A couple weeks ago I wrote a letter to the editor of the Daytona Beach News-Journal in praise of the Florida Supreme Court's ruling of school vouchers as unconstitutional. It was published last Sunday and is no longer online, so you all will have to trust me that it really happened. ;-) Please read below for the text.
State's high court right on vouchers
Re "Court outlaws school vouchers," article, Jan. 6:
Florida's Supreme Court made the right decision in ruling school vouchers unconstitutional. I do not yet have children, but I understand the importance to society of quality schools and education and don't object to paying taxes to support this essential function. What I do not support, however, is my tax dollars being paid to institutions to which I would never send any of my own children.
I find it disturbing, albeit typical, that Gov. Jeb Bush tried to play the race card by pointing out that the majority of children who would not receive the vouchers are Hispanic and African-American. Sorry, that talking point won't fly.
If the governor truly cares about minority children's education, he'd increase spending on public schools, particularly in underprivileged neighborhoods. He can start by ending the "bait-'n'-switch" of education money for Florida Lottery money the state's Legislature enabled in 1989 during Gov. Bob Martinez's tenure.
[me]
By way of comparision, here's the unedited version I sent to the newspaper:
Florida's Supreme Court made the right decision in ruling school vouchers unconstitutional. I do not yet have children, but I understand the importance to society of quality schools and education, and don't object to paying taxes to support this essential function. What I do not support, however, is my tax dollars being paid to institutions to which I would never send any of my own children.
I find it disturbing, albeit typical, that Governor Jeb Bush tried to play the race card by pointing out the majority of children who would not receive the vouchers are Hispanic and African-American. Sorry, that talking point won't fly. If the Governor truly cares about minority children's education, he'd increase spending on public schools, particularly in underprivileged neighborhoods. He can start by ending the "bait-n-switch" of education money for Florida Lottery money the state's legislature enabled in 1989 during Governor Bob Martinez's tenure.
The Bush Administration and its supporters are fond of saying that charitable and social programs should be carried out by private organizations rather than the government. If they really believe that, they should be passing laws requiring private schools to offer free tuition to children who are failing in the public ones.
I'm bummed the newspaper edited it in that fashion, but not really surprised, and am certainly glad I finally got one published. I'd pretty much given up hope after a week had gone by, it hadn't appeared and the newspaper hadn't contacted me. Ironically, I only today found out it got published when I was checking my work email after being on vacation last week. The director of the library at which I work saw it and emailed me to congratulate me and say he was in complete agreement. No surprise there.
For those who don't know, the lottery money statement refers to the gambling lottery Florida established in the late 80s, the proceeds of which go to public education. However, during Republican governor Bob Martinez's tenure, the state legislature decided to scrape education money from the budget by the same amount the lottery was bringing in, so Florida's education system didn't benefit at all. (This is pretty much an open secret in Florida, which is why I didn't further clarify it in the LTE.) What pisses me off is that to this day, the lottery advertisements brag about the "billions of dollars" it has generated for the state's public education system.
This LTE was somewhat off the cuff; usually I spend at least an hour on them, even brief ones, but this one only took about 15 minutes. I guess my mistake has been spending too much time on previous ones? LOL.