A bill has been introduced (AB 211) in the Legislature which would allow parents to send their kids to the school of their choice. Well, sort of. It would allow parents to send their kids to the PUBLIC school of their choice. Private schools are still not an option.
Now I know this will come as a shock to y’all, but the professional education establishment isn’t too keen on the bill. However, recognizing that support for true, universal school choice is growing, they don’t want to just come out and pooh-pooh the idea. Instead, they’re trotting out a non-issue “poison pill” to submarine it.
But first, take a look at exactly what the public school establishment-types have conceded in raising their straw man objection.
Mary Jo Parise-Malloy, of a here-to-fore unheard of (at least by me) education group, says, “If we’re going to have school choice, does that mean we’re going to have a bunch of people going to what they believe is a good school and leaving behind a bunch of empty schools?”
And according to the Las Vegas Review Journal, Nevada school superintendent Keith Rheault agrees, stating that schools seen as desirable, such as Green Valley High School in Clark County, would fill up quickly. “You can’t have 6,000 kids sign up for Green Valley,” Rheault said.
So what does this tell us? What conservatives already know and the education establishment continually tries to cover up; that a lot of our monopolized government-run schools suck eggs…and given a choice, parents would yank their children out of them and send them elsewhere in hopes of getting a better education.
Which brings us to the straw man.
The Clark County School District district’s lobbyist, has a problem even with offering parents school choice-lite within the government-run school monopoly. “If you don’t provide transportation, you don’t provide choice,” he says. Clark County school superintendent Walt Rulffes seconds that emotion.
What these guys are saying is that if a parent is allowed to choose to send their kids all the way across town instead of the neighborhood school in which they are zoned, then Nevada taxpayers have to pick up the cost of busing them there. And of course, the cost of a county-wide busing operation would be so humongous that these educrats KNOW the Legislature will never go for it. It’s a perfect budget-busting poison pill designed to kill any kind of school choice without appearing to kill school choice.
But this is a big-time BS objection. Choices come responsibilities. If a parent elects to send their child to a school across town it’s the PARENT’S responsibility to get him or her there, not the taxpayers. If a parent can’t figure out the transportation logistics, then their kid can just continue to go to their neighborhood school.
I’m one of six kids. At one point in time when we were growing up, the six of us were attending five different schools. Parental car pools were arranged. Public transportation was utilized. And dare I say it, on some days I actually WALKED to my high school, which was some seven miles away. And it was an uphill walk. Both ways! Through blinding snowstorms. And fighting Indians all along the way!
Seriously though. Using transportation as an excuse not to offer parents school choice is just that…an excuse. And there’s no excuse for it. Too many public schools stink. Parents know it. And it’s LONG past time for the professional education establishment to stop standing in the schoolhouse doors, refusing to set our kids free.
Posted on March 2nd, 2007 by Chuck Muth
Filed under: Nevada
tight black bitch