The deceitful and vindictive Howard Rich and his crony friends may have finally won the private school, publicly funded voucher war in South Carolina.
Disguised as school choice, it's nothing more than robbing public education funding to implement a voucher scheme for parents who are already rich enough to afford private schools and to trick parents who think private schools are in their grasps.
I have been fighting the good fight against this charade for years. My accounts are well documented.
From exposing the voucher scheme to calling the lies South Carolinians for Responsible Government have vomited out towards people, I have been there.
But with the recent passing of a private school choice bill, it seems all the truth and exposure has falen on deaf ears. People in our state will again fall suck to the stupor spat at them.
The current bill heading to the state senate is similar to ALEC's proposed Parental Choice Scholarship Accountability Act. And to this date, hundreds of thousands of dollars have been poured into our state from across the country to buy votes - and create something parents, teachers and children know hardly anything about.
2d15-The Parental Choice Scholarship Accountability Act Exposed
But who cares, right? As long as a God-fearing, gun-toting Republican tells you it's OK... you're OK. Right? Screw the fact it's proven time and time again this scheme would eventually kill off public education.
Implementation of voucher programs sends a clear message that we are giving up on public education. Undoubtedly, vouchers would help some students. But the glory of the American system of public education is that it is for ALL children, regardless of their religion, their academic talents or their ability to pay a fee. This policy of inclusiveness has made public schools the backbone of American democracy.
Private schools are allowed to discriminate on a variety of grounds. These institutions regularly reject applicants because of low achievement, discipline problems, and sometimes for no reason at all. Further, some private schools promote agendas antithetical to the American ideal. Under a system of vouchers, it may be difficult to prevent schools run by extremist groups like the Nation of Islam or the Ku Klux Klan from receiving public funds to subsidize their racist and anti-Semitic agendas. Indeed, the proud legacy of Brown v. Board of Education may be tossed away as tax dollars are siphoned off to deliberately segregated schools.
I encourage you all to visit the links in this post and search out the stories I have written on this topic. They will inform you on what has been bought and paid for by a New York real estate tycoon - who wants to buy legislation he doesn't have live with, but you do.