Democrats Don't Like Competition
Democrats/liberals in the Tennessee House of Representatives just plain don't like educational innovation and competition:The real reason that Democrats (the party of the Tennessee Education Association) are so opposed to legislation like this is that it creates another avenue for homeschoolers and for children in small private schools to get all of the educational requirements that they need under State law to receive a diploma without the educational plan that has been set out for them by their families (remember, the people who raise the children in question) being disrupted. The bill would allow for local education authorities to charge tuition for any non-public school student who chooses to enroll in virtual classes through the local school district, so these low-cost virtual classes could be, as Rep. David Hawk (R-Greeneville) ably put it, a revenue stream for local schools which has not heretofore been utilized. The reaction of many Democrats to this kind of educational innovation shows what the fight for education reform in Tennessee is really all about. Those who are fighting so hard against any real change to our State's educational structure do not want to introduce competition to the government school monopoly-they hate educational choice, despise homeschoolers, and believe that throwing money at public schools is the only way to improve them (and mind you, no one with awareness of our educational difficulties is arguing that public schools couldn't use more investment in our State). Nevermind the idea, of course, that a little competition injected into public schools might force some real improvements to the system.
Labels: Conservatism, Democrats, Local politics, Republican Party, Tennessee politics
posted by Deacon David Oatney @ 3:11 PM
1 Comments:
This arrangement already exists between some public schools - public school students taking courses remotely from other public schools when it is not offered on their campus. These representatives apparently don't even know what is currently happening in their schools.
As usual, all that care "for the children" seems to go out the window with the Dems every time any kind of suggestion is made that non-public students take advantage of any portion of the public services THEY ALREADY PAY FOR. What part of "the BEP money comes from the taxpayers" do they not understand? I wish Rep. Stewart would apply his "common sense prohibition" for non-public school students all the way to include their tax dollars that are paid for the public system that they do not use. I would love to have the 51% of my local taxes and 45% of state taxes currently used for public K-12 schools returned to use for my children's education. Stewart somehow sees it as a threat for these folks to pay additional money to take one or two classes. I guess he doesn't realize that they could just enroll and he would have to come up with another $7-12k per year per student. They better get competitive because the reality is, most of these non-public students can go to a college for dual credit on these courses - something the public school cannot offer.
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