
 |
|
May 13, 2013
David G. Savage: Church-state, literally? Supreme Court weighing public school graduation in a church
May 10, 2013
Rabbi Berel Wein: Be all that you should be
May 8, 2013
Peter Ford: Why China is welcoming both Israel's Netanyahu and Palestinians' Abbas
Warren Richey: Obama administration quietly backs out of appeal over new contraceptive mandate
Fred Weir: At Kerry-Putin meeting, US-Russia relations thaw --- a tad
The Kosher Gourmet by Leela Cyd Ross : Almost too pretty to eat, this colorful salad with Sicilian inspiration will tickle the taste buds and delight your visual sensibility
May 6, 2013
May 3, 2013
Kids, kittens the Same? With employee perks at struggling Internet pioneer Yahoo! it's hard to tell
Sandy Kleffman: Artificial kidney offers hope to patients tethered to a dialysis machine
April 29, 2013
Roy Gutman: Poland's new Jewish museum celebrates life, doesn't revisit Holocaust
Mark Clayton: Terrorism in America: Is US missing a chance to learn from failed plots?
Kim Murphy: Boston Bomber's 'Svengali' Revealed
Pete Spotts: Tiny satellites + cellphones = cheaper 'eyes in the sky' for NASA
April 26, 2013
Clifford D. May: Defense in the Age of Jihadist Terrorism
Sharon Palmer, R.D.: How to feel your best -- with plenty of energy, a healthy weight and optimal mental and physical function -- without driving yourself batty
April 24, 2013
|
| |
Jewish World Review
May 2, 2007
/ 14 Iyar, 5767
Tales from the school-choice wars
By
John Stossel
| 
|
|
|
|
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
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: Get Out the Shovel - Why Everything You Know Is Wrong" 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 G-d's grace, the teacher came back into the room and started screaming just before this little girl was violated.
"A little blond first-grade girl was going to a school on the far west side of San Antonio. Nine older boys sharpened pencils and ran in circles around her, stabbing her with these pencils. She was stabbed 39 times.
"One mom we talked to, her child was hiding in the closet, kicking and screaming, afraid to go to school. He'd just entered the sixth grade, just met the gang. She was crying when she called us and said, 'I can't send him back there where the gangs are after him, but what can I do?'"
Leininger gave her and the other desperate children "emergency scholarships."
Unfortunately, thousands more who would like to escape the government school monopoly cannot. Leininger hopes that some day all Texas kids will have the opportunities his scholarship recipients get.
For advocating vouchers that would allow that to happen, reporters called him "evil." The San Antonio Express News even characterized the school-choice debate as voucher advocates vs. "pro-education" candidates.
Voucher proponents are not pro-education? Give me a break.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
JUST OUT FROM STOSSEL
Myths, Lies and Downright Stupidity: Get Out the Shovel --- Why Everything You Know Is Wrong
Stossel mines his 20/20 segments for often engaging challenges to conventional wisdom, presenting a series of "myths" and then deploying an investigative journalism shovel to unearth "truth." This results in snappy debunkings of alarmism, witch-hunts, satanic ritual abuse prosecutions and marketing hokum like the irradiated-foods panic, homeopathic medicine and the notion that bottled water beats tap. Stossel's libertarian convictions make him particularly fond of exposes of government waste and regulatory fiascoes. Sales help fund JWR.
|
JWR contributor John Stossel is co-anchor of ABC News' "20/20." To comment, please click here.
Archives
© 2007, by JFS Productions, Inc.
Distributed by Creators Syndicate, Inc.
|
|

Arnold Ahlert
Mitch Albom
Jay Ambrose
Michael Barone
Barrywood
Lori Borgman
Stratfor Briefing
Mona Charen
Linda Chavez
Richard Z. Chesnoff
Ann Coulter
Greg Crosby
Larry Elder
Suzanne Fields
Christine Flowers
Frank J. Gaffney
Bernie Goldberg
Jonah Goldberg
Julia Gorin
Jonathan Gurwitz
Paul Greenberg
Argus Hamilton
Victor Davis Hanson
Betsy Hart
Ron Hart
Nat Hentoff
A. Barton Hinkle
Jeff Jacoby
Paul Johnson
Jack Kelly
Ch. Krauthammer
David Limbaugh
Kathryn Lopez
Rich Lowry
Michelle Malkin
Jackie Mason
Ann McFeatters
Dale McFeatters
Dana Milbank
Jeanne Moos
Dick Morris
Jim Mullen
Deroy Murdock
Judge A. Napolitano
Bill O'Reilly
Clarence Page
Kathleen Parker
Star Parker
Dennis Prager
Wesley Pruden
Tom Purcell
Sharon Randall
Robert Robb
Cokie & Steve Roberts
Heather Robinson
Debra J. Saunders
Martin Schram
Greg Schwem
Culture Shlock
David Shribman
Roger Simon
Lenore Skenazy
Michael Smerconish
Thomas Sowell
Ben Stein
Mark Steyn
John Stossel
Cal Thomas
Dan Thomasson
Bob Tyrrell
Diana West
Dave Weinbaum
George Will
Walter Williams
Byron York
ZeitGeist
Mort Zuckerman

Robert Arial
Chuck Asay
Baloo
Lisa Benson
Chip Bok
Dry Bones
John Branch
John Cole
J. D. Crowe
Matt Davies
John Deering
Brian Duffy
Everything's Relative
Mallard Fillmore
Glenn Foden
Jake Fuller
Bob Gorrel
Walt Handelsman
Joe Heller
David Hitch
Jerry Holbert
David Horsey
Lee Judge
Steve Kelley
Jeff Koterba
Dick Locher
Chan Lowe
Jimmy Margulies
Jack Ohman
Michael Ramirez
Rob Rogers
Drew Sheneman
Kevin Siers
Jeff Stahler
Scott Stantis
Danna Summers
Gary Varvel
Kirk Walters
Dan Wasserman

Tech Q&A
Mr. Know-It-All
Ask Doctor K
Richard Lederer
Frugal Living
On Nutrition
Bookmark These
Bruce Williams
|