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Wednesday, May 02, 2007
John Stossel :: Townhall.com Columnist
Tales from the School-Choice Wars
by John Stossel
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I've been on the road lately, giving speeches at universities, think tanks, and community groups to let people know about the release of the paperback edition of "Myths, Lies, and Downright Stupidity". On the book tour I notice that the people who seem the most energized are school-choice advocates.

Many of them are under attack.

When the Evergreen Freedom Foundation (EFF), a nonprofit dedicated to advancing individual liberty, criticized the Washington state teachers union's use of dues to politick against school choice, the union attacked the organization with full-page newspaper ads and prime-time 30-second radio spots. The ads called EFF a "right wing extremist 'think tank'" that uses "bundles of cash" to promote its agenda. Union spokespeople also called them "trolls," "lying dirt bags," and "evil ... zealots." According to one union supporter, "Those scum are lower than sewer water, and smell less pleasant."

EFF uses "bundles of cash"? That's some myth. Its budget is nothing compared to the state's teachers union, which spends eight times more money on politics than the state's Republican and Democratic parties combined. EFF gets its money from people who volunteer, rather than lifting it from paychecks of teachers who have no choice in the matter. EFF contributors include people like housekeeper Gussie Hoff. Gussie gave Evergreen $30 a month for 11 years, and even though she's now unable to work, she still sends money -- with an apology for not being able to do more.

Attacks from powerful unions haven't dimmed the passion of school-choice advocates. It's as if they say to themselves, "You can call us names, but we know what we are doing is morally right."

In San Antonio, Texas, Jim and Cecilia Leininger have spent $10 million of their own money to give private-school scholarships to 8,000 students who were struggling in government schools.

At a meeting of the Texas Public Policy Foundation, Jim said, "We hadn't had this program going for one month, and the principal of a school in San Antonio called us and said, 'I've got two black kids in my school that are identical twins. They've just entered the sixth grade. They're 11 years old. They're good kids. They're good students. They don't want to be in a gang. The gang is after them. And if you don't give them a scholarship on an emergency basis, they're going to get killed.'"

The horror stories went on and on. "We had one little girl who was told the very first day she got to middle school that at 11 years old, she was too pretty to be a virgin," Leininger said. "These guys tried to rape her right in the classroom at the end of the day. Purely by God's grace, the teacher came back into the room and started screaming just before this little girl was violated. Continued...

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About The Author
John Stossel blogs at http://blogs.abcnews.com/johnstossel/ is an award-winning news correspondent and author of Myths, Lies, and Downright Stupidity: Get Out the Shovel--Why Everything You Know is Wrong.
 
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Complete distraction
"The politics of personal destruction" -- say as many bad things as possible about your political opponents. What does the entire "hypocrites" screed have to do with school choice? Nothing, but liberalism is about emotions, and if it feels good, do it.

As to the only part in the tirade above about education, it doesn't matter how good or bad the kids or parents are, or whose fault it is -- it doesn't change the fact that school choice demonstrably helps kids. Kids who are the victims of the horrible parenting of hypocrites are even more in need of the benefits of school choice.

School Choice
I joined this site to observe what nonsense conservatives could give for their opinions.
I taught school for eight years before going back to school and entering the medical field. The problem kids I dealt with were like that only because their parents were derelict in training them before they entered school. Schools get what they get. (Sounds like Rummey) Parents let TV be the plugged in drug, spend little time with them being examples for good behavior, drink and smoke and than wonder why the kids grow up with abuse and can't control either. Few parents have a good communicative relationship with their children that are trouble makers. Society then expects the schools to turn their little monsters into model students. One of the facts that few really understand is that children, after they enter school, recognize that their peers are going to be the ones they will associate with the rest of their lives and even though parents will somehow attempt to force them in a path of acceptability, when the situation arises that the parent has no longer a hold these children, they will do as they please. You don't want sex education taught? Well, they will get sex education from TV, peers, music, movies, and advertising and any other source that is available. You conservatives won't like it but that's the way it is. You play a blame game that doesn't fly in the face of reality. Schools that teach "abstinence only" still have students having sex. Areas where the most churches and most abstinence taught have a high rate of teen pregnancy.
You send young soldiers into battle and few of you have ever been in combat. Viet Nam should never have happened. and if you spent the time to dig into the research on the events during WW II in Asia you would find out the allies betrayed the Vietnamese people and subsequently 50000+ soldiers died for "belief in domino theory" that was nonesense. Now America is embroiled in a Middle East debacle because neocons, conservatives and stupid Democrats didn't take the time to research how American Foreign policy underpinned the events that have more American soldiers being maimed and killed to satisfy the greed of the military industrial complex, (General Dwight Eisenhower warned America and was ignored) and oil companies that are bleeding the majority of Americans and small business dry due to high prices which just allow these oil companies to get higher and higher profits. Alternate energy sources has been thwarted by conservatives and we could thumb our nose at the Middle East if the tax money America spent was used to place solar panels on every house in the sun belt. My energy costs came down from $500.00
per month to about $150.00 or less. You jump on Liberals but have no ideas that are better. You just criticize liberals which is typical of both liberals and conservatives or any other person when they don't have a better way of dealing with the issues that really face America instead of wedge issues such as gay rights, abortion, flag burning, or any other issue that distracts the American people from looking at what really affects them like job security, health care, loss of children in war, corrupt politicians from both sides of the fence, Loss of freedoms to make own decisions about what we watch read or do as long as that behavior doesn't effect others. Don't throw religion or morals at me because a madame Madame in Washington DC is under indictment and there are many politicians and other persons of high standing that used her services. Livingston, Gingrinch, Hyde, and other politicians were hypocrites when it came to “family values” I would bet the farm that there many more. Even your Bennett admitted a gambling addiction. Moral value?
I’m going to stop but I am getting sick and tired of conservatives of both political stripe telling what I should do and how I should behave when your all total HYPOCRITES.
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