Posted on 11/22/2018 9:08:12 AM PST by Kaslin
The Detroit school board recently voted 6-to-1 to consider removing Dr. Ben Carson's name from one of its high schools. Carson, a former Detroit student and former head of pediatric neurology at Johns Hopkins Hospital, pioneered several groundbreaking neurosurgical procedures. He now serves as President Donald Trump's secretary of housing and urban development. But one school board member said Carson's name on the school is comparable to "having Trump's name on our school in blackface."
About Detroit public schools, Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty's C.J. Szafir and Cori Petersen recently wrote, "In 2017 Detroit ranked last in proficiency out of 27 large urban school districts with a measly 5 percent of fourth-graders proficient in math and 7 percent in reading." Maybe the Detroit school board should invest the time they spent inquiring about Carson's reputation in improving its pupils' education.
Let's hope that hatred for Trump does not stall the growing movement for private school choice as an alternative to public K-12 education. A 2015 survey conducted by Knowledge Networks for Education Next found that nationally, 13 percent of non-teacher parents have sent one or more of their school-age kids to private school for at least some of their K-12 schooling. But 20 percent of teachers with children have done the same. The number is much higher for teachers in urban areas.
A 2004 Fordham Institute study found that in Philadelphia, a staggering 44 percent of public-school teachers with school-age kids sent their own children to private schools. In Cincinnati-Hamilton County and Chicago, 41 and 39 percent of public school teachers, respectively, paid for a private school education for their children. In Rochester, New York, it was 38 percent. In Baltimore, it was 35 percent. San Francisco-Oakland-Vallejo was 34 percent, and New York-Northeastern New Jersey was almost 33 percent. In Los Angeles-Long Beach, nearly 25 percent of public school teachers sent their kids to private school versus 16 percent of all Angelenos who did so.
Hats off to all the hardworking teachers and administrators working in urban schools, which are frequently in and among the worst schools in the worst areas, with often unmotivated students from homes where education is not emphasized. Without an authority figure in the home ensuring that that the child has done his homework and gone to bed on time, the teacher's job becomes exponentially more difficult. And bravo to hard-working parents who want to ensure that their children get a quality education.
Most urban parents support choice in education, despite the opposition of the public education establishment. Polls show about 80 percent of inner-city parents want vouchers, and most careful studies show that private school choice produces better outcomes.
But wait. A recent study from the University of Virginia's highly regarded Curry School of Education found "no evidence that private schools, exclusive of family background or income, are more effective for promoting student success." Hogwash, says Michael Q. McShane, the national research director of EdChoice, a pro-choice advocacy group, who argues that the UVA study lacked "randomization." Under "randomization," McShane says: "Everyone who wants a voucher gets their name thrown in a hopper and random chance is the only thing that differs between those who get a voucher and those who don't. That's how we know that any differences between the two groups can be attributed to the program."
The Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty wrote last year: "The Milwaukee Parental Choice Program works. ... Out of 11 gold standard studies on the program, 10 have shown that students in the MPCP outperform their peers at Milwaukee Public Schools (one study showed no significant difference). ... Students in the MPCP outperformed their peers in public schools in both math and reading on the Forward Exam when appropriate 'apples-to-apples' comparisons are made. We also found that MPCP students score about 7.7 percent higher on the ACT than MPS students, a difference that could determine whether a student gets into college or not in some cases."
Thomas Sowell, who supports private school choice, also emphasizes the importance of comparing apples to apples. "My favorite way of making comparisons among truly comparable students," says Sowell, "is to get educational results from schools where both the charter school and the traditional public school are located in the very same building, teaching the same grade levels, and with the students being tested by the very same tests." When examined that way, school choice works.
About Milwaukee, Szafir and Petersen wrote: "Many parents have turned to the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program, passed in 1990, which provides low-income children with vouchers for private schools. Over the past decade, enrollment has increased 45 percent at MPCP schools and by 47 percent at the city's charter schools."
If private school choice does not yield benefit, can someone explain why programs that provide choice consistently have long lines of parents who want to enroll their students? Trump wants to give urban parents an opt-out of an underperforming government school. Resistance against Trump ought not to translate into resistance against parents who want a better future for their children.
This should have been our platform in 2018
“But one school board member said Carson’s name on the school is comparable to “having Trump’s name on our school in blackface.”
Anyone who thinks peaceful coexistence with these people is possible is a fool.
L
You have a black man who achieves greatness as a neurosurgeon against all odds and now you want to strip his name from a school because he’s a Republican?! The absurdity is just mind boggling.
So, they don’t want the school to be named after a black student who succeeded. I guess they want a failing school named after a thug who went to prison because he never learned basic skills in school and therefore couldn’t find a job so he resorted to crime.
Why not? The same people resisting Trump at every opportunity are most likely the people who do not want school choice.
We must never forget that one of the foundations of creating the kind of dystopia that leftists want is a stupid and ignorant population. An uneducated population can never be achieved if the schools are competent.
With all due respect to mom & pop, please note the following.
If parents were making sure that their children were being taught the federal government’s constitutionally limited powers as the Founding States had intended for those powers to be understood, then citizens, including school administrators, would know that the feds have no constitutional authority to decide policy, regulate, tax and spend in the name of INTRAstate schools.
In fact, President Thomas Jefferson had indicated in a State of the Union address that the states would first need to amend the Constitution before the feds could get involved in intrastate schooling, something that the states have never done.
“Congress is not empowered to tax for those purposes which are within the exclusive province of the States.” —Justice John Marshall, Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.
”From the accepted doctrine that the United States is a government of delegated powers, it follows that those not expressly granted, or reasonably to be implied from such as are conferred, are reserved to the states, or to the people. To forestall any suggestion to the contrary, the Tenth Amendment was adopted. The same proposition, otherwise stated, is that powers not granted are prohibited [emphasis added].” —United States v. Butler, 1936.
Consider that school districts now wrongly drool for federal funding, constitutionally-impaired school administrators not realizing that such funding is unconstitutional, based on unconstitutional federal taxes according to the Gibbon v. Ogden opinion above.
In other words, if patriots were to support Pres. Trump in leading the states to put a stop to unconstitutional federal taxes by repealing the 16th and ill-conceived 17th Amendments, 17 the “broomstick of the wicked witch (Soros),” then the states would ultimately find new revenues to fund 10th Amendment-based social spending programs that their legal majority voters want.
”... the care of the property, the liberty, and the life of the citizen, under the solemn sanction of an oath imposed by your Federal Constitution, is in the States, and not in the Federal Government [emphases added].” —Rep. John Bingham, Congressional Globe, 1866. (See about middle of 3rd column.)
I agree 100%. Every minute of every day we inch closer to a divorce and separation with the left. It's simply impossible to see a way forward coexisting with such vermin. It's not a matter of 'if'; only 'when'.
It's like coexisting with rattlesnakes and wild hyenas. They can never be trusted in any way.
The only real question is what America looks like after the divorce settlement.
Bookmark
Carson should request that they remove his name from the school because the bigoted racist city is an embarrassment to him and his proud name.
The adulation and adoration in this country is reserved for jocks and athletes, which is why America produces the greatest athletes in the world. Until that adoration and exultation is diverted to scholars and nerds, American kids will continue to be mediocre compared to the best and the brightest in the world.
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