The War on Choice

Well, don’t say I didn’t warn you. Comrade Ted has declared war on the Pro-Choice faction of Ohio – those who which to choose their children’s education. Appearing yesterday on Brian Wilson’s show, the governor decried the voucher program in general, and indicated that only the Cleveland program would survive his administration.

Comrade Ted has declared that they only “choice” you have is limited to selecting your school board. Don’t get me wrong, the school board choice is extremely important, and kudos to Maggie Thurber and Lisa Renee for their board project. But, even if you get every board member you want, the courts and state legislature take a large degree of control away from the local boards – mandating education of some theories (evolution for example) and forbidding the teaching of others. I suppose your choice doesn’t really extend to education after all, only the choice of the liberal elite matters.

Furthermore, why is Cleveland so special? Perhaps because a large, Democratic-voting block of minority parents receive vouchers – to send their children to private and parochial schools at government expense? As I recall, the Cleveland program was indicated as a “trial” program. Well, the trial’s run a while now, it’s time to end it, or expand it state-wide. It sounds like Comrade Ted has a problem with consistency.

For those of you about to suggest that the issue is “means-testing,” the Governor stated his opposition, quite clearly, to the use of “public dollars” in any private institution. I wonder, does the State of Ohio provide grants to any private institution – or is every state dollar spent by the state through governmental agencies. If not, what explains this inconsistency – perhaps the support of the teachers’ unions for Comrade Ted?

If this was really about reducing monies to the schools, let’s take a look at that. Reducing funding to the schools, according to Comrade Ted, will reduce the amount available to educate students. In other words, it would reduce the number of dollars per student. Unfortunately for Comrade Ted, that isn’t the case (perhaps he had the benefit of public school education). The voucher does not pay out more than a private or parochial school’s tuition – which is less than the amount appropriated for the same student in the public school system. Thus, while the total dollars are reduced, so is the student count – and effectively raising the funding per student to the public schools. If you doubt that private schools spend less, compare their tuition rates to the amount spent per student by TPS.

As a basic example to prove my theory – assume a hypothetical public school system of 10 students, and a total funding of $10,000 (numbers simplified to keep the math easier). The total spent per student is ($10,000 / 10 =) $1,000. Now, one local family wants to send their child to a local private school, with tuition of $500. The $500 is subtracted from the total budget, leaving $9,500, and the student is subtracted from the enrollment, leaving 9 students to educate. Now, the total spent per student is $1,055.56 ($950 / 9). Correct me if I’m wrong, but that is more than $1,000. Savings on the expense side would be even greater in a large school system, where teacher layoffs could divert funding to computers, new programs, and such. So, the “reducing the amount of money” argument doesn’t wash. Hmmm, could the teachers’ unions be behind this theory. Anyone, anyone?

Margaritas ante Porcos,
Right Wing Toledo