Predictably, the moment someone from the other side starts presenting fact-based arguments against wanton cap-lifting, the same half of the Cheddarsphere goes crazy. Even I got hit with some of the mouth-foam, and I haven't even written about it yet.
The ad is produced by my union (putting the biases up front), the MTEA. You can listen it to it here; the newspaper's story from this morning is here; Seth's take is excellent.
Much of the right's consternation comes from the fact that someone is finally mounting a more public opposition campaign. "Th-th-they can't do that!" they sputter. "Consider their motives!" they say. Face it: Someone has to stand up for the public schools. Milwaukee's public servants--our elected representatives--are doing that, but they only get as much access to the court of public opinion as the papers let them have. The school district is in no position to spend money (what money?) to defend itself. Who else would do it?
Then, of course, there are those who don't want to accept the facts presented in the ad. Fraley:
The value of homes in Milwaukee are not decreasing due to School Choice. School Choice is not the cause of MPS' problems. Choice schools have accountability and their performance certainly can be no worse than MPS.Pawlak:
How can 15,000 kids going to private schools equal an *increase* in MPS clas size? [. . .] How is taking 15,000 children out of MPS causing a decrease in educational materials available to the remaining students?Somehow, they refuse to believe that sucking money out of the public schools could serve to increase class sizes, create shortages of supplies, and otherwise jeopardize schools' quality. Because yes MPS pays for these voucher students, these voucher students that state doesn't count as MPS's. They also don't consider that the higher taxes Milwaukee residents are paying because of the voucher program might also have something to do with declining property values.
And we had a long talk about accountability last week.
The new sound bite I'm trying out is simple: We Milwaukeeans are paying more for this voucher program that gives us less--less accountability, less for Milwaukee's children, less transparency.
I'd stop there--and I really should, since I've been trying to follow sensei Feldstein's rule--but I was invoked. I laughed through much of Peter's post there, and not only because I am watching "The Office" as I write this. He starts with a quote from this post of mine to "prove" that we want an end to the voucher program. I'm sure Peter's PI license is in the mail . . .
But here are the real laugh lines:
[T]he tax dollars that are being used belong to the taxpayer, not the government. [. . .] All this does is allow the parents to use the portion of their property taxes for education to choose their own children's education.
So, if I give the choice parents each their $1.15 back, will you finally let me start demanding accountability for my tax dollars? You know, as a taxpayer?
Also, there is accountability to the parents: bad Choice schools go out of business.
One, Peter. One school, according to the Public Policy Forum, has closed because parents abandoned it. Why didn't the parents close Northside? Or L.E.A.D.E.R.? Or Academic Solutions? Or Louis Tucker? If it were a true free market, DPI wouldn't have to do the closing.
Quick. Name any monopoly that provides a high quality product at low cost.
I don't have to. This is what we in the business call a straw man: Public schools are not a monopoly. You think private schools didn't exist before the voucher program? You think they won't after the voucher experiment comes to an end?
If the MTEA thinks its product is so exceptional, why do three out of 10 teachers send their children elsewhere?
If private school teachers think their product is so exceptional, why do seven out of 10 teachers send their children to public schools?
The overall MPS graduation rate is 36%, according to Jay Greene, a nationally recognized expert on graduation rates.
Okay, technically, that's Susan Greene's joke, but, I mean, c'mon . . . Jay Greene an "expert"?
In the end, for all of the foaming at the mouth, the right Cheddarsphere can't see past their own biases. They just can't possibly believe that the union has any reason to invest in this fight besides money. As Fraley put it, "for them it's all about jobs and the subsequent union dues." They don't get it. Not even the right ballpark. No one--not even the union people--go into public education for the money. The union provides more professional development to its members than management; the union developed the TEAM program that defeats all conservative stereotypes about "protecting bad teachers." It does nothing without considering the single most important factor in a child's education--the quality of the teacher.
No one, at least not on their side, seems to consider the motives of the Waltons and the Joyces, funding the pro-voucher movement to the tune of tens of millions.
Or consider me: I collect no union dues. It would take a lot of students' leaving MPS before I get laid off. I have no personal investment in this. All I know is what I see in my classroom, and I have seen students fresh out of their voucher schools. Not all of them work miracles, believe me. I've seen my department cut by more than a third as our enrollment inches upward. I've seen my tax bill (Peter hasn't, since he doesn't live in Milwaukee) to know that I'm getting ripped off by a program that requires zero--zero--performance measures to be collected or reported.
Yet and still, I have offered to compromise. Jim Doyle has offered to compromise. The elected officials who represent Milwaukee have offered to compromise. But their side--they want blood. This foaming over MTEA's ad is symptomatic of their desire to get their way, only their way, all the time, because that is their ideology. The Market is King. Compromise is Weakness.
And lost in their struggle to get their feet on our necks is the very real future of 100,000 children in Milwaukee.
No comments:
Post a Comment