Cross Posted over at Utah's Accountability Blog

On Election Day earlier this month, Patrick Byrne, the CEO of Overstock.com, and an ardent supporter of private school vouchers, claimed Utah’s vouchers referendum was an IQ test for Utahns – a test we presumably failed when voters rejected the plan by a 24-point margin that Tuesday.

A small firestorm is headed to Utah’s Senate, when a Republican majority is expected to pass the nation’s first statewide voucher bill – or, if you like, the most expansive tax subsidy program for private schools in the country – while ignoring the objective fact that regular, ordinary public schools are the least funded in America. How do Utahn school leaders feel about it? Members of the Salt Lake City Board of Education are opposed to it and have said so loudly in the Salt Lake Tribune, but no matter, because they’re not the ones with the power. To find the people behind the idea, you have to leave Utah altogether and head northeast toward Michigan. To make things easy, just follow the stench of dirty money.

This is priceless. Ken Blackwell's ONLY big idea to improve public education in Ohio was delivered to him on a silver platter by Patrick Byrne, a man who once served as CEO of Fechheimer Brothers in Cincinnati.

Never heard of Byrne or Fechheimer Brothers? The Houston Chronicle has. In September 1998, it reported on labor disputes between Byrne and workers at Fechheimer's only non-union uniform plant in San Antonio, Texas. The Chronicle said the plant was littered with dead rats, mosquitoes and other insects, and that workers - mostly Hispanic women who were paid $5.30 an hour and had no health insurance - had to bring their own toilet paper to work. Nice.

After taking a slam from Rod Paige and Chester Finn on his 65% deception gimmick, Ken Blackwell may be muzzling his wife, Rosa, who happens to be the superintendent of the Cincinnati Public Schools. State Sen. Teresa Fedor of Toledo - who is only the ranking member on the Ohio Senate Education Committee - said last week that Ken's ONLY big idea in education would have a "disastrous" effect on Ohio public schools. Hmm... since there are 35,600 students in the Cincinnati Public Schools, Ken's ONLY big idea on education would likely dump a big truckload of problems in the lap of his wife as she tries to do her job.

Sadly, she's silent on the question.