I'm right there with you about it being A-OK for politicians to ignore homeschoolers.
For such a tiny alternative education choice minority, we get far too much attention from them (and the media, for that matter). We'll take care of our backyard and home(schooling), and they can continue to use our tax money to fix up theirs a bit.
"He believes parents should be able to move their children and the money associated with them away from failing schools."
I wonder how many pieces of legislation he has introduced to this effect in his 22 years in the Senate.
That's an interesting question, Eric. I'll have to check and see.
An editorial in this week's Wall Street Journal by Clint Bolick provides some insight into a Democrat constiuency that McCain may be trying to tap into,
"A new poll shows that 82% of Hispanics consider education as one of three most important issues facing this country. The survey also shows that, even while Hispanics trust Democrats over Republicans on education by more than a two-to-one margin, that ratio could change if Republicans heavily promote school choice while Democrats oppose it...
Sen. Obama will count heavily on teachers' unions for support. The unions, though, have nowhere else to go. Hispanics do. If Mr. Obama opposes school choice, he will cede to his opponent a huge opportunity to make inroads among Hispanic voters -- if Sen. McCain seizes it."
It looks like that is exactly what McCain is trying to do.
http://online.wsj.com/article/
SB...=googlenews_wsj
A look at the OnTheIssues website turned up showed several proposals co-sponsored by McCain on education:
McCain co-sponsored the Education A-Plus bill in 1997 (which Clinton vetoed) and again in 1999, to allow parents to open tax-free savings accounts for their children’s educational expenses - including tutoring, computers, and tuition.
McCain co-sponsored the Education A-Plus bill in 1997 (which Clinton vetoed) and again in 1999, to allow parents to open tax-free savings accounts for their children’s educational expenses - including tutoring, computers, and tuition.
More info and voting record on education is here,
http://www.ontheissues.org/2008/
...n_Education.htm
This website has been an excellent source of info for me.
Obama opposes school choice, because that will siphon money and resources away from schools that need it. But that obviously wasn't a concern when he chose an elite school for his young daughters.
I call Bull****! He did NOT use a voucher to send his kids to the private University school. He used his own money. How exactly did that siphon money and resources from the public schools. Surely you're not suggesting that parents should not have the option of spending their own money to send their kids to, say, a Christian school.
The term for this is partisan hackery.
But he is still taking money away from the public schools because his kids aren't there for head count day. Per pupil funding in a school is based on headcount.
No partisan hackery here. I'd say the same thing about any politician who refuses to allow a parent to take their money and run out of a failing school.
Here's the financial reality according to a Chicago school official
"For every 1 percent we increase attendance, that means an additional $18 million in revenue that comes to Chicago Public Schools from the state,"
I don't know what that works out to, but In Detroit the absence of two kids would be close to $24,000. So he is definitely siphoning off funds.
Interstingly, the article I got that stat from talks about Jesse Jackson being in Chicago to encourage African-American fathers to get their kids in school. From the article,
"Fifty years ago, nine African-American students had to face down a mob just to go to high school in Little Rock, Ark. Jackson said earlier that now, guns, drugs and inadequate funding are undermining the dream of success for many young black people."
Inadequate funding perhaps because elite African Americans like Michelle and Barack don't enroll their kids and siphon money away from the schools.
BTW, thanks for keeping the blog family friendly. The edit feature still isn't working on Haloscan and I'd hate to delete your comment which was so helpful in establishing the hypocrisy of the liberal elite.
Oops forgot the link
http://cbs2chicago.com/
topstorie...s.2.339657.html
And making vouchers available wouldn't?
Hackery squared.
I guess all of the childless couples in Chicago are siphoning funds from the schools by remaining childless. As are all of the home educators.
Not sending your kids to school doesn't siphon anything. Taking tax dollars and giving them to private schools or home schoolers would. That's how vouchers work. And that's one argument against them.
I doubt you can find ANYWHERE a Democrat who has ever said that private schools should be banned because they "siphon money from the schools."
I should also add that while Obama doesn't get a voucher, he may get a break on tuition because Michelle works for the University of Chicago and their daughters are enrolled in the U of C Lab school. Not grudging them a perk of the job and obviously this isn't a voucher, but as wealthy parents they still might be getting some sort break on their tuition.
The Obama's children would normally atttend the Hype Park-Kenwood schools. Which appears to have a per-pupil funding at the elementary level of a little over $9,000 for instructional expenditures but that doesn't include operational expenditures which are also a factor in how much the district would receive.
I'm simply remarking that Obama has a hypocrisy issue. Perhaps siphoning may not be the best choice of words, but there is a revenue stream that flows from the state treasury to local districts based on head count. If Obama's daughters attended the local public school the schools revenues increase, when they're not there it decreases. It may not be the pure definition of siphoning, but his daughters absence is costing the local school district in revenue. Why because he can afford to send his children to an elite school. Doesn't sound like a man of change to men, but a liberal elitist who wants the best for his daughters and the expense of his neighborhood school.
Asking me to find a Democrat that wants to ban private schools is not the issue. The fact of the matter is, when the state through taxation (both D and R are guilty here) takes a parents wages to pay for community schools there is less money in the parents wallet available for a private school option. That's basic economics. Unless you're wealthy like the Obamas who can afford it anyway. Not an outright ban on private schools (politically a bad move), but enough of a deterent that most parents, even the wealthy, choose the free option over a tuition based school.
But out of curiousity, I did do a quick google search and found this exchange between two Democrats in Colorado,
"Rep. Mike Merrifield (D - El Paso County) to Sen. Sue Windels (D - Arvada) in which he states, "There must be a special place in Hell for these Privatizers, Charerizers, [sic] and Voucherizers! They deserve it!"
http://facethestate.com/node/78
That's burning these schools at the stake and banning them for all eternity!
According to another news story, the democrat made no apologies for the comment saying that charter schools are stripping away scarce resources from pubic schools.
http://
www.rockymountainnews.com...5452414,00.html
I don't think homeschooling is on Obama's radar at this point. He's too busy making plans to rid the world of nuclear weapons, teach us all Spanish, and stamp his foot when anyone dares to critique his wife's speeches...oh! and this little gem from "The American Thinker": an article by Thomas Lifson that quotes Obama saying he wants to rid us of dependency on our military and fund a stronger "civilian national security force".
I don't usually get scared of politicians...but I'm scared of this one.
""There must be a special place in Hell for these Privatizers, Charerizers, [sic] and Voucherizers! They deserve it!"
I guess not all of the Dems can follow the talking points all of the time.
Partisan hackery exposed?
Good point, Spunk. And good additions in the comments.
Blessings from Ohio...
AMEN AMEN!
Thank you for all of the links.
Homeschool parents criticizing any American family's private education choices can cost homeschooling itself much more than whatever cheap political points it may score in the heat of the moment, by undercutting the one thing all homeschoolers should be clear and clearly united on for the long term -- every family's right and responsibility to private educational decision-making for their own children.
And if that criticism goes as far as Spunky does here, to defend the claim that taxpaying parents do cheat the public education system of rightful funding by not enrolling their own children in public schools, well, maybe politics has cost homeschooling too much already and our arguments are about bankrupt.
I'm not sure I'm understanding your point JJ.
Which part isn't clear, that homeschool freedom balances on the point of every family's private right and responsibilty to decide among educational options for their own children, without public interest interfering, or that school tax revenues in a given year are exactly the same no matter who is or isn't enrolled in public school?
This part,
"And if that criticism goes as far as Spunky does here, to defend the claim that taxpaying parents do cheat the public education system of rightful funding by not enrolling their own children in public schools, well, maybe politics has cost homeschooling too much already and our arguments are about bankrupt."
I was a school district finance officer for awhile, among many public administrative roles. (I wish I didn't know quite as much as I do about about school funding.) It is a politically expedient truism, an untrue and cheap attack on homeschooling, a teacher union line, to say that every child not enrolled costs the schools money. So why would you want to give it any credence in any way? Surely the larger concern for defending all homeschooling is more important than taking another swipe at the Obama family's parenting?
Got it. This wasn't a post at the Obama's parenting, but his opposition to school choice. He's the one who made the argument that school choice takes money from the public schools. I was merely pointing the hypocrisy of how his own personal life choice does that exactly that. He's free to put his kids anywhere he wants, but HE is the one who should not then complain when the schools are underfunded. As the numbers show, his daughters enrollment in public school nets their local school close to $20,000. More if you add in the operational costs that are allocated per child.
No, Spunky, you haven't "got it" if you still maintain that it costs the schools for a child to NOT be enrolled. That was the whole point. The state education budget is set before taxes are levied.
The actual students who show up in whatever numbers throughout the school year at any given school, don't change that. The tax money comes into the state coffers for public education based on various assumptions and estimates, and not a dime goes back to the taxpayers, no matter what choice the Obamas or anyone else might make for the best interest of their own kids.
JJ,
See the link above from the Chicago school official. He and the other education officials were making sure that attendance was high at school. Why? In his own words,
""For every 1 percent we increase attendance, that means an additional $18 million in revenue that comes to Chicago Public Schools from the state,"
When Obama's kids aren't there, they are part of that revenue that no longer will go to the school.
I've heard that argument before and debunked it before, haven't we all? 
When they complain about the local school funding, their issue rightfully is with the STATE, not with our children and how we choose to educate them. The dollars are there. We all as taxpayers paid them in for public education in that state, and that's what they will spent on. So we can't let them get away with this shapeshifting argument, much less help them make it,as if our kids were their little cost centers to move around.
As I understand it, State education tax dollars are funded not by enrollment but Federal money is. Right?
To that end, why is it so hard to find out where my education tax money goes in schools whether my child attends or not?
http://tinyurl.com/5ly9gm
CT Citizens Audit Committee Gets Results
http://tinyurl.com/5juo2q
Allowing school district credit card abuse to continue accrues to no one's credit.
http://online.wsj.com/article/
SB...ew_and_outlooks
Mr. Obama told an interviewer recently that he opposes school choice because, "although it might benefit some kids at the top, what you're going to do is leave a lot of kids at the bottom." The Illinois Senator has it exactly backward. Those at the top don't need voucher programs and they already exercise school choice. They can afford exclusive private schools, or they can afford to live in a neighborhood with decent public schools. The point of providing educational options is to extend this freedom to the "kids at the bottom."
A visitor to Mr. Obama's Web site finds plenty of information about his plans to fix public education in this country. Everyone knows this is a long, hard slog, but Mr. Obama and his wife aren't waiting. Their daughters attend the private University of Chicago Laboratory Schools, where annual tuition ranges from $15,528 for kindergarten to $20,445 for high school.
Only if he meant "top" and "bottom" measured solely by family wealth and ability to pay.
But in education discussion the usual meaning would be academic top and bottom, not socioeconomic. And although academic aptitude and achievement is shown in large studies to be statistically correlated with family/neighborhood income and class (i.e. their ability to pay more for schooling) it doesn't protect individual children with the ability to achieve but not to pay, from being trapped in public school ghettos among the economic AND academic bottom.
John McCain is live on CNN right now, in my own swing state, speaking to the National Urban League. He is saying that public school principals need more discretion in spending, which will reform public education. Then he criticizes "his opponent" for not signing onto the Education Equality Project (cochaired by Al Sharpton and Joel Klein.)
Nothin' political about that, nope, nope. 
Commenting by HaloScan
