Have you heard the outrageous story of what happened recently in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania’s capital? Gov. Josh Shapiro (D-Pa.), elected in 2022, had campaigned on school choice for tens of thousands of children, mostly minorities, who are forced to attend failing public schools in places like Philadelphia.
“It’s what I believe,” Shapiro, then state attorney general, assured voters as he ran for governor. Last month on a national Fox News broadcast, Shapiro was unequivocal in his support for school choice because “every child of God” deserves “a quality education.”
But there’s a force far more powerful in politics than Shapiro’s convictions, such as they are. And that force is the teachers unions. They put on a full-court press to stop the roughly 10,000 vouchers for the poorest kids in Pennsylvania’s worst school districts even though the state budget bill gave billions more for the public schools. It didn’t matter that this voucher program comprised less than 0.5% of state spending. The union brass commanded Democrats to vote no on even a single penny going to schools that work.
In the end, Shapiro did a full flip-flop. He vetoed his own promise. He might as well have declared that black lives don’t matter.
Shapiro has presidential ambitions – so he figures he needs the teachers unions behind him. But if he can’t face down Randi Weingarten, how is he ever going to stand up to bullies like China’s President Xi Jinping or Russia’s President Vladimir Putin?
This story isn’t just about Josh Shapiro in Pennsylvania. In North Carolina, Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper declared a state of emergency in the Tar Heel State because the legislature wanted to fund vouchers for kids to go to the best schools possible. Egads!
In Arizona, Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs wants to defund a school choice program that is already serving tens of thousands of kids, most of whom are Hispanic, with proven results of better performance and higher test scores. Why would she kill a program that is working? The teachers unions want the money and the kids under their control.
In New York City’s Harlem neighborhood, charter schools are flourishing. They are alternatives to public schools but are still regulated by the state. They are oversubscribed because parents want to choose the best school for their kids. Now, the Democrats want to put a cap on the charter schools because the teachers unions want to warehouse the kids in public schools where a majority of the kids can’t read or do math at grade-level proficiency. In other words, many of the public schools are worse than mediocre. And it’s not for lack of money. New York spends more than $20,000 per child in public schools.
Did I mention that in nearly every one of these cases across the country, the Democrats blocking private and Catholic school options went to private schools themselves? Or they send their kids to private schools. But poor black kids aren’t allowed that same opportunity? These are hypocrites with a capital H.
There’s a cruel historic irony here. Sixty years ago this summer, Alabama Gov. George Wallace stood before the doors of schools to prevent black children from attending the schools with white children. He was trying to preserve the stain of segregation.
Today, Democrats are employing the same tactic to keep minority kids from attending excellent schools. Why? They say that school choice will hurt public schools or cause more segregation.
Wrong on both counts. Monopolies are always bad for consumers and competition improves service. Education choice requires public schools to compete. Would you get good and friendly service if there were only one restaurant in town?
Instead of draining public schools of money, studies show that per-pupil funding rises when some kids take advantage of vouchers to attend alternative schools. Charter and Catholic schools tend to be, in most cases, more racially diverse than inner-city public schools.
I’m a parent of five boys, so I know that each of my kids has different skills, interests, behavior issues and attention spans. To warehouse them all in the same schoolroom is madness. Schools should be tailored toward the kids and serve their interests – not those of the $1 trillion a year public-school-industrial complex.
More importantly, as an economist, my biggest worry about America’s future is what happens when kids are graduating without being able to read their diplomas and with no useful skills. There are hundreds of schools around the country where not a single child can pass a basic math or reading test.
That’s an economic, civil rights and national security tragedy. Shame on Democratic leaders, and some Republicans, too, for putting their own political ambitions ahead of our nation’s children.
Stephen Moore is a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation and a co-founder of the Committee to Unleash Prosperity. His latest book is “Govzilla: How the Relentless Growth of Government Is Devouring Our Economy.”
Reprinted with Permission from CFIF.org – By Stephen Moore
Unions, one of the largest corruptions in America. Only good is for the top union leaders pockets and from the sweat of the workers!
It is a documented and filmed fact that during the 2019 Democrat primary the cold and cruel Joe Biden was challenged by then-senator Kamala Harris on his strongly held position and creeds on his anti-busing and the segregating of blaks and other minority groups from the public schools.Scrubbed and hidden by MSM and Biden accomplices is the (another) ugly fact that Biden is a longtime white supemacist, sinister racist, and associate member of the vile Ku Klux Klan hate group. Biden chose Harris as VP to shut her up about his racism and pro-segregation then spent the next few falsely installed years lying to the races to cover up his viciousness, in addition to pretending to be the blak person’s champion. Biden has done much racist work with ‘real segregationists’ and known racists (his words) such as Herman Talmadge, Strom Thurmond, James Eastland, Robert Byrd, J. William Fulbright and many other segregationists to promote and advocate racial segregation and delay votes on integrattion. Biden (and the Clinton woman) is also known to have eulogized the ded Democrat Senator Robert Byrd who was a KKK leader and ‘Exalted Cyclops’ in addition to being a KKK recruiter, with Biden consoling the Byrd family with remarks of Byrd being held in ‘incredible esteem’ during Byrd’s racist lifetime This is the REAL Joe Biden who has manipulated, deceived, lied to, and used covert tactics to fool the black/minority populations by altering the typical KKK methods of cruel racisms and employing more subtle means to fool them into his own version of plantation.
What liberals have done to public education is a crime. They protect teachers who “misbehaved” with their underage students by removing them from the classroom but not depriving them of their salary and benefits. That must stop.
They take care of their own, but don’t care at all about the product (high quality education) they’re paid to deliver. Every parent should have the right to choose the school that best fits the child’s needs. No public servant should have the right to make that decision for the parents.
The problems with schools can’t be blamed on teachers alone There is a student and the parent in the equation as well There is nothing a teacher can do with the classroom full of undisciplined rude and often aggressive kids not interested in learning Break down of the family has consequences and the family as such no longer exists
I was a teacher in a rural district with no union. I would never have joined one anyway, they are the devil’s tool. Read about the Freedom Foundation’s lawsuits against public employee unions; they’re making headway, slow but sure.
It is the dumbing down of America, one school district at a time.
The all powerful NEA union needs to be investigated. The Education dept needs to be scrapped and give the running of the schools and curriculum back to the states. Give the education standards and decision making back to the neighborhoods.
Will it happen? Of course not. the NEA needs the money and wants the power to control sloppy or any other dem president.
Education is what we are talking about. But we should substitute the word, money. Anyone see the rant the leaders of the NEA were exhibiting a couple of days ago. Not a word about education or the children. Power to the NEA was the message so we can control the White House was their mantra.
The Teachers Union is too powerful. Get your children out of the Public Schools.
and yet the blacks keep voting democrat, their lack of education shows because it’s been going on for decades.
I have long believed that we should deny unionization of any employees working for governmental agencies, including public schools. The elected hierarchy that oversees education cannot have the best interests of education in mind when unions pour so much money into political campaigns. Unions, by definition, represent workers. They do not represent the interests of parents or students or the quality of education. We need to get real about public education. At the current pace, parents who can afford private education for their children will pull their kids out of public schools. Then what chance will poor kids have?
The teachers unions are a fact of life, like sewage and cancer. All three will be around longer than we will. The only strong option is home schooling or a carefully selected private school. Just because a given school is christian or catholic doesnt mean its conservative. It is reasonable to spend some of the kids inheritance to get gkids away from the teachers unions. Many boomers are sitting on a pile that will be turned into new cars and bigger houses, by their kids after they pass. Isnt it a better use of funds to deny the commies your gkids mind and soul?
“Shame on Democratic leaders…?
If Democrats were capable of shame, they wouldn’t be Democrats.
Is there any way we can throw all the Democrats off the earth?
A speech I can never forget. One, among many, that could very well sum up the disintegration of our once Constitutional Republic. During George Bush Srs. presidential speech he said these words, burned into my memory: “We must usher in the New World Order.” Schools have been systematically dumbed down over the years. Our true history, it’s amazing Founding Documents are MIA in schools, the “criminal justice system” has been deliberately and with malice dumbed down to a sick joke, In the last 2-3 years multiple thousands of once productive farm land have been taken out of production;
The attacks on our oil and gas production; anwer? get an electric car that can explode and burn your house down. A news story on TV this evening of a woman who had a Mercedes loaner while her car was in the shop: the car, turned off, not plugged in exploded, caught fire and ultimately destroyed their home. A non-existent southern border, a ‘president’ incompetent to utter a coherent sentence, increasing little difference between democrats and republicans with precious few exceptions. Covid…one of the “greatest” population control devices ever, shutting down thousands of businesses, everyday items priced out of sight, crime out of control…and curious how “mass/random/shootings have become almost a daily occurrence, hostility growing towards Christianity. Over 60 million unborn American citizens never saw the light of day, corporations taking over medical facilities, CDC now considered a “government entity”…our own once local hospital is now a conglomerate with prices out of sight, and for extensive surgeries? stay one night and go home. I was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 1981. Surgery and 7 days before release. The cost was about $7000/and change. Recent surgery: over $91,000 and out the next morning. Who can forget Cuomo putting covid positive patients in nursing homes?? About 15,000 gramma’s and grandpa’s died…was Cuomo prosecuted? Or the differing “sources” of covid. Of course not. It isn’t just happening here, it’s happening in other nations as well…but of course carefully omitted by the bought and paid for propaganda laughingly called “media”. If one looks around a pays attention to what’s being said on the nightly “news” in papers, on the computer etc. one needs to pay attention.
Maybe some remember George Bush Srs. presidential acceptance speech; “We must usher in the New World Order.”…burned into my memory. Our Constitutional Republic must be destroyed, the big push in our faces for the last year or so? More gun laws…end game: disarm the peasants…an old saying: “Dictators, absolute rulers from the dawn of time are sensitive to arms in the hands of the people.: Author unknown,
How are the Democrats going to keep black communities on the poverty plantation. There’s nothing more threading to the Democrats than a well educated black person.Democratic politicians live off the poverty industry, they get money for their districts for education and public housing. None of that money makes into those communities educational systems. Black communities have been electing black politicians for decades, yet the standard of living never improves for these communities.
This information needs to get to every black and Hispanic family in the country. They need to understand that the democratic machine doesn’t care for them. There also has to be millions of moderate democrats that are also ignorant of what the radicals are trying to turn this country into a socialist/Marxist country. If socialism is so good, why are millions fleeing those countries to come to the U.S?
Swamp rats will always be Dem-o-rats crawling and scurrying around, lying here, lying there!!! Stealing elections, lying to get into office to make money for themselves and family members! How in the He!! can anyone with an IQ above 60 believe these Cretins?!?!
democrat hate choice. they do not want you to have a choice on schools, cars, medical care, or pretty much anything else in your life. Accept abortion. they want choice on abortion
Democrats are disgusting subhumans.
Even if you hate every republican you have to vote republican because the democrats are worse.
The Teachers Union does not care about children, period end. They are only interested in power. They will never agree with school choice because they know parents are tired of their children being left in failing schools and they would take advantage of the new found freedom for their children. The Unions would be left with no power to control the parents. Gov. Shapiro should be pressed by those who voted for him to explain his broken promise to those who help put him in office.
When I was in school, no person whose salary was paid from tax dollars was allowed to join a union. It was a sad and dark day when that law changed. Today, education is too expensive and fails to teach the children anything useful in life. Since the beginning of the unconstitutional federal Department of Education, most of the money provided for schools is spent on unnecessary levels of middle management and union bosses and NEVER gets to the teacher or classroom. Most teachers have to provide materials out of their own pockets. All school children should have a voucher to attend whatever school they and the parents choose. If schools are forced to compete for every student, then they will have to be better teachers to stay employed and to keep their school open. If the majority of the students are not performing at grade level on tests, then the teacher should find another line of work and/or the school should close.
When will Americans come to the realization that Democrats do not care about their children, the lives, or how dysfunctional the party have become just as long as the idiots keep them in power. That’s how they perceived their constituents, mindless individuals.
Teacher’s unions are the bane of education and should be blown up. They are also slimy political scum. One union donating 55 frigging million dollars to the Democrats? Laws should limit the amounts a union can donate because it is the members’ money.
I survived one school year as a teacher with a classroom stuffed to the gills with children.
That is what unions want when compensation is based on a formula of days of instruction and the ratio of children per classroom.
I have a brother who ran for school board because he wanted to introduce merit based pay. He could not even be elected.
We need to base pay on performance.
Those who held out for more days of closed schools because of infectious disease or any other excuse showed their true colors.
NEA actually stands for Never Educate Anyone…
Essentially the teacher’s unions and the demoncrats believe that the children exist for the benefit of the so-called teachers and not the other way around.
I mean no offense to teachers teaching, but the teachers union is too controlling on how money is directed to be spent. I am speaking from the viewpoint of one who was a teacher in New York, who left the system of being a teacher because I wasn’t allowed to teach my students to learn but was forced to hold back students from progressing because “funding” would be cut if the numbers of students decreased. The unions don’t want teachers teaching they only wish for teachers to be paid for X amount of hours over 180 days period, plus they have designated X amount of hours per day to prep into the daily schedule as if teaching students to learn is a factory system of likeness earning. The union decides what textbooks are brought, and what curriculum is used per subject and all the teachers have to do is parrot speak the presentation and not worry about if all the students actually understand the subject matter. And now they want to include remote learning as a standard completely removing the teacher’s involvement with the students learning. We might as well homeschool our children since the teachers aren’t teaching our children but want raises in pay.
It’s none of their excuses. They can’t afford to have an educated populace that has been taught how to reason.
This is what the dems do, they talk the talk but then turn around and do what is best for the unions. There is no genuine concern for the citizens they represent.
Excellent article! Thank you!
Like all unions the teachers union has gained to much power and they need to be taken back down to what they were really ment to do or be eliminated al together Their goal is to make sure that all children get a good education and they have now taken that opportunity away from them.That is a crime and the parents of these children need to rise up and be heard.As far as i am concerned their act was criminal.
NYC is 38000 per student the average in NYS is 25000. Charter schools are less than half those figures. Talked to a charter school teacher a few years ago and she said she loved working there. Way better than public schools. Her salary was lower though, but she wasn’t going anywhere.
How on earth do these Democrats keep getting into power. Why do people keep choosing Democrats to lead them. There must be some communal psychosis gripping America that has them making the worst choices for themselves. Is it really human nature involved in a peoples making these bad choices? Living in America today is like a chapter out of Dick Tracy’s BIZZARO WORLD.
Stephen Moore is the best!
I’d like to know where exactly. In this article it says anything about Democrats throwing kids off the buses. That was what I was looking for in this article and yet I do not see it.
Public school education will remain poor and most of those who do attend through the 12th grade will still be undereducated. I’ve been saying for years that what is needed to get our public education back on track is to shut down the American Federation of Teachers, the National “Education” Association, all other state-based teachers unions and the Federal Department of “Education”.
I think the private and Catholic school industry are in danger. Its just a matter of time before the unions demand that they be shut down. And we know that a nuclear bomb cannot stop a well-organized pack of marxists.
I would believe almost any evil and underhanded practice endorsed by the Dumbocrat party!!!!
Well so much for the Montessori school of thought of “engage the child with his / her own abilities” and not children should be seen and not heard or acknowledged.
Democrat voters are the most brain washed and un informed in my area.
Pennsylvania elections are still broken and fraudulent due to the low T Republicans. More proof is coming out and nothing is being done.
If you live in a small community, you do not have to worry about funding private schools. These cities usually have one grade school & one high school & that is all the choices needed to educate our children.
Why, in 2023, are ANY parents still sending their kids to public schools instead of home schooling or sending them to private schools? Public schools are like sending your kid to learn to swim with a 50 pound lead weight strapped to their back.
They fear the potential success of the program because they know there is the possibility that eventually people will realize their union services are no longer needed. Then we could have teachers that want to teach instead of following the union chiefs with their own political agendas. We are supposed to help the less fortunate, I wish more people remembered that. All kids need a chance, if there is a better alternative out there give it to them, It’s good investment and its cheap…
If the author would listen to Sam Sorbo he would yank those five boys out of public ‘ indoctrination’ and hone school them. The unions do not want to lose their captured indoctrination victims, A real educator wants to help a child learn. School choice should be a huge priority in every state. We are fighting in Texas to get school choice with fierce opposition and political chicanery.
When I lived in MA, the one year there was a proposal on the ballot for 1- making sure all the chickens were free range/organic. 2 Increase the Charter schools in the state. The chickens won. I will leave it right there.
Joe Biden finally is able to stop schools from becoming “racial jungles” after all! Go YouTube that (and many other) MSM-labeled “gaffs”. You say just one thing not PC these days and you’re OUT but Joe has decades worth and he gets an office with 20 LLC shell companies to launder foreign money!
The teachers union has long-since been corrupt and polluted, headed by former American Federation of Teachers (AFT) Randi Weingarten who has been also exposed as a paid-and-stamped George Soros sock puppet. Being that both societal lowlies are sneakily anti-blak/minority, a fact unbeknownst to most, the Weingarten woman was in a very strong position to manipulate and deceive with the Soros character backing her every sinister move.