The Left’s War on Education

The left's objection to even one tax dollar finding its way into the hands of a church is legion.  It is (apparently) a matter of even greater concern that we might engage in tax policy that accidentally encourages others--by allowing them to keep more of their own money--to give some of it to a religious group.

Such is the current quandary, pressed into the arms of the New Hampshire Superior court judiciary; if a business owner is incentivized by the state to give their own money for a k-12scholarship to a non-profit that manages such scholarships, and some kid or their parents just happens to use their qualified scholarship award at a school run by a religious group, has the state shown an establishment of religion?

While progressives, secular humanists, and left-wing political pundits nod wide-eyed, in unison, like bobble-head donkeys peering out the cloudy rear window of the hopey-changey bus, let us consider instead what the state may have actually done.  It may have committed a crime much worse.  It may have permitted an establishment of "encouraging children not to attend public school."  They may also have encouraged the act of doing something selfless with your own money for the good of the community in place of the all-caring State; 'educating' minors (see also; education camps) is still one of the lefts greatest 'greater goods' regardless of how their government-institutionalization has ruined it, by first running it through the kidneys of the bureaucracy and the teachers unions.

And there in lies the true problem.  The Democrat establishment, of which both the ACLU and Barry Lynn's Church of The Separation of Church and state are a prominent part, are really just carrying water for Democrats who are beholden to teachers unions and the government monopoly on k-12 education.   Everyone on the left demands the primacy of government run schools but they do not necessarily want the potential PR disaster of having to answer the question: "why won't you let poor kids have scholarships to better performing private schools, because it sends a message that there are better performing private schools and, hey--why is that anyway?

The answer to that questions is...because of the government bureaucracy and the unions, but left wing blood is thicker than water.  The Progressive Family, however dysfunctional, comes first.  And in reality, Democrats don't give a damn about education, all they care about is the teachers unions and preserving the state monopoly, and it matters very little which level of government you peer into to confirm that observation.  Democrats kill scholarships every chance they get, regardless of whether a kid might seek attendance at a religious school or not, because it threatens their iron grip on your kids.

Ironically, one of the more likely reasons why home school kids are so much more adept at civics than their homogenized bricks-and-mortar counterparts could be because their parents have to keep driving to the state House to defend their right to home-school them.  The act in itself is a teaching experience denied the chattel of the public education monopoly, who are instead favored with dynamic class schedules, Orwellian named curricula, all passed down from distant left-wing wizards, sequestered away in impenetrable white-towers into which no contrary statistic or weal of common sense can penetrate.

They even screwed up the school lunch program.

And while I'm ranting (and talking about lunch) it is the left who complains so much about childhood obesity...but who had the bright idea to stop sending kids to gym class five days a week after just a semester or two in High School?  I had Gym every day for four years straight.  We ran, played sports, worked on exercise equipment, did track, archery, soccer, floor hockey, basketball, volleyball, did something every day we were in public school, it cost less, and there were more of us.

Modern educators, at least in my district, send them to gym on all manner of odd schedules, up until their freshman year and then excuse them from it the next three.  My kids didn't have to take any phys. Ed. once they became sophomores.  And I bet if you left lunch alone, and went back to putting them in gym shorts five days a week, we'd see some changes.

And if educating kids in public schools is so damn important, and so much so that feckless (#!*&!)'s like Barry Lynn can file suit in our state, to overturn a law on the outside chance that a private business owner, incentivized by the opportunity to keep more of the money he made from actually being taxed, gives a scholarship donation to a non-profit,  that gives it to a kid, who ends up attending a private catholic school, how is childhood obesity not the fault of white-tower education professors who convinced local school districts to stop sending kids to phys-ed the last three years they are nestled in the bosom of governments taxpayer-stuffed decolletage?

And how is it that these private schools, secular or religious, manage to produce better-educated (and probably healthier) kids on significantly lower overall budgets and costs per student?  And if the government is not the best place to put your money when it comes to education what are the odds that it is not the best place to put your money for much of anything else?  Not good. Even the liberals who pledge un-ending fealty to the secular super-state take every opportunity to pay as little in taxes as they can.

And it is no coincidence that given the means, the same liberals give as little of their kids over to their government run schools as well.

And maybe Barry Lynn and his church of the separation of church and state should first ask why it is acceptable for the state to use taxpayer dollars to accredit religious schools if he objects so strenuously to business owners funding scholarships in exchange for not getting burgled by the state.

Personally, I think this presents an opportunity for New Hampshire Republicans.  The "separation of church and state" is a shibboleth of the left.  An out of state left-wing influence, with the help of the ACLU, has come here to tell us that business owners cannot use their own money to fund scholarship programs for underprivileged kids in exchange for not being taxed as much.  They don't want to let the "greedy bastards™" give of themselves to help families in need.  And they have intentionally filed suit to overturn the law in the county most likely to get them what they want.

Why?  What do Democrats have against business owners using their own money to help kids get the best education possible?

You are reading  "The Left’s War on Education"   by  Steve Mac Donald originally posted at GraniteGrok.com (Home)

Steve has been recognized as the Americans For Prosperity Blogger of the month for December 2012

A Conservative Solution to The Public School Lunch Circular Firing Squad

Federal mandates made school lunches cost more and forced foods into them most kids don’t care for so the Derry School District Lunch program is pondering why overall receipts are down.

“The food service numbers are significantly less on student sales,” Simard said. She said the food services department is still working to determine the cause and whether it is the result of new meal plans and food choices required under state and federal reimbursement guidelines.

She knows why, she is just being diplomatic.  The Feds have made lunch cost more.  They have made the cost of providing lunch cost more.  They have simultaneously required foods that a majority of the target hot lunch customer base does not enjoy while making foods they do less accessible or unavailable.  The end result is more cost for less benefit.

This particular reporting in Derry NH (NH Union Leader) tells the same sad tale.

“There’s quite a bit of waste.”

To get reimbursed the district must sell a full meal which includes things many students will not eat.

The district has to wait to get reimbursed.

The district can get additional reimbursements if they comply with USDA guidelines…“We are trying to comply with the program so we can generate the additional revenue.”

So follow me here.  One set of bureaucrats imposes guidelines that make meals cost more, composed of things kids wont eat, so that local bureaucrats can chase revenue that they have to wait for, all because someone in a far away place, wanted to put “I fixed school lunches” on their political resume.

But they didn’t fix them.  They broke them.

So here’s an idea.  I know, it’s crazy.  Fire all those people.  Eliminate all those mandates and reimbursements, and the bureaucrats needed to write, impose, and manage them.   Instead, let local district food service managers create meal plans with foods their kids will buy and may actually eat, at prices they might be willing to pay, in relation to the actual cost required to deliver them, because they were not artificially inflated by the bureaucrats we no longer need, or include foods that cost too much–but that bureaucrats require–that no one wants, and will only get thrown out.

Is this too simple?

This is, by the way, an example of what I mean when I say we need “small government” and “local control.”

If I only said that the USDA school lunch program is a waste of taxpayer dollars and would be better manged without the Feds in the middle, more than a few Democrats might see that as an opportunity to suggest that I want to make kids go hungry or end funding for free or supplemental lunches.   They say the same thing when you declare that the 72 billion we spend annually on the department of education is a waste–which it is.)  But they are not even close.  What we are doing now, thanks to the feds, is spending more, wasting more, and leaving kids hungry.

What I have outlined is Conservative thinking at its finest.  It saves everyone money and frustration.  My plan empowers local people to make local decisions at a fraction of the cost, with a fraction of the waste, with price points that might well make hot lunch affordable to a wider range of kids, reducing the cost of free or supplemental lunches, freeing up local revenue to pay for kids who actually need free lunches, that may end up inside stomachs instead of trash barrels,  leading to less waste and less hunger, more fed and attentive students, and millions less wasted on a tangle of pointless paper-pushers and man hours exhausted on chasing down reimbursements or cataloging what ended up in the waste bin.  It also places the decision making process as close to the people affected as possible.  People who can make decisions about who in their community actually needs help and how best to provide it.

And by the way, what good is a free lunch no kid wants to eat?

The Conservative position is that local residents know best whom to elect and to appoint, who is most qualified to then hire competent local mangers, who can then run their local school lunch programs effectively, without the need for leviathan government standing over them.  The goal is to provide a decent, affordable meal kids will eat so they are not distracted by hunger, and to provide adequate compensation to those we have empowered to that end.

The alternative (the bizarro world version of how to deliver a lunch) is what we have now.  Federal mandates that strangle everyone, drive up prices, and increase the cost of running a program that provides food no one wants, in exchange for wasting even more of our program mangers time, chasing down the chimera of “reimbursements” to cover costs that only exist because of the mandates themselves.

Remove all of that and people are paying for food they want at a price they agree to, that covers the cost to provide it, without any additional transactions outside the place in which the product and service were provided.

Cost effective, local control, that is limited to only that which is required to achieve the desired goal.  That is a conservative ideal.  It is sometimes (also) a Republican idea.  And let’s be perfectly honest–it is a common sense idea that eliminates all the problems and spends less doing it.

School lunches are getting more expensive.  We are seeing fewer people buying them and those that do waste much of what they pay for.  Kids are going hungry.  Administrators are being forced to waste time and money chasing paperwork.  And it will only get worse.  How is any of that good for our kids?

I would encourage New Hampshire legislators, including Democrats,  to craft legislation that excludes us from this federal bureaucratic maze of nonsense and that returns local control to districts, school lunch managers, and the parents they all answer to.  The end result would be local control, more affordable choices, decent food kids and parents are willing to pay for, and less wasted time and effort.

The left likes to talk about sensible bi-partisan solutions that solve problems.  Here you go.  Have at it.

You are reading  "A Conservative Solution to The Public School Lunch Circular Firing Squad"   by  Steve Mac Donald originally posted at GraniteGrok.com (Home)