TCS Daily/ BLACK FLIGHT

[twa]

http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=040706D

While pundits and academics argue away, the quiet sucking sound you don't yet hear are African-American families leaving our public schools when allowed to do so.

In Minneapolis, public school officials now admit that black flight is a serious problem; the district enrollment is projected to be down to 33,000, from 48,000 in 2000, a 30% decrease, largely due to black students escaping to charter schools.[1] The Washington D.C. school district has lost 10,000 students in five years; 25% of D.C. students are now enrolled in charter schools.[2] A Rand Corporation study of charter schools in Texas and California discovered that in both states black students are significantly more likely to move to charter schools than are white students.[3] Although school choice opportunities are not necessarily snapped up instantly (growth in some voucher programs has been more gradual than originally expected), over time the momentum is unambiguously one of black flight away from public schools.

Respect for other people, if it is to mean anything, must include listening to their concerns and taking those concerns seriously. For more than a decade, inner city African-Americans have supported school choice at a much higher rate than have suburban whites (Republican soccer moms are a core anti-choice constituency). Heroic African-Americans such as Democratic State Representative Polly Williams and former Milwaukee Superintendent Howard Fuller crossed party lines to pioneer vouchers in Milwaukee.

Polly Williams describes the obstacles she faced in creating Milwaukee's voucher plan in 1990:

"They tried everything to stop me. After they were convinced choice couldn't be stopped, they tried to hijack the issue and came up with their own version of choice. It basically created another bureaucracy which would have supervised the whole choice process and strangled it. The Milwaukee Public Schools would have selected the students for the choice program, not the parents. Students would have been picked if they met enough of the seven negative criteria they set up. If you were in a family of alcoholics, had a brother in prison and a pregnant teenage sister, and were inarticulate, you would have been a perfect candidate for their choice plan. In other words, a program they hoped would fail.

"This fake choice plan was the product of a white, do-good liberal legislator named Barbara Nostein. Liberals backed her; they weren't for my bill. We finally won when we got 200 parents to testify for three hours in favor of my bill. In good conscience, my colleagues could not vote against those parents.

"None of the people who oppose my plan lack choice in education themselves. They have no idea what the lack of choice in education means, the damage it does when you have to go to an inferior school that will trap you for life."[4]

Sixteen years later the mainstream education establishment -- including teachers' unions and most academics -- continues to be unrelentingly hostile to school choice; a struggle is taking place right now to increase the number of vouchers so that more Milwaukee students can escape.

Unfortunately most "progressive" groups, although they claim to advocate for minorities, remain hostile to school choice. (La Raza is a major exception; Hispanics also leave for charter schools at much higher rates than whites, and La Raza, to its credit, has launched an aggressive campaign to support the creation of 50 charter schools in Latino neighborhoods.)

[The 12th Commandment]

The article brought to light some very interesting perspectives. I didn't realize there was such support for choice within the minority community...I think It's time for me to take another look at this issue. Thanks for link TWA.

[Cskin]

The critical mass reached by the African American community for choice for the education of their children will revolutionize the education system in this country and make great strides towards ending racism in this country. This is my hope.

I'm delighted more people are realizing that the Liberal Public Education system is ruining this country. The system is a joke, the schools a disaster, and the teachers ... some poorly qualified... are protected by Liberal unions. The Dems solution? Pour money at the problem. The true solution.... allow kids to go to schools where the school's mission is to increase education standards and produce well-rounded, intelligent, thought provoking kids who are capable of succeeding in life on their own.

What's it Now? A cattle call with low standards and poor administration that produces nearly retarded kids who haven't the first skill they need to succeed and subsequently sends them into lives of crime and drugs. Additionally, their situation sparks concerns of racism. Why is one school producing productive successful kids and the other criminals.

[skinz1972]

The critical mass reached by the African American community for choice for the education of their children will revolutionize the education system in this country and make great strides towards ending racism in this country. This is my hope.

I'm delighted more people are realizing that the Liberal Public Education system is ruining this country. The system is a joke, the schools a disaster, and the teachers ... some poorly qualified... are protected by Liberal unions. The Dems solution? Pour money at the problem. The true solution.... allow kids to go to schools where the school's mission is to increase education standards and produce well-rounded, intelligent, thought provoking kids who are capable of succeeding in life on their own.

What's it Now? A cattle call with low standards and poor administration that produces nearly retarded kids who haven't the first skill they need to succeed and subsequently sends them into lives of crime and drugs. Additionally, their situation sparks concerns of racism. Why is one school producing productive successful kids and the other criminals.

republikans pour $$$$$ at problems too,dont make it just a democratic thing.....wanna jumpstart the economy? reps give taxcuts to the top 1% who dont need it.

[Sean Taylor's Legal Team]

republikans pour $$$$$ at problems too,dont make it just a democratic thing.....wanna jumpstart the economy? reps give taxcuts to the top 1% who dont need it.

this comment just oozes with ignorance. More than just the top 1% recieved a tax break. I mean come on, drink the kool aid, but don't spew it all over the rest of us.

I have always been for voucher programs, in DC and hopefully in Baltimore soon. And it is because the Public Education system in these areas are terrible from top to bottom. Teachers don't want to work in the schools because of bad conditions, bad materials etc. And clearly pouring money into the problem hasn't solved anything (D.C. schools spend more per student than any other district/state) The only way to correct problems in any field is to hold people accountable. Government positions usually have the luxury of having a monopoly on what they are doing, so there is no way to hold them accountable.

Private schools have always been available but unobtainable by most. And ironically the people that need the option the most are the ones that can not afford it. By offering vouchers the government is for once holding one of its "branches" accountable. The kids that are in dire need of a healthy education option are finally recieving the means to obtain it.

So now our tax dollars are being spent efficiently, instead of pumping money into a program that is a proven failure; our money is being spent to actually educate our kids.

:2cents:

[The 12th Commandment]

I have always been for voucher programs' date=' in DC and hopefully in Baltimore soon. And it is because the Public Education system in these areas are terrible from top to bottom. Teachers don't want to work in the schools because of bad conditions, bad materials etc. And clearly pouring money into the problem hasn't solved anything (D.C. schools spend more per student than any other district/state) The only way to correct problems in any field is to hold people accountable. Government positions usually have the luxury of having a monopoly on what they are doing, so there is no way to hold them accountable.

Private schools have always been available but unobtainable by most. And ironically the people that need the option the most are the ones that can not afford it. By offering vouchers the government is for once holding one of its "branches" accountable. The kids that are in dire need of a healthy education option are finally recieving the means to obtain it.

So now our tax dollars are being spent efficiently, instead of pumping money into a program that is a proven failure; our money is being spent to actually educate our kids.

:2cents:[/quote']

I see the sense of your take.

But tell me if I am wrong as it may be different in other parts of the country. Aren't most private schools religious. Here every one of them is. I don't have a problem with a kid of the particular religion using our money to attend one that matches their views, but I don't think it's fair that someone may have to attend a school of a particular denomination they might not believe in just to get a better education.

[LD0506]

Ok, so this is a good thing. There is an all too pervasive opinion in this country that blacks are unwilling to make efforts to help themselves, and it's patently false. The media focuses on and makes money from trouble and bad news, so it's interesting to see this covered. To any parent that feels strongly enough about their children's welfare to move them to better schooling I say Bravo!

[Kilmer17]

In my home county (Manatee County FLA) we have 45,000 kids in public schools.

We have an elected school board that just gave themselves a raise to make 40,000 a year. Our Superintendant makes more than Orange County Californias. They just build a 4.5 million dollar school board annex building.

Our annual school board budget is 880,000,000.

That's 20 THOUSAND DOLLARS PER CHILD!!!!!!

The most expensive and esteemed private school in the area costs 11 grand a year.

Anyone else still think there's not a problem?

[Sean Taylor's Legal Team]

There are private schools that aren't religious in D.C. and Baltimore. I can't speak for the rest of the country. However that is a valid point, government money going towards religious educaiton. But isn't it better to have that option?

[The 12th Commandment]

There are private schools that aren't religious in D.C. and Baltimore. I can't speak for the rest of the country. However that is a valid point' date=' government money going towards religious educaiton. But isn't it better to have that option?[/quote']

I actually don't have a problem with the money being spent that way. And I suppose if the individual makes the choice for quality reasons then that's their choice. Maybe if the voucher program becomes popular it will create a demand for additional non-religious private schools. Hell, I wouldn't mind seeing it drive the public system out of business, as long as every kid has the opportunity to attend a good school.

[Bad Man Burgendy & Gold]

I've always been a liberal who feels we are dead wrong about school vouchers. Why the heck would you not give a choice if a school system is failing. We should be about saving people, to hell with a system.

[Kilmer17]

This is 100% about unions.

Dems oppose vouchers because the teachers unions and subsequently every union in solidarity will go balistic.

[Sean Taylor's Legal Team]

I've always been a liberal who feels we are dead wrong about school vouchers. Why the heck would you not give a choice if a school system is failing. We should be about saving people, to hell with a system.

:cheers:

It's nice when people with different views agree. Smarter America is a better america, spend OUR dollars wiser please!

[tapstaks2000]

Ok, so this is a good thing. There is an all too pervasive opinion in this country that blacks are unwilling to make efforts to help themselves, and it's patently false. The media focuses on and makes money from trouble and bad news, so it's interesting to see this covered. To any parent that feels strongly enough about their children's welfare to move them to better schooling I say Bravo!

:applause: :applause: :applause: :applause:

[Winslowalrob]

The Mises Institute monthly, free with membership

Sort archived Free Market articles by: Title | Author | Article Date | Subject

September 1996

Volume 14, Number 9

Vouchers as Reparations

Carl F. Horowitz

Now in its seventh year, the school voucher experiment in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, is held up as a model for the nation. But the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program has found itself fighting its own track record as much as the city's public school establishment. The early cascade of hurrahs has slowed in recent days. This is a thankful development, given the sense of racial entitlement that drives this program and other symptoms of voucher fever.

By the late 1980s much had gone wrong in Milwaukee's public schools. Its high schools had among the nation's highest dropout and teen pregnancy rates, and the lowest standardized test scores. "Milwaukee officials have been holding their public schools 'accountable' for years with disastrous results," wrote the Brookings Institution's John Chubb, a prominent "school choice" advocate.

No argument there. A concerned, if seemingly unlikely, coalition of black separatists, libertarians, and religious conservatives sought to improve matters. They argued that low-income parents ought to have the same purchasing power in education as affluent parents.

Leading the charge among the black separatists was Democratic State Assemblywoman Polly Williams, who later became a heroine to the voucher movement. She had sponsored a bill to allow public-school students in her own Milwaukee to attend private schools with state-supplied vouchers.

It seemed a tough sell, especially to those who doubt that more government spending is likely to solve educational problems. But friend and foe alike knew that Williams, who'd coordinated Jesse Jackson's Wisconsin presidential campaigns, was was tough cookie in a fight.

How tough? By 1990 she had ascended to the rank of General of Education in a Black Panther-style militia run by Milwaukee Alderman Michael McGee. McGee and his group were threatening blood in the streets if the city failed to hand over adequate "reparations" to blacks by 1995.

Williams assured the public that McGee was "just talking," but then added ominously, "this country was built on violence." She also made clear that the main purpose of voucher-style reparations was to "help instill the African-American heritage through history and other courses the public schools aren't interested in." One conservative activist--someone who has dealt with her many times--described her to me this way recently: "Polly Williams is a nut who hates whites."

Yet this strange ideology mutated into a close working relationship with white Republicans, starting with Governor Tommy Thompson, under the guise of conservative educational reform. In March 1990 the Wisconsin legislature passed a modified version of her plan, which Thompson signed the next month.

The state would provide low-income parents in Milwaukee with vouchers good for tuition at participating "non-sectarian" private schools within the city. A voucher would be worth roughly $2,500, adjusted each year to reflect state per-pupil aid to city schools.

Almost 1,000 students, or 1 percent of Milwaukee's public school students, would be eligible to receive vouchers (a cap raised in 1994 to 1.5 percent). Up to 49 percent of a participating private school's enrollment could be voucher students, a level later revised upward to 65 percent.

Conservative-movement maestros such as Jack Kemp, Paul Weyrich, and Bill Bennett saw a two-for-one deal. The voucher plan would weaken the educational establishment in the U.S., they thought, and swell the ranks of conservatives within minority groups whose loyalty liberals had taken for granted for too long.

"In 1963, George Wallace stood in the schoolhouse door to block two black students from enrolling in the school of their choice," the Wall Street Journal said (June 27, 1990) in a shameless analogy. "Now, in 1990, [state School Superintendent] Herbert Grover...is openly trying to block a law that will allow 1,000 low-income children in Milwaukee to use vouchers to attend a private school of their choice."

This equivalent analogy would argue that since blacks were once refused entry to all-white hotels, they should now be able to stay in any hotel of their choice without paying. Full-blown "hotel choice," funded by everyone else, is necessary to make up for past oppression.

Nonetheless, in March 1992, well into the program's second year, the Wisconsin Supreme Court approve the plan, and the revolution was on. But the wheels moved slowly. There was no question that parents with vouchers had more choice; less evident was the quality of the schools they were choosing--or whether the schools would even exist once their kids got there.

In the 1995-96 academic year, two schools, Milwaukee Preparatory and Exito Education Center--each opened after the voucher program began--closed their doors. Milwaukee Prep claimed to have 175 students receiving vouchers; but the real number, said sources, was as low as 20. Likewise, Exito reported 174 voucher students and 90 paying students, but in fact had 124 voucher students and no paying students at all. The two schools reportedly owe the state in the neighborhood of $400,000.

To supporters, the problem was that the Wisconsin Supreme Court changed in the rules in midstream. Last summer the court kept an expanded voucher program from taking effect. Only days before, the legislature had voted to authorize up to 7,250 vouchers for that school year, 15,700 for the next, allow the entire student body to receive vouchers, and allow religious schools to participate.

The injunction, which the court upheld this March, played havoc with the projected budgets of many schools, which were based on the new rules. The closings, advocates say, thus were a self-fulfilling prophecy, ammunition for opponents eager to create "proof" that vouchers don't work.

But there's another side to the story. At Milwaukee Prep and Exito, there seemed little difference between running a school and running it into the ground. Exito's director stood accused of passing nearly $50,000 worth of bad checks, dealing drugs, and misappropriating funds. Meanwhile, DPI officials could not fully audit Milwaukee Prep's books because so many of the financial records were missing.

Even before the school closed, several teachers had left, complaining they had not been paid. This wasn't the first time a school had gone belly up. In the very first year, 1990-91, the Juanita Virgil Academy went under. Of the 15 schools in operation at the end of the 1995-96 year, at least two more, say observers, face imminent collapse. The focus ought to be on the students, not the schools, say program advocates. Fair enough. But if the voucher-receiving private schools are doing a better job than the public schools, it's by a thin margin. University of Wisconsin political scientist John Witte, who amassed five years' worth of data, found that performance among low-income students in private schools at best is on par with a control group of low-income kids in public schools. And Witte is no enemy of the program; he supports its continuation.

Supporters of the plan, like Daniel McGroarty, a former Bush White House speechwriter and author of the book, Break These Chains: The Battle for School Choice, argue that this kind of experiment necessarily involves some bad apples. And if this were a real market at work, he might have a point. Schools not meeting the expectations of customers (i.e. parents and students) ought to be faced with the prospect of getting their act together or going out of business. There is risk in any capitalist enterprise.

But contrary to the advocate's slogans, vouchers do not create authentic market competition, but only the pretense. Like public schools, voucher programs are funded by government money, paid to people and institutions because they fit a politically driven eligibility criterion. Vouchers no more create free-market competition than double-entry bookkeeping makes the post office private.

Another indication the program is defective is the civil-rights analogy propagated by conservatives to defend it. Pro-voucher activists have yet to shake the notion that urban black and Hispanic parents have a right to a voucher made of other people's money.

Even if the U.S. Supreme Court upholds the revised voucher plan--a church-state separation issue is involved this time around--there's going to be a lot more Milwaukee-style bad apples. Replicate the program on the national scale and the prospects for an expensive national failure are vastly enhanced.

Republicans fully intend to "go national" with this. Newt Gingrich and Wisconsin's Steve Gunderson were bent on creating annual "scholarships" in Washington, D.C.. Dan Coats of Indiana and John Kasich of Ohio want to spend $3 billion over five years on vouchers in 100 school districts around the country. James Talent of Missouri and J.C. Watts of Oklahoma have proposed $5 billion in federal funds over seven years for up to a half-million school vouchers, a plan endorsed by Bob Dole.

For sheer taxpayer expense, however, the suggestion of Stephen Moore of the Cato Institute takes the first prize: 5 million students get $2,000 in direct tuition subsidies for a total of $10 billion the first year.

The voucher idea, which gained its notoriety as an alternative to public schools, is thus revealed as a full-blown, Washington-run, big-government program, dishing out billions of tax dollars as an entitlement. Polly Williams and the Black Panthers are surely pleased, especially because it's the Republican Party that has been snookered.

---------------------------------------------

Carl R. Horowitz is the Washington correspondent for Investor's Business Daily

Back

http://www.mises.org/freemarket_detail.asp?control=165

[Winslowalrob]

The vouchers issue is very interesting and very debatable. By the way, Polly Williams was on welfare and went to public school:

Champion of Choice

Shaking Up Milwaukee's Schools

Polly Williams interviewed by John H. Fund

This fall the Milwaukee Public Schools begin the nation's first experiment in education vouchers for low-income children. Polly Williams, the Wisconsin state representative who made it happen, was inspired by an idea proposed three decades ago by Nobel laureate Milton Friedman and promoted in recent years by conservatives in the White House and state legislatures. To gain approval for the plan, Williams formed a coalition with her Republican colleagues against the liberal establishment. Yet Williams is a Democrat who twice served as Jesse Jackson's state campaign manager.

Under the choice plan, a two-year pilot project, about 1,000 low-income children will receive vouchers of up to $2,500 that can be used at nonsectarian private schools. The money, which will be subtracted trom the city's public-school budget, will mean new opportunities for students and greater competition for the state system. If the program works, other states--some of which already allow students to choose among public schools--can be expected to follow suit.

Born in Betzoni, Mississippi, Williams moved to Milwaukee with her family at age 10. She attended the city's public schools but later sent her four children to a local private school known for its high standards and insistence on parental involvement. At 52, she is completing her fifth term as a legislator.

John H. Fund, an editorial writer for The Wall Street Journal, interviewed Williams at a hotel in downtown Milwaukee.

Reason: What obstacles did the education establishment throw up to stop your choice plan?

Williams: They tried everything to stop me. After they were convinced choice couldn't be stopped, they tried to hijack the issue and came up with their own version of choice. It basically created another bureaucracy which would have supervised the whole choice process and strangled it. The Milwaukee Public Schools would have selected the students for the choice program, not the parents. Students would have been picked if they met enough of the seven negative criteria they set up. If you were in a family of alcoholics, had a brother in prison and a pregnant teenage sister, and were inarticulate, you would have been a perfect candidate for their choice plan. In other words, a program they hoped would fail.

This fake choice plan was the product of a white, do-good liberal legislator named Barbara Nostein. Liberals backed her; they weren't for my bill. We finally won when we got 200 parents to testify for three hours in favor of my bill. In good conscience, my colleagues could not vote against those parents.

Reason: The Milwaukee Public Schools spend $6,000 a year per student on education. That's a lot of money.

Williams: Well, that money isn't going to the kids. It's going to a system that doesn't educate them and to a bunch of bureaucrats. A lot of the money goes out the tailpipes of buses, trucking kids halfway across town so they can sit next to white kids. The average ride for a Milwaukee kid is 45 minutes. That has nothing to do with education.

Reason: Why is busing still used in Milwaukee after all these years? I understand the court order has lapsed.

Williams: They have destroyed or failed to build new schools in the inner city. If busing ended tomorrow, there would be 40,000 kids downtown and 20,000 places in school for them. They have built new, fancy magnet schools next to the suburbs to entice white kids across the city line in buses. They are busing kids from one black elementary district in this area to 104 different schools. A group of African-American parents is going to propose we modify this busing madness and start building schools kids can walk to again.

Reason: These magnet schools--can blacks go to them?

Williams: Not many. Even if they are in African-American neighborhoods they are largely filled with whites from the suburbs. People attack my plan for subsidizing private schools. Well, these magnet schools are private education at public expense. I simply say that my black parents want the same choice they do. None of the people who oppose my plan lack choice in education themselves. They have no idea what the lack of choice in education means, the damage it does when you have to go to an inferior school that will trap you for life.

Reason:Why do white liberals insist on busing instead of choice?

Williams:It's more feel-good politics for them. They think their kids are having a neat cultural experience by going to school with African-American kids. But they don't want to really relate to them; they just want to take them out to the playground with their kids so they can point to some black kids and say, "See, those are different people you should be nice to." It reminds me of a zoo. It has nothing to do with education. The theory is that if black kids sit next to white kids, they will learn better; it's insulting. I thought these people were liberals!

Reason: You castigate liberals a lot. But aren't you a liberal Democrat?

Williams: Labels do not tell you much about me. I'm not a liberal; I believe in what works. I often vote against the state budget because there are things in there I don't think should be funded.

White liberals feel guilty about blacks, and they do things to convince themselves they are helping blacks. It's feel-good politics, which is really just helping themselves. Poor people become the trophies of white social engineers.

We have to be saved from our saviors. They have been feeding us pablum for so long, we are finally tired and demand some real meat. We want self-sufficiency, self-determination. and self-reliance, not a handout.

Reason: How do you get along with your colleagues in the legislature?

Williarns: I am respected and listened to, but I must tell you that I have a better rapport with conservative Democrats and Republicans than I do with my liberal colleagues. We all agree on self-determination for minorities, and they aren't so obsessed with guilt and giving away money. I get along fine with Jack Kemp and Newt Gingrich.

Reason: Do you think they are sincere in wanting to help blacks?

Williams: I don't care. I think they are, but they don't have to be. They just have to sincerely want to push my agenda.

Reason: Suppose a conservative legislator came to you and said: "Polly, these welfare programs are a mess. Let's change them to a voucher approach. But to get Republican votes, I have to cut 30 percent of the budget out. The rest goes in cash payments directly to the poor, and they choose how to use it. " What would you say?

Williams: I would go along with that. The money is wasted now, and I think it couldn't be more wasted if people spent it themselves. This paternalistic idea that poor people can't make choices is ridiculous. Poor people are some of the best shoppers, most skilled at stretching a dollar, you'll ever see.

Reason: You fell on hard times for a while. What happened?

Williams: I divorced in 1971, and our family income fell from $20,000 a year to $8,000 a year. I had to go on public assistance for a while. I didn't like it, and neither did my kids.

Reason: Why?

Williams: They were embarrassed. They were raised to think there was a real stigma to public assistance. They would refuse to go shopping with me when I used food stamps. After I got back on my feet, I finished college at night school. I became very active in community organizations, and eventually, in 1978, I ran for the state legislature. I lost, but I came back and won in 1980.

Reason:What impact did segregation have on you?

Williams: In the South it was always understood that you were different. You would only be served in a store after all the white people had been served. In Milwaukee, I remember trying to buy something and standing aside when a white person came up to the counter. The clerk asked me what I wanted and served me first. It was a culture shock. There was discrimination here, but it wasn't a way of life.

Reason: Judging from your comments on busing, I take it you don't think much of integration?

Williams: Integration comes in time for those who want it. A lot of African-Americans, including myself, don't believe in it. We had a civil rights revolution so we would have an equal chance at the good things in life, not to blend into white society.

Reason: What are your views on affirmative action?

Williams: Well, in theory I could see some affirmative action if it went to the people who really needed it--at the very bottom. But it never does that; it goes to people who don't need it, who can make it largely on their own. And it carries with it the stigma that whatever position you succeed in getting, people think you got there because of favoritism. That can be very destructive.

Reason: What is your opinion of those black politicians, such as the mayors of Baltimore and Hartford, Connecticut, who say that the costs of the drug war are too high?

Williams: I agree with them that we have to decriminalize drugs. Three things would happen. We would make sure innocent people are no longer gunned down by drug gangs. And we would take the profit out of selling that poison. Right now, 80 percent of the cocaine money comes from yuppies. They are the ones consuming it, and they drive into our neighborhoods to buy it.

The business leaders of any major city are also willing to keep the status quo. Look at the banks, car dealers, and condo projects. Drug money is in all of them. Lastly, ending the drug war would mean the police would no longer have an excuse to come in and dominate black neighborhoods.

Reason: You were Jesse Jackson's campaign manager in Wisconsin. What does he think of choice in education?

Williams: He has never told me I shouldn't be doing this. When he has been asked, he has simply said he doesn't know enough to comment. I think he would agree with what I am doing here.

Reason:The Milwaukee papers have been very critical of your plan. So has most of the white establishment and the NAACP. Why do you think that is?

Williams: The Milwaukee papers used to be among my biggest supporters. I was their darling. Then I started asking questions and speaking up in the legislature. They didn't like that. They have been awfully unfriendly lately. A cartoon in the paper showed me with a bandit mask on holding up a public school official and demanding he surrender money to this fat, white guy from the private schools. If that isn't a cheap stereotype, I don't know what is.

The NAACP--I don't know why they oppose the plan. I guess they are just too tied in with the old system and way of doing things. This choice plan does nothing for the local power structure. It helps the people that everyone forgot--poor, innercity kids who want a better life.

Reason: What do you say to those who think you are out to destroy the public schools?

Williams: I want the public schools to work. I think they should work at $6,000 a year per student. Maybe if they had some competition they would have an incentive to work better. But if teachers and school bureaucrats are so worried about losing their jobs, why don't they just go out and do them a little better?

Reason: Tell us about the private schools that will participate in the choice program.

Williams: There are about six to eight schools that want to join. For many it is a sacrifice, since we had to compromise and make the voucher only $2,500 a year, and parents cannot supplement the voucher with their own money. Many of these schools have costs of S3,000 or $3,300 a year.

My kids went to Urban Day School, which was started as a nonreligious school by some Catholic sisters. All of these schools are nonreligious, so there is no separation of church and state problem. They all have different races going to them.

Urban Day and the others go up to the eighth grade, and there is real discipline and learning there. Many kids who leave them and go on to public high school are shocked at the differences. Still, some 90 percent of kids who go to any of these schools finish high school, and most go on to college. They also tend to stay out of trouble.

And these schools do more than provide a good education. They help instill pride in the African-American heritage through history and other courses the public schools aren't interested in.

Reason: Why did you insist on a plan to let kids attend private schools? Why not just improve the public schools?

Williams: We've tried to do that for years, and the best we get is, "Well, we're the experts, you are just parents." We're tired of that excuse. Look, if you go to a doctor and you stay sick, at some point don't you have a right to a second opinion? The choice plan is our second opinion. The folks who run the poverty industry in this town are worried that kids will get a better education at schools that cost half the amount they spend on the public schools. In their shoes, I'd be worried too.

http://reason.com/williamsint.shtml

I prefer not to put in choice quotes, and let the context speak for itself (A far better method than quoting out of context, wouldn't you say?). I want to see if vouchers works, and then see if we can impliment it if it does, in the same way we should see if Mass socialized medicine works, and then impliment it if it does.

[The 12th Commandment]

Don't mean to argue with you Winslow just showing the other side and an update.

http://www.schoolchoiceinfo.org/topics/item.cfm?id=66 (from a Times Article)

"At first glance, the near north side of Milwaukee can be a bleak place, now that it has lost the department stores, factories and other businesses that used to thrive there. But if you want to see inner-city children getting a good education, it’s the most beautiful spot in America.

“We’ve seen what school choice can do,” said Gregory Stanford, as editorial writer and a columnist at the paper. “It’s impressive to go around to the voucher schools and see kids learning. Their parents are much more satisfied with these schools. And the fears that the public schools would be hurt have turned out to be wrong.”

Apparently it's enough of a market to force a little competition and that's better than none it seems. I would guess there probably are stories from critics as well.

Edit: Saw the second article, you did cover both sides.

[Teller]

Two different opinion columns (these are not news stories) trumpet "Black separatist" Polly Williams as a hero. Hmm...Would a "White separatist" be a hero as well? :doh:

I'm all for charter schools that are predominately black. So long as there is equal opportunity on the other side. I know, the evil "Republican soccer moms" have probably already done that, I'm just not seeing it.

This country will make no progress until we can get past the race issue. Sadly, I don't see that ever happening on either side. If you want "Black separatism" why don't we just go back to the days of segregation? Sure, that's a stupid idea, but so is this.

Who is going to make the first step? Who is going to try to see things from the other side's point of view. Only then will we get ANYWHERE.

[Winslowalrob]

Two different opinion columns (these are not news stories) trumpet "Black separatist" Polly Williams as a hero. Hmm...Would a "White separatist" be a hero as well? :doh:

I'm all for charter schools that are predominately black. So long as there is equal opportunity on the other side. I know, the evil "Republican soccer moms" have probably already done that, I'm just not seeing it.

This country will make no progress until we can get past the race issue. Sadly, I don't see that ever happening on either side. If you want "Black separatism" why don't we just go back to the days of segregation? Sure, that's a stupid idea, but so is this.

Who is going to make the first step? Who is going to try to see things from the other side's point of view. Only then will we get ANYWHERE.

You are wrong, the first column likes her, the second does not, they do not both trumpet her as a black separatist. But yes, as more and more people are starting to realize, vouchers will only extend to poor minorities, not to middle class kids.

[Teller]

"Leading the charge among the black separatists was Democratic State Assemblywoman Polly Williams, who later became a heroine to the voucher movement."

From the second story, my friend. No intent to be a smartass, just making a point.

It's nice to see we agree largely on the content of the issue. That's got to be a first.

I know a lot of my posts come off as anti-Black. Nothing is further from the truth. As an American first and foremost, it is in my best interest for African-Americans to succeed. It's in my best interest for EVERY American to succeed. And while that's not practical, it's a nice goal to have.

I'm white, obviously, and I can't afford to send my daughter to private school. Therefore, the public school system is the only one available to us. I understand the issue from a historical perspective, but I don't understand why now African-American children get a choice and my daughter doesn't.

I just want the scale evened out. I don't want it tilted EITHER way.

[Winslowalrob]

As a general rule of thumb, I disagree with everything the Republican party says, so when I first heard about vouchers, and that black people were for it, you can imagine the anguish it caused me . It is a very tough issue, and because I know and am close to so many teachers (I have never even seen a black person in my life, I am not sure what they look like ) I do view the system as a way to weaken public schools and stick it to the teachers (who are not perfect mind you, but on this issue I think they are in the right). I would much prefer to fix the public school system, of which both myself and my father were benifciaries, not to mention the majority of my friends, and if that means pumping in more money, so be it. If it means supporting vouchers, so be it. I don't care about ideology, but also I realize the unfairness of the system, at least in the abstract, in rewarding poor families versus wealthier ones. However, it is kind of weak that someone will take such a complicated issue, post up an article, and expect the issue to be totally resolved. I prefer that both sides of the issue are discussed, and hopefully a medium ground can be reached.

By the way, I love black people. They are such good dancers . The Jews, not so much . And don't even get me started on the Irish!

[skinz1972]

this comment just oozes with ignorance. More than just the top 1% recieved a tax break. I mean come on' date=' drink the kool aid, but don't spew it all over the rest of us.

I have always been for voucher programs, in DC and hopefully in Baltimore soon. And it is because the Public Education system in these areas are terrible from top to bottom. Teachers don't want to work in the schools because of bad conditions, bad materials etc. And clearly pouring money into the problem hasn't solved anything (D.C. schools spend more per student than any other district/state) The only way to correct problems in any field is to hold people accountable. Government positions usually have the luxury of having a monopoly on what they are doing, so there is no way to hold them accountable.

Private schools have always been available but unobtainable by most. And ironically the people that need the option the most are the ones that can not afford it. By offering vouchers the government is for once holding one of its "branches" accountable. The kids that are in dire need of a healthy education option are finally recieving the means to obtain it.

So now our tax dollars are being spent efficiently, instead of pumping money into a program that is a proven failure; our money is being spent to actually educate our kids.

:2cents:[/quote']the top 1% in america got over 80% of the bush taxcuts,while the bottom 99% fight for scraps.

[tapstaks2000]

the top 1% in america got over 80% of the bush taxcuts,while the bottom 99% fight for scraps.

Going off topic. I think.

[Teller]

I completely agree with you, Winslowalrob. (Cue giant meteor coming to end life on earth as we know it) :laugh:

[Winslowalrob]

I completely agree with you, Winslowalrob. (Cue giant meteor coming to end life on earth as we know it) :laugh:

NOooooo! I haven't even done #5 and #6 on my things to do before I die list!