Leftist opposition to school choice in Utah

In today's political taxonomy, "progressives" are rebranded liberals dodging the damage they did to their old label. Perhaps their most injurious idea - injurious to themselves and public schools - was the forced busing of (mostly other people's) children to engineer "racial balance" in public schools. Soon, liberals will need a third label if people notice what "progressives" are up to in Utah. There, teachers unions, whose idea of progress is preservation of the status quo, are waging an expensive and meretricious campaign to overturn the right of parents to choose among competing schools, public and private, for the best education for their children.

Utahans next week will decide by referendum whether to retain or jettison the nation's broadest school-choice program. Passed last February, the Parent Choice in Education Act would make a voucher available to any public-school child who transfers to a private school, and to current private-school children from low-income families. Opponents of school choice reflexively rushed to force a referendum on the new law, which is suspended pending the vote.

The vouchers would vary in value from $500 to $3,000, depending on household income. The teachers unions' usual argument against school-choice programs is that they drain money from public education. But the vouchers are funded by general revenues, not the two sources of public-school funds. Every Utah voucher increases funds available for public education. Here's how: Utah spends more than $7,500 per public-school pupil ($3,000 more than the average private-school tuition). The average voucher will be for less than $2,000. So every voucher used will save Utah taxpayers an average of $5,500. Because the vouchers are paid from general revenues, the departed pupil's $7,500 stays in the public-school system

Booming Utah has about 540,000 public-school pupils and the nation's largest class sizes - and expects to have at least 150,000 more than that a decade from now. By empowering parents to choose private alternatives, the voucher program will save Utah taxpayers millions of dollars in school-construction expenses.

School-choice opponents argue that it'll produce less racially and socially diverse schools. But because students are assigned to public schools based on where they live, and because residential patterns reflect income, most of Utah's public schools are either mostly wealthy and white or mostly nonwealthy and nonwhite. Utah's Office of Education reports that the state's private schools - operating one-third below full enrollment - have a higher percentage of nonwhites than do public schools.

The voucher program will enable demand for private schools to match the supply. A privately funded scholarship program, Children First Utah, for low-income pupils can support only 15 percent of applicants. Although most of the total value of the new vouchers will go to low-income families, the program amounts to a reduced government subsidy for such families - at most $3,000 rather than more than $7,500 per pupil.

By September the National Education Association, the megalobbyist for the public-education near-monopoly, had already spent $1.5 million to support repeal of the voucher program. The Wall Street Journal reports that the NEA has approved expenditures of up to $3 million. Teachers unions in Maine, Colorado, Arizona and Wyoming had also contributed to the fight against choice.

Intellectually bankrupt but flush with cash, the teachers unions continue to push their threadbare arguments, undeterred by the fact that Utah's vouchers will increase per-pupil spending and will lower class sizes in public schools. Why the perverse perseverance? Two large, banal reasons: fear of competition and desire for the maximum number of dues-paying public-school teachers.

Although among the reddest of states, Utah is among the most supportive states regarding public education: It has the fifth-highest proportion of K-12 students in public schools. Nevertheless, on Tuesday Utah voters can strike a blow against the idea that education should remain the most important sector of American life shielded from the improving force of competition. What will defenders of that idea - former liberals, now known as progressives - call themselves next? Surely not "pro-choice."

Source





Middle school cancels "gender-switch" day after parents object

A Bay Area Middle School has canceled a scheduled cross-dressing or "gender-switch" day after parents complained, according to an Oct. 30 Pacific Justice Institute news release. The Sacramento-based institute is a legal organization that defends parental rights, religious freedom, and other civil liberties. Adams Middle School in Brentwood encouraged students to cross-dress - boys wearing girls clothing, girls wearing boys' clothing - on the last day of "Spirit Week," Friday, Nov. 2. Parents were given little notice of the event, said the Pacific Justice Institute, and only found out about it after flyers were posted at the school.

A parent of a seventh-grader met with the principal, Adam Clark, to voice her concerns about the event, and was told that it would go ahead as planned. Clark told the parent she could keep her son home if he did not want to be part of the event. The parent contacted Pacific Justice Institute, which told her she needed to enlist other parents to contact the school with their concerns. The Institute itself prepared to intervene, if necessary.

On Oct. 30, the school removed the flyers advertising the event and confirmed it had been canceled. Instead, the school encourages students to wear school colors. Clark told Institute attorney Matthew McReynolds, "We want to encourage our students to be free thinkers, [but] we felt that the overall message wasn't coming across clear to some members of the community."

Encouraging student cross-dressing to invite "free thinking" is not unique to Adams Middle School. A 2002 article by the Culture and Family Institute of Concerned Women for America reported how the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) encourages cross-dressing through a curriculum developed for Kindergarten through third grade.

The curriculum guide, produced by the Lesbian and Gay Parents Association and the Buena Vista Lesbian and Gay Parents group in San Francisco, Preventing Prejudice: Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transgender Lesson Plan Guide for Elementary Schools, features a book, Jesse's Dream Skirt, by Bruce Mark, about a boy who enjoys wearing his mother's dresses and wants a skirt for himself. The lesson plan accompanying the book says the book's key message is "respect means keeping our minds open. Having open minds means giving people freedom to be who they want to be."

The GLSEN web site still offers the plan as a resource. According to the Network, "Preventing Prejudice is an instructional tool for educators at the K-5 level. It consists of sixteen field-tested lesson plans developed by elementary school teachers, including such topics as: What is a Boy/Girl?; What Makes a Family?; Freedom to Marry; and Coming Out."

The Brentwood School District's web site offers an "East Contra Costa Quick Resource Guide," which lists under "Gay and Lesbian," the Gay and Lesbian National Hotline, the Empowerment Program (which helps women in "disadvantaged positions"), and Rainbow Community Center of Contra Costa County. The center, according to its web site, "envisions a society that embraces acceptance, safety and equality for all, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity/expression."

Source





Grammar schools by another name?

The British Labour party has always done its best to abolish Grammar (selective) schools on the grounds of "elitism" but have now rediscovered the virtues of selectivity. Now they are trying to plant a mini-grammar-school within each "comprehensive" school! But the Grammar schools provided a total environment very much like a private school and that is sadly missing in a rowdy and dangerous comprehensive school. So the new approach is still second-rate

England's million brightest pupils will be targeted by a new champion for gifted and talented children, under plans to ensure that the most able youngsters make it to university regardless of their social background. The first priority for John Stannard, a former director of the National Literacy Strategy, will be to target the 300 secondary schools that up until now have refused to take part in the government's gifted and talented (G&T) programme - often because of ideological opposition to selection.

Mr Stannard's appointment, made under the personal direction of Gordon Brown, is part of a drive to extend massively the reach of the G&T programme by raising the proportion of children selected in each school from 5 to about 10 per cent.

The move reflects government disappointment at progress in the scheme, set up in 1999 amid concerns that middle-class parents were abandoning the state sector for private schools because comprehensives were failing to nurture the most able.

Latest figures show that a significant minority of schools - 9 per cent of secondaries and 35 per cent of primaries - have still failed to identify any G&T children, leaving the number benefiting from the extra tuition offered under the programme stuck at 733,000. The Prime Minister is determined that all schools should take part to bring students numbers up to one million of Britain's eight million state school population.

Mr Stannard told The Times that his appointment should send out an important message that state schools would make every effort to cater for the needs of the brightest pupils. "There is a purpose in reassuring middle-class parents that goes beyond the intrinsic value of doing so. "If you keep depleting the state sector of the more able students then that depletes the sector right across the board. It means that schools that do well have a much greater struggle to do so. With a wider range of pupils, you have a greater pool of ability for raising aspirations," he said.

Mr Stannard is keen to ensure that bright pupils from socially disadvantaged backgrounds benefit from the programme. Previous research has suggested that most participants come from better-off families who can afford fees and fares to the extra tuition offered under the programme. He also wants to ensure that those who may be regarded by teachers as underachievers or even troublemakers are picked up by the scheme.

Current government criteria for identifying G&T children states that they may "not necessarily be well behaved", that they may "be bored by routine tasks" and may "appear arrogant or socially inept". "Kids who are very bored can be very stroppy because they do not have enough to do and they are not catered for by their school. They may not be recognised as gifted, particularly in areas of social disadvantage," he said.

The criteria for identifying children for the programme will include teacher assessments and diagnostic tests as well as national Key Stage tests that children sit at the ages of 7, 11 and 14. The scheme applies to children who are academically gifted or who have a talent in the arts or sport. The scheme will apply to children as young as 4. They will qualify for summer schools at universities, as well as extra online tuition, Saturday morning masterclasses and activities with bright children from other schools.

Lord Adonis, the Schools Secretary, emphasised that there was no hard and fast criteria for identifying G&T children and said that it would be left to individual schools to decide precisely how many children to identify. However, he said that secondary schools should pay particular attention to the Key Stage 2 results attained by children in the last year of primary school. He denied that this would put extra pressure on primary school children, effectively making tests at primary school a university entrance exam. "It is vital we do more to support able pupils in state schools, particularly those schools which currently have low numbers going to university," he said.

Source