Kathleen
I’m really proud to see Chris Christie cracking down on the public teachers union in NJ, but I think he could take a page from Mitch Daniels’ book after seeing the latest piece of legislation the Indiana governor has helped bring to fruition….
The final components of Gov. Mitch Daniels’ education reform package – a massive new voucher program and charter school expansion – cleared the Indiana House on Wednesday and could be law within days with just the stroke of a pen.
Two other bills affecting Indiana education have already passed – one reducing collective bargaining rights for teachers and another tying teacher pay to student performance.
A state will a voucher structure in place will be a great boon for those in the fight for school choice. The evidence against the status quo is overwhelming, but the example of a statewide solution would really bring things home.
I applaud Governor Daniels and hope to see Chris Christie emulate him.
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Kathleen, a few years ago I went to a "school choice" seminar in San Antonio. The room was filled with Hispanic and black parents who are tired of having to force their children to go to public schools that fail them.
A new website, the Red Apple Project, has been started in Texas that shows not just the cost per student but the salaries of teachers and administration in almost every school district in Texas. It shows things like graduation rates, SAT rates, all things pertaining to a particular school district.
Websites like Red Apple allow taxpayers to know how effective their school district is in educating children. And the more the failures are exposed, the more people will start demanding accountability from teachers and administrators.
No one can explain to me why my school district spends an average of $8,900/yr per student but has a 74% graduation rate when the parochial school in the neighboring town has a fee of $240/month per student with a 97% high school graduation rate.
Christie broke that ground before everyone else. He cut state funding for any "women's care" facilities (about seven million dollars) out of his first budget and kept it out. That included funding for many Planned Parenthood facilities. It's stayed out despite many attempts by Democrats in the state House and Senate to restore it.
Just remember, every progressive institution that comes crashing down took decades of mostly small, weasel movements to grow into what they have become today. Reformed institutions will take huge amounts of efforts and rebuilding from the left to once again achieve this kind of mental saturation, that is, if the American people let them get back up again. If we do it right this time, there will be no need for further reform in the future. That DOMA map gave me hope that may just be possible. God bless America.
Mitch Daniel, hypocrisy, and two-tier justice.
"like many pot smokers who became politicians, Daniels, a potential contender for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination, seems to have two standards of justice: one for him and one for anyone else who does what he did."
"Currently in Indiana, the amount of pot Daniels had triggers a sentence of six months to three years."
Reason Magazine
"I think we need to prioritize our law enforcement efforts," she said. "If somebody's gonna smoke a joint in their house and not do anybody any harm, then perhaps there are other things our cops should be looking at to engage in and try to clean up some of the other problems we have in society." Sarah Palin
I suspect that Christie will have a more difficult time getting reform legislation passed than Daniels simply because I believe the NJ legislature is still predominantly Democrat. The modest reforms that Christie has been able to pass are likely a consequence of NJ's fiscal crisis.