When enough is enough: Our intrepid treasurer's close encounter of the PCE kind

Megan Risbon, treasurer of the Utah Democratic Party, was up at SnowBird recently enjoying Oktoberfest when she decided to ride the tram up to Hidden Peak.

One of the passengers struck up a conversation about vouchers with the other passengers. She seemed well-rehearsed: How dare a liberal, out-of-state, anti-voucher union come in and try to overturn a law enacted by Utah's very own Legislature and governor. She seemed appalled.

Megan had heard it all before and could not restrain herself. Her blood began to boil. Megan told the group, then jammed together hundreds of feet above the ground in a tram swaying back and forth, that a good chunk of that NEA money comes from Utah,although in a kind of round about way. Thousands of Utah educators contribute to a national fund to defend local public schools from wealthy out-of-state conservatives and their secretive hirelings who would come in and tinker with our schools. Utah educators are merely dipping into a pool of money they've contributing to for a long time.

"Who pays your way to come to Utah and campaign for vouchers?" Megan demanded. The twentysomething pro-voucher activist replied in huff, "You don't need to know!"

The young woman did let on that she was from California, but that could have been apparent to anyone.

She was wearing shorts and a T-shirt. It was snowing on top of Hidden Peak.

Utah Democratic Party uncovers Republican links to NEA and MoveOn.org!!

The wave of TV ads revealing nefarious links between voucher opponents and organizations such as the National Education Association (NEA) and MoveOn.org, not to mention Senators Kennedy and Clinton, got us thinking voucher opponents may be on to something by skipping any discussion of the merits of vouchers. Using the twisted logic of voucher proponent's ads, if we could establish links between conservative Republicans and groups like the NEA and by association MoveOn.org, then vouchers must be a bad idea. It didn't take long before Republican connections to the NEA were established.

Right before the passage of McCain/Feingold the NEA gave nearly $100,000 to the Republican National Committee and other national Republican campaign committees during the 2001-2002 election cycle. Already during the current election cycle Republican members of Congress including Mary Fallin of Oklahoma, Jim Jordan of Ohio, Mark Kirk of Illinois, and Jim Gerlach of Pennsylvania have received financial support from the NEA's Fund for Children and Public Education. Therefore, voucher supporters must admit these Republican members of Congress are linked to MoveOn.org through the NEA and therefore vouchers are a bad idea. To argue otherwise would be logically inconsistent with their own use of links, however tenuous, to argue voucher opponents should be ignored.

We won't hold our breath for a retraction. Nor should parents expect voucher supporters to advocate for any classes on logical fallacies in private schools should vouchers pass.

Questions that Utah's mainstream media don't seem to want to ask in the voucher mess

From Out of Context:
The Tribune's political writers' blog

"Voucher propaganda"
Saturday, Sept. 22, 2007


As the debate over vouchers escalates in the run-up to the Nov. 6 referendum, the stupidity of the rhetoric may have already red lined. (Yeah, right.)

In his lengthy essay on Utah education values, voucher-lovin' Paul Mero of the Sutherland Institute tenuously linked the American public school movement to the Ku Klux Klan. here

A little over the top, you say?

The Utah Democratic Party, which opposes vouchers, has launched on its blog a series of "facts" attacking vouchers.

"Fact #2" connects education vouchers with "white-flight academies" that emerged in Virginia in the 1950s. Below a photograph of voucher supporters holding a sign at the Capitol is an archive photo of some bozos waving a Confederate flag. here

It doesn't take an Imperial Wizard to recognize propaganda when he sees it. Somebody out there apparently thinks Utah voters are knuckleheads.

- Glen Warchol



RESPONSE

Well, it was politically incorrect.

But that's probably the risk of trying to get the full story out.

Vouchers were, in fact, a tool used by ideological extremists in the 1950s to dodge the rule of law as defined by the Supreme Court. They were racists. They wanted to continue their racist ways.

Today, vouchers are a tool used by a different breed of ideologue, though no less dogmatic. Here in Utah and across the country they fervently embrace the free-market philosophies of Milton Friedman to justify privatization our K-12 public school system.

That's what this whole voucher thing is about.

(Just before the Supreme Court in 2002 upheld an Ohio voucher program, Joseph Bast, president of the pro-voucher, global-warming disbelieving, uber-conservative Heartland Institute, wrote that he considered voucher programs to be springboards to the long-range goal of privatization. "Soon, most government schools will be converted into private schools or simply close their doors. Eventually, middle- and upper-income families will no longer expect or need tax-financed assistance to pay for the education of their children, leading to further steps toward complete privatization." As of March 2007, eight Utah lawmakers sat on Heartland's “Board of Legislative Advisors”, including Utah Senate Majority Leader Curt Bramble.)

This Friedmanite ideology when put into law by purists such as the GOP leadership in Utah currently strong-arming lobbyists and business leaders may be as dangerous to American society as the hate mongering of the segregationists. Dangerous as in ... the legacy of Friedman's no-holds-barred-in-the-marketplace philosophy includes the shenanigans and collateral damage of Ken Lay and Enron, George W. Bush and Harken Energy, Worldcom, Tyco, not to mention a Republican administration that shrugs off its responsibility to hold Corporate America accountable for workers' well-being, clean air and water, and safe food, drugs and even toys of our children.

As you pointed out, the vignette is but one in a series, which attempts to highlight questions that so far Utah media have not answered. Such as ...

Who are these people? They seem to be on a mission. Why must it take legal action to find out what they’re up to and who pays their bills? THIS IS AMERICA! Will Utahns find out only after the election that Parents for Choice in Education (PCE), like similar organizations across the country, amounts to a “Trojan horse” organization strategically created to mask the ultimate goal of secretive, wealthy, uber privatizers?

I cannot answer that. I hope our Utah corps of journalists will. And, of course, the PCE voucher crowd and their powerful GOP allies in the Legislature would simply dismiss the notion as outrageous and conspiratorial, if not paranoiac.

However, a vaguely similar, high visibility, ostensibly progressive, national pro-voucher advocacy group called The Black Alliance for Educational Options may be the model. It received over $2 million in grants from the Olin, Walton, Hume, and Bradley foundations between 2001 and 2003.

These groups are not friends of progressive causes.

The Waltons’ generosity was funneled via All Children Matter (ACM) into PCE coffers the past few years (Currently, ACM appears to be MIA), and The Bradley Foundation was quite generous ($1 million) to Charles Murray, author of the controversial 1994 book “The Bell Curve.” The book suggested that African-Americans are intellectually inferior to whites.

The voucher crowd has consistently lost ballot initiatives across the country over the past few years. Will their new tactic of enlisting Legislatures dominated by ideological Republicans be more effective? It seems to have been effective in Utah.

What will it take for Utah media to point out that HB 148 will not help disadvantaged kids? Not even a little bit! In fact, parents of disadvantaged kids will have to waive their rights to receive certain types of specialized education when signing up for private schools.

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OK, OK ... I admit I have "Mero-envy." Paul Mero, the voucher crowd's "deep thinker" at the Sutherland Institute in Salt Lake City, has the ability to produce 50 slick pages of hogwash called "Vouchers, Vows, and Vexations" that somebody actually paid attention to.

Government vouchers would fund the choice of religious schools to teach and preach whatever

"Be it known to all who enter here that Christ is the reason for this school." - on doors throughout St. Margaret Mary School, a Catholic school in Milwaukee, Wis., whose students receive taxpayer-funded tuition vouchers

Religiously oriented private schools no matter the faith - mainstream Protestantism, Roman Catholicism, fundamentalist Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, Islam, or even atheism - exist to instill in students their own particular doctrines, values, morals and specific practices.

These doctrines, values, morals and specific practices may or may not be consistent with the idea that the historical role of public education in America, and especially Utah, has been not only to prepare young people for the workplace but also to help them become responsible and engaged citizens in our democracy.

The values that made America "the shining city upon a hill" - tolerance, fair play, hard work, community, equality, opportunity, and rationality – may or may not be taught in a religious curriculum designed to protect kids from the jungle out there.

It’s anybody’s guess how many religious schools in Utah would be eligible to receive taxpayer-funded tuition vouchers. The Utah State Office of Education (USOE) has not prepared a list of schools eligible to participate in the program. But the number and impact on curriculum would be significant. According to a comparison of public, charter and private schools published by the Utah Charter Schools office of the USOE, "Predominately, private schools (in Utah) present academic subjects through religious perspectives."

The 15-year-old voucher experiment in Milwaukee offers lessons.

Over two-thirds of the schools funded by tuition vouchers in Milwaukee teach religion, more often than not fundamentalist, evangelical and orthodox Christianity. The Utah program probably wouldn't be much different.

Carrie Miller, principal of Mount Calvary Lutheran School in Milwaukee, said she emphasizes the school's goal of making the students "Christ-like witnesses." Miller said the voucher program there has allowed the church "to become even more of a mission/outreach environment."

At many of the Milwaukee voucher schools, religious and non-religious content blends together. At St. Margaret Mary School, a Catholic school, Principal Brenda White said religion should be part of everything that goes on in a school such as hers. "What makes Catholic schools Catholic is how strongly what they're teaching in the classrooms is connected to their mission," she said.

The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of a voucher program in Ohio in 2002, ruling it did not violate the "Establishment Clause" of the U.S. Constitution. But last year the Florida Supreme Court killed that state's voucher program because it did not provide for a “uniform” public school system. For a variety of reasons, including the fact that exclusive private schools in Florida tend to be clustered in urban and relatively affluent neighborhoods, some kids using vouchers had access to educational resources that for all practical purposes were denied to others.

Language of the Florida constitution is similar to Utah’s constitution, which suggests that kids in Panguitch, for example, can't be short-changed because they don't live in the relatively affluent communities that support most private schools.

The voucher law, as it currently stands, is flawed. It's a full-employment act for lawyers.

If the voucher law withstands the November ballot challenge, legal wrangling after that notwithstanding, Utah government will be funding religious education. My tax dollars and yours will be supporting religious schools with names that have a fundamentalist Christian ring: Christian Faith Fellowship School, King’s Academy Christian School, Early View Academy of the Mount Zion Assembly of the Apostolic Faith, Greater Holy Temple Christian Center, Risen Savior Lutheran School, and such.

It won't matter whether we agree or disagree with their teachings. (I believe the teachings and preachings of the religious right in the United States include unChrist-like interpretations of scripture that intentionally have been used to divide us at least as much as to bring us together.) We will have nothing to say regarding what some politically savvy, Republican-leaning, fundamentalist Christian leaders believe is gospel truth or how that "truth" might be taught in schools we keep in business.

Utah taxpayers and their elected representatives will not be able to hold religious teachers or their teachings accountable ... even if they were teaching kids how to blow up abortion clinics or buses in Israel. In those extreme and improbable cases, the police and FBI probably would step in. Anyway, that's what happened in Florida a few years ago when a school partially funded through tax-credits was linked to a Palestinian terrorist organization.

Forget Thomas Jefferson or Abraham Lincoln or Martin Luther King Jr. Religious schools could teach anti-science creationism, the myth of the existence of dinosaurs, Nostradamus' prophecies regarding the second coming of Christ and The Rapture, or virtually anything else.

It will be their choice to make privately, behind closed doors, not ours. We'll only foot the bill.

Utah's Republican ideologues write a recipe for waste, fraud, abuse into their voucher program

Consider the possible consequences of a $400 million government giveaway engineered by rabidly anti-regulation, ideological Republicans.

If Utahns approve the upcoming initiative, the one that would divert our taxes to mostly unaccountable and many unaccredited private schools ... schools that could hire unlicensed anybodies to teach our kids virtually anything, well, the attorney general’s office should ramp up. It could be inundated with cases of waste, fraud, and abuse.

At least that's been part of the legacy of similar programs across the country. Here is some of the fallout:

A school for terrorists. An Islamic school named in a federal terrorism indictment received $350,000 from Florida taxpayers through the corporate tax credit program. Palm Beach Post, July 1, 2004.

Convicted felons. Alex’s Academics of Excellence in Milwaukee received $2.8 million in voucher money over three years, despite the fact that the school’s founder was convicted of rape in the 1970s. Teachers at the school went unpaid, and former school administrators say employees smoked marijuana at the school. Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Sept. 15, 2003

Fraud. Seven employees of a Christian school in Bartow, Fla., were arrested for defrauding taxpayers out of $200,000. The school took tax credit money for children who did not attend classes and used some of it to buy a satellite television, a 2003 Hummer sport utility vehicle and real estate. Associated Press report, July 29, 2004, and Palm Beach Post, Aug.12, 2004

Theft. Florida’s Education Commissioner resigned amid reports of school voucher abuses resulting in the theft of hundreds of thousands of tax dollars and for allowing 227 ineligible students into “virtual­-school” programs paid for with $1.1 million in voucher money. Lawmakers were forced to approve a $1.1 million budget transfer to pay for the blunder. Palm Beach Post, August 12, 2004

Missing millions. “Two years after the [tuition tax credit] program’s creation, those running it can’t say where nearly $30 million has gone, who has benefited or whether Pennsylvania education has improved. Editorial by a Pennsylvania state senator on their state’s tuition tax credit program, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, June 9, 2003

Organized crime. A tuition tax credit scholarship organization in Florida is under investigation for the disappearance of $400,000. The head of the organization was previously arrested and charged with fraud, racketeering, conspiracy and drug trafficking. Palm Beach Post, Aug. 24, 2003

Financial mismanagement. The State Office of Fiscal Integrity launched a criminal investigation of Florida’s largest tax credit scholarship granting organization charging financial mismanagement and other illegal activities. The organization then left the scholarship funding business. Sun Sentinel, Dec.12, 2003, and Palm Beach Post, Jan. 3 and 15, 2004

Questionable expenses. An independent auditor hired by Ohio found almost $2 million in questionable expenses in the Cleveland voucher program in the first year. Of that amount, $1.4 million was spent for taxis to transport students — including $419,000 in over-billing by taxi companies charging for absent students. “School Vouchers: The Emerging Track Record,” National Education Association, Jan. 2004

Luxury cars. In Milwaukee, a voucher school signed up more than 200 students who never showed up and then cashed $330,000 in state-issued tuition checks, which the principal used to buy two Mercedes vehicles. Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Feb. 16, 2004

Missing millions. “There’s $50 million out there and I don’t know where it’s gone. I can’t name a student. I can’t name a school. I can’t name a student in a school.” Government official in the Florida Office of School Choice, Palm Beach Post, July 10, 2003

Democrats not the ones playing political games

In today's Davis County Clipper Congressman Rob Bishop accuses Democrats of "short changing" defense. As proof he rattles off a list of budget items that until January Democrats had little control over as the minority in Congress. Listening to Congressman Bishop one would think the Pentagon budget had been slashed in half during the last 9 months. In truth, there is a great deal of cleaning up to do after 12 years of Republican control of Congress and six years of Republican control of the White House.



Among Congressman Bishop's most misleading examples of alleged low military spending is the percent of GDP spent on the military vs. the halceon days of the Reagan administration. In 1986 we were spending 6.8% of our GDP on the military Bishop points out. Now, after six years of joint Republican control of the White House and Congress this has fallen 4.2%. How this is the Democrats fault given any appropriations bills they either have or will pass by the end of this month don't take effect until October 1st at the earliest is beyond me.



While a 2.6% decline in the amount of GDP dedicated to military spending may seem like a significant reduction in spending, it isn't. Military spending has grown since 1986. However, the GDP has grown faster and therefore military spending simply makes up a smaller percentage of our overall spending as a nation.



Bishop concludes his argument by stating "Our troops deserve better than theatrics and legislative publicity stunts." He doesn't provide any examples, but aircraft carriers, jump suits, and big banners come immediately to mind. That is what our troops got instead of body armor, communications equipment, and adequate care upon their return to the states. Congressman Bishop just never mentioned it before because his party was in power at the time.