Fraters Libertas

We Don't Need No Education

Craig Westover spoke truth to power last night in St. Paul. And was politely ignored.

He has a rather brilliant proposal for allowing lower income citizens greater access to K-12 education options. He calls it the Universal Tuition Tax Credit. The education establishment dismisses it as a "voucher scheme." That is, when they even have to acknowledge its existence in the first place.

Last night in St. Paul, MPR held a forum with the superintendents of schools for Minneapolis and St. Paul and the State Education Commissioner to talk about what they refer to as "Minnesota's education achievement gap". According to Westover, the results were "painful":

"Institutional racism" was a frequently flayed whipping boy. So was the more relevant lack of opportunity for children of color, which could be solved by providing more funding for public education, not "voucher schemes."

Westover's Tuition Tax Credit suggestions were misdirected and then ignored:

[MPR's Keri] Miller shuffled the suggestion to [St. Paul Superintendent] Pat Harvey, who ignored that I was talking about K-12 school choice and started talking about higher education. When I corrected her, she thanked me for setting the record straight, but nonetheless finished up her thought. Miller didn't purse the topic with either Superintendent Peebles or Commissioner Seagren -- even though a tuition tax credit is state issue.

His summary of this education forum, featuring the government appointed education leadership:

There is no polite way to say it -- there simply was no educational leadership present on the Penumbra Theatre stage last night. I'm sure the two superintendents are able administrators, but when it came to education reform, they both opted for higher level clichés, the need for more "emphasis" (read "funding") for education and support for the notion that the system just needs some tweaking rather than admit or suggest any systemic changes.

This is the second time I've seen Commissioner Seagren speak, and both times I sensed she was working harder at not being former Commissioner Yecki than she was at setting any kind of an education agenda.

My opinion is that the public education system is a train wreck. Vast amounts of money spent on a malfunctioning system. Annual increases demanded every year to fix it, by a hyper-politicized elite who have no understanding of, or motivation to understand, the need for reform. Since I don't have any kids mixed up in it, I try to ignore it and support whoever is proposing the slowest rate of its growth (because unfortunately, nobody is supporting cuts). Westover reminds us that this very attitude may be at least partially to blame for the problem:

Education is a public good, and we all have a vested interest in it, which unfortunately many without children in public schools, don't recognize. Consequently, public education is left in the hands of people more interested in preserving the process that actually improving education.

Convincing as that is, I'm still not prepared to hit the picket lines out in front of the St. Paul School Board. Their power is too great, too entrenched for the average citizen to do anything about it. Especially a citizen without a direct stake in the system.

But under Westover's tax credit proposal, I'd have direct control over how some of my tax dollars were allocated toward education. And you can be damn sure I'd excercise that control in a manner contrary to the agenda of the politicians and teachers union proxies in St. Paul. Which tells you exactly why Westover's proposal was ignored by the politicians and teachers union proxies on stage at the education forum last night.