.
You and I see the same things completely differently. Yes, Romney wants to ‘win’. That is why he will screw us once in office, if not sooner.
Bush wanted to ‘win’ in 2004, that is why he pushed NCLB and a new medicare entitlement, the second got him Florida, the first got him some single women votes(the Hillary vote).
None of this specifically was helpful to him or us after the election, but to those that see Bush re-election as the most critical goal it did it's job.
He was pretty aggressive beating up on Perry, Newt and RS but so far his campaign against Obama looks pretty lack-luster and dull. He seems to be scared to take him on, or doesnt know how to do it and win.
We have a Dept. Of Education that does not educate.
Reform in education is getting rid of the Dept. of Education and return it to local control.
For those that honestly couldn't afford it, I would set up some sort of need based financial aid program, although I'm really leary of the government running it for obvious reasons.
>>At a time when our country and our poor communities are hurting so badly, any failure of leadership by those in the party of Lincoln is inexcusable.<<
Not exactly. I’ll tell you what the “excuse” is for Republicans not lining up to create voucher programs in black schools. Blacks are going to vote overwhelmingly for Obama yet again.
If a subgroup of teachers, say young, beginning ones, is being mistreated by the teachers’ union, is a Republican going to go to bat for them? No. Why? Because the teachers as a group have gone all-in for the Democrat Party.
Why should it be any different for blacks? When your vote goes exclusively to one party, you’d better seek your help from the members of that party because, by your very act of voting, you’ve told the members of the other party that you don’t want their support...ever.
Not to hijack the discussion, but a good example of doing the opposite is the National Rifle Assoc. They support candidates who will support the 2nd Amendment, regardless of party. And the NRA has been wildly successful by doing so.
Black leaders (not the Sharptons, Jacksons, Barrys, et al, but black leaders at the local/state level) need to realize that Republicans, and only Republicans, are interested in voucher programs, and they need to begin to encourage their constituents to re-direct their political support to Republicans if they are to ever get the leverage required to overcome Democrats’ resistance to vouchers.
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