Did You Miss The Celebration?

Those who are celebrating do not intend to represent our communities.

In the primary elections, big money from outside – called Dark Money – succeeded in blocking community interests. Take the future of our public schools for example. By positioning themselves for a win in the general election, they can put in place a plan to destroy our community schools, elected school boards, and the preservation of our highly successful education programs. Why would they do this? The main reason is access to the tax dollars we pay. They are working on many fronts to privatize public services like schools and prisons. They want a big chunk of our tax dollars for personal profit.

A second objective is ideological. A powerful but extreme minority believe that parents can create educational opportunities that better fit their children. These opportunities range from no schooling, to homeschooling, religious schooling, or private schools run for profit. These will be paid for with our tax dollars through schemes like ATM accounts where every kid (family) has access to say, $8,000 per child to spend anywhere in the free market. However, none will be accountable to any democratically elected representatives, standards, or course of study. The plan many in the legislature have in mind is to destroy existing, proven and effective public schools, and let the resulting chaos determine the future of our state and our nation. Their language is full of words like vouchers, scholarships, the marketplace, school choice, and conservative.

Is there any example of programs like these that have worked for children and America? None. Everywhere voucher programs have been tried they have failed. Failure of an ideological experiment may seem like the cost of trying something new, that is until you track the children and families disrupted and severely set back by obvious wrong thinking.

What will happen to our community and to community schools? All education programs – public and private – will starve as chaos reigns and scams abound to try to get children into programs where profiteers can benefit. The community resources that built our school buildings and facilities will be hijacked and sold to profiteers. There will be no security for teachers and administrators and soon, any warm body will be hired, at low wages, to “educate” children. Schools are being created that segregate or cherry pick students that they can profit from.

Due to the minority forces that control our legislature, and our so-called “Conservative Libertarian” political leaders, this is already happening. Look around. Our public schools have not failed, but they have been intentionally starved until what they can do for our children is limited. Students have been drawn away from public comprehensive schools by misinformation and school choice scams, many to be dropped on their heads and returned to the public schools unable to catch up with their peers. For years, tax dollars have been kept from the General Fund where they can be equitably distributed by our elected representatives, by allowing individuals to direct their taxes toward alternative sources.

The school choice experiment has failed to increase the effectiveness of education. Comprehensive charter schools are almost non-existent, and what has been created are partial schools that, in fact, deprive children of the foundations they must have to succeed. By every measure, school choice, vouchers, and ‘opportunity scholarships’ have failed to do anything but damage.

The people celebrating represent those who will destroy our community. They do not intend to represent us. Take a look at those they really represent – if you can find a trail through the dark. Who is funding Stringer? Why does Campbell suck up to those who do not represent our community’s children and America?

How does Peter Pierson intend to represent our needs and future? Why does he connect with republicans, independents, and democrats? Is he the only candidate that has not sold out?