Month: February 2011

A nationally publicized incident of teenage cruelty in Upper Darby, Pa. has driven the 13-year-old victim from the public schools and placed the unplanned burden of home school on his parents.

Seven gangsta wannabees brutalized the slight Nadin Khoury Jan. 11 outside the school district’s “Opportunity Center” which is the school district’s facility for behavioral problems.

Nadin said he was targeted because he was small and his mother was from Africa. One of the wannabees posted a video of the attack on YouTube.

Would the recently introduced school choice bill, SB 1 , help Nadin if it were to become law?  Maybe not, and certainly not with regard to the first two years it would take effect. Leaving aside the financial circumstance of Nadin’s family, the only Upper Darby school that  falls into the category of  “persistently lowest achieving school” as per eligibility for vouchers for years 1 and 2 is Charles Kelly Elementary School , which Nadin does not attend.

SB 1 is a good bill and if it should pass it would one day  deliver thousands of Pennsylvania children from the despair and terror of corrupt and unaccountable failed institutions.

But school choice is a good idea for suburban middle class parents too. Parents who are as happy as clams with their school district until they find their child assigned to crazy Ms. X for a year would be a bit grateful to have a voucher as a parachute. Vouchers would have the additional benefit of communicating to the educational powers-that-be that Ms. X shouldn’t be teaching as parent after parent bailed out on her.

Conservative columnist Chris Freind sent me a note in response to yesterday’s item in which I took issue with his opposition to SB 1, the school choice bill recently introduced in the Pennsylvania Senate.

Chris sent me this link to a follow-up column, “Some School Choicers Have Defeatist  Attitude” he wrote on his blog at The Philly Post to clarify his position. The Philly Post is  affiliated with Philadelphia magazine.

The follow-up makes it clear that what Chris is advocating is that all Pennsylvania children should have access to vouchers, not just the poor as would be the case with SB 1 .

Chris wants to swing for the fence which is admirable but to swing for the fence one must be in the game and the only school choice player in the game right now is SB 1, and there is nothing wrong with bunting for a base hit either.

Those who have issues with SB 1 should, rather than attack it, find a legislator willing to introduce a competing bill.

Vouchers for all Pennsylvania children is a wonderfully radical idea. You won’t find any objection to it here.

With that said, Pennsylvania would be much improved if SB 1 should pass and this includes the burden on suburban taxpayers. Not only would less of their money be wasted in incompetent pits of corruption like The School District of Philadelphia, they might actually find an unexpected windfall when the refugees — most of whom would come from loving families eager for them to learn — flock to vacancies in their successful districts carrying that $9,000 in state money with them. Note, vacancy  means no new teachers to hire and no new classrooms to build.

In other words it means found money.

So those with concerns about SB 1, please be careful about attacking it. Be especially careful about giving ammunition to the self-proclaimed “liberal, tolerant, caring, sensitive” crowd who will certainly play the race card in mounting opposition to the bill.

Conservative columnist Chris Freind is taking heat for opposing the school choice bill recently introduced in the Pennsylvania Senate.

He repeated the claims albeit a bit more gently, yesterday, on Philly.Com .

For this he is appropriately being taken to the woodshed by other conservative leaders. Tea Party activist Bob Guzzardi tells Freind and others who live in safe suburban school to re-read the fable of the Dog and The Manger in which the dog would not let the horse eat to the detriment of all.

Further, Guzzardi notes that there has been a “paradigm shift” among the coalitions that support the Pennsylvania Democrat Party. Black legislators such as LeAnna Washington who opposed vouchers during the Ridge years are now 100 percent behind them.

Vouchers would likely not have failed then with the support of Philadelphia Democrats.

In a response to Freind’s Inquirer column, Nathan Benefield of Commonwealth Foundation notes that he is dead wrong with the bill only benefiting the poor. Benefield points out that the bill almost doubles the amount of money available for Educational Improvement Tax Credit scholarships to $75 million. The eligibility for EITC scholarships is $60,000 plus $10,000 per child.

Still, Freind’s reaction brings to light one thing that will be done by defenders of the educrat establishment. The race card will be played.