Neal Boortz: Democrats will kill school reform

By Neal Boortz

For The AJC

In Georgia we’re addressing the task of electing a new governor (a device attached to a school system to keep it from going ahead very fast). Over the past week education has been the hot topic, and the Democratic candidates — the parade leader here being former Gov. Roy Barnes — are throwing your children under the loser cruiser (the, like, school bus, for those of you who, like, don’t keep up with spawn-talk — whatever). How’s that, you ask? They’re virtually attacking your children by steadfastly campaigning against anything that looks like, smells like or bears any resemblance to vouchers.

I’ve written before of a study conducted more than 15 years ago that found that the quickest and least-expensive fix for our educational woes would be to reduce the power of teachers’ unions. Well, Barnes and company are all too aware of the fact that the teachers’ groups are the most powerful political entity in Georgia, and they’re not about to let your dream of better schools and better-educated children get in the way of that vote.

The Republican candidates, on the other hand, are open to the idea of school choice. Republicans know that the teachers’ groups won’t support them under any circumstances, so they’re free to actually address the needs of the children rather than the job security of incompetent teachers and administrators.

May I offer two scenarios for your consideration? See which one fits you best:

1. The government seizes your money and sends it to a specific school to be spent educating your child. You are then commanded to send your child to that very school. That assignment is made on only two factors: The age of your child and your ZIP code.

2. You choose a school you wish to educate your child. You base that choice on any set of criteria you wish, including test scores, the competence of the faculty, reputation for excellence — or your ZIP code. You then send your child to that school, notify the government, and the government sends the check.

If you chose No. 1, you need to check your mail. Your subscriptions to People and US Weekly are about to run out.

C’mon folks. This isn’t rocket surgery. Washington, D.C., has been experimenting with a voucher system since 2004. The results of that experiment have been totally predictable. The Heritage Foundation reports that a U.S. Department of Education evaluation demonstrated that students awarded a voucher under the program showed higher academic achievement — including higher reading scores, the key to learning — than those who did not. No matter how you chose to study the program, students whose parents selected their school did better. You do know what happened to this D.C. voucher system, don’t you? As soon as the Democrats — the party of Roy Barnes — gained absolute control in Washington they voted to kill it off. Teachers’ unions hate vouchers; and teachers’ unions rule — Democrats.

The Democratic candidates are also making quite the noise about maintaining or increasing school funding. If the wonderful editors at the AJC would have given me just another 100 words or so I could have cited a few studies that show conclusively that more money does not necessarily mean more learnin’.

But, I’ll just have to leave it at this. The best interests of your child will not be served by putting a Democrat in the governor’s office. The teachers’ groups will love you though. In the words of your teenaged learning machine: “Like, whatever.”

Listen to Neal Boortz live from 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. weekdays on AM750 WSB Radio. His column appears every Saturday. For more Boortz, go to boortz.com