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Republicans introduce new federal legislation to expand school choice

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If I were giving advice to the Republican party about how to win in 2020, I would advise them to focus on three priorities. Lowering unemployment, reforming the criminal justice system, and expanding school choice. They should also paint the Democrats as the party of infanticide, Green New Deal and elimination of private health insurance.

So far, Trump has done an excellent job of encouraging private sector job creators to create millions of new jobs. Unemployment is at a record low, and that’s important for persuading Black and Hispanic voters to vote for smart policies instead of tribal identity and envy. I don’t agree with with reforming criminal justice to favor criminals, but that will help with minority voters as well. But what we really need to do is provide Black and Hispanic voters with a way to get their children out of failing public schools. Public schools are filled with lazy, unionized Democrat teachers and administrators who care more about indoctrinating kids with Democrat propaganda than teaching them job skills that will make them independent, self-sufficient adults.

The Republican party knows that school choice is a win for them, and they are doing something about it.

Here’s the latest from the American Enterprise Institute, a think tank that promotes fiscally conservative policies:

Today, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos joined Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), and Rep. Bradley Byrne (R-Ala.), to announce new federal legislation that would establish a federal tax-credit expanding school choice. The proposal would give dollar-for-dollar tax credits to individuals and corporations who donate to state designated scholarship granting organizations (SGOs). While its particulars bear scrutiny, the “Education Freedom Scholarship” (EFS) proposal’s overall design is a solid attempt to walk a tightrope of backing state efforts at school choice while protecting against federal meddling now and in the future. Unfortunately, a number of critics on the right are too quick to react on their fears, and too slow in remembering what is holding back school choice.

Some conservatives and libertarians worry that solving the problem of underforming schools from the top down is a political overreach, but the AEI policy analyst writing the article says that the Republican bill doesn’t have that problem:

As I wrote back in 2017, backing state developed tax-credit scholarships is the best, and probably only, way the federal government could support state efforts without overreaching.  It would not be a federal program, but a tax credit that supports programs where states are explicitly responsible for policy particulars.

[…]No doubt, the bill would need to be explicitly structured to ensure the states’ primary role, and durably prevent federal overreach; fortunately defending states’ role is a paramount feature of the bill’s design.

School choice is a nice issue for Republicans, because it allows them to point out the hypocritical nature of Democrat politicians. Democrat politicians are essentially hypocritical. They want to ban guns for you, but they have armed security to protect themselves. It’s the same thing for education. They want to ban private schools for your children, but their own children all attend private schools.

Top Political Contributors in 2016 election cycle
The top Political Contributors in 2016 election cycle includes two teacher unions

Democrats are obligated by teacher unions, (e.g. – the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers), to vote against parents who want their children to get a better education. That’s because teacher unions are some of the biggest Democrat donors. Teacher unions just want more salary and bigger benefits, despite the evidence that clearly shows that more education spending doesn’t produce better student achievement.

Education spending has tripled since 1970
Education spending has tripled since 1970

Here’s a study from 2012 published in the journal “Education and Urban Society“. It says:

The possibility is examined that school choice programs could be a means to reducing the achievement gap. Data based on meta-analytic research and the examination of nationwide data sets suggest that school choice programs that include private schools could reduce the achievement gap by 25%. The propounding of this possibility is based on research indicating that the achievement gap in faith-based schools is generally 25% narrower than one finds in public schools. Results of these studies suggest that both the racial achievement gap and the socioeconomic achievement gap are reduced by the same degree (25%). The significance of these results is discussed, especially as it pertains to the attitudes that people frequently have toward school choice.

Not only do children do better in non-public schools, but the competition forces public schools to focus less on leftist indoctrination, and more on reading, writing and math.

This study from the on-partisan National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) explains why.

It says:

A school that is more productive is one that produces higher achievement in its pupils for each dollar it spends. In this paper, I comprehensively review how school choice might affect productivity. I begin by describing the importance of school productivity, then explain the economic logic that suggests that choice will affect productivity, and finish by presenting much of the available evidence on school choice and school productivity. The most intriguing evidence comes from three important, recent choice reforms: vouchers in Milwaukee, charter schools in Michigan, and charter schools in Arizona. I show that public school students’ achievement rose significantly and rapidly in response to competition, under each of the three reforms. Public school spending was unaffected, so the productivity of public schools rose, dramatically in the case in Milwaukee.

School choice makes public schools perform better because competition between providers always lowers the cost and increases the quality of services and products being provided to the consumers. Consumers always suffer when there is a monopoly. This is why people are more satisfied purchasing goods from Amazon and Netflix than they are lining up at the post office or the department of motor vehicles. The free market serves the consumer.

I was raised in a poor background, and I am a visible minority. If Republicans want to get the votes of people in my community, it makes sense to put in place policies that allow people like me to get a good education so we can get good jobs and do better than our parents did. Republicans should be all about equipping people to be independent and self-sufficient. These are conservative goals.

News

Canadian court rules that parents can’t prevent children from obtaining hormone replacement therapy

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Canada Election 2015: Socialists in red, Communists in Orange, Conservatives in blue
Canada Election 2015: Socialists in red, Communists in Orange, Conservatives in blue

Yesterday, I blogged about how progressive politicians and public school administrators allied in order to promote gay activist policies to young children in the state of Ontario, in Canada. I also mentioned how their child sex education curriculum was designed by a convicted pedophile. But they’re not the only state pushing gay activism against the parents who pay their salaries.

The Federalist first reported on the story in the last week of February:

Clark* first found out that his 12-year-old daughter Maxine was being treated as a boy by her school when he saw her new name in her class’s grade seven yearbook. “Quinn” was the new name her counselor had helped her pick out, and Maxine’s school district in Delta, British Columbia, Canada, had decided that “Quinn” should be treated, for all intents and purposes, as a boy.

The district apparently felt justified in leaving Maxine’s father completely out of the loop. Maxine’s school district was operating by the BC Ministry of Education’s Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity (SOGI) Policy, according to which Clark had no right to know his daughter’s “preferred sex, gender, or name” at school.

Keep in mind that the policies of schools in Canada are often developed in conjunction with gay rights groups, who are consulted first, so that the schools can avoid costly “discrimination” lawsuits from gay rights lawyers later on.

More:

Maxine’s counselors at school … referred Maxine and her mother, Sarah, to a “Dr.” Wallace Wong — a psychologist and LGBT activist who predictably decided that Maxine should be referred to a children’s hospital for testosterone injections when she was only 13. Not to be outdone, the children’s hospital asked Maxine’s parents for permission to begin injecting Maxine with testosterone on her very first visit. Clark said no and refused to sign.

From the middle of August until October, the hospital worked Clark over, trying to get his consent. When he finally refused, the hospital dropped a bombshell threat: simply put, they declared that they didn’t need Clark’s or Sarah’s permission for that matter. In a letter mailed December 1, 2018, Dr. Brenden Hursh informed Clark that they would begin treatment on Maxine in two weeks, without Clark’s consent. BC Children’s Hospital believed Maxine was a “mature minor,” who could receive treatment against the wishes of both her parents, according to section 17 of the BC Infants Act.

Well, as you can see, the school teachers, school administrators, courts and hospital doctors (all taxpayer-funded actors), are anxious to get started on “treating” the child with drugs. Only the parent is in the way. I guess he thinks that he should be trusted to raise his own child as he sees fit, rather than to just pay the salaries of these public sector agents and then let them decide for him.

In Canada, people are seen as competent enough to earn money, but not competent enough to spend their money as they see fit. A (large) portion of taxpayer’s income is taken from them in the form of mandatory taxes, and it is then given to teachers, education bureaucrats, hospital administrators and courts in order to regulate their choices to be more in line with progressive values.

So what did the courts decide?

Here is the latest from The Federalist in the first week of March:

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court of British Columbia, Canada ordered that a 14-year-old girl receive testosterone injections without parental consent. The court also declared that if either of her parents referred to her using female pronouns or addressed her by her birth name, they would be considered guilty of family violence.

As previously reported, Maxine* was encouraged by her school counselor in BC’s Delta School District to identify as a boy while in seventh grade. When Maxine was 13 years old, Dr. Brenden Hursh and his colleagues at BC Children’s Hospital decided that Maxine should begin taking testosterone injections in order to develop a more masculine appearance.

Keep in mind that because the money for health care is extracted from taxpayers before they choose their medical treatment, taxpayers have no right to decide what treatments they will and will not get. It’s the politicians and the hospital administrators who decide. This is what single-payer health care means. You pay your income to the government, and the government decides whether you will be treated, when you will be treated, and even what treatments are appropriate for you. And if you disagree with that, there is no opt-out, except to leave the country. Although they might interpret your disapproval of their decision-making on parenting issues as a “mental illness”, and prescribe you with appropriate treatments for that – e.g. – confining you to a mental institution where your rebellion against the rule of bureaucrats can receive the proper medical attention.

As I noted in yesterday’s post about gay rights in Canada, some Canadian states have passed laws to allow the government to seize children from parents who refuse to respect the will of government bureaucrats.

The Daily Caller explains:

Ontario passed a law Thursday that gives the government the right to take away children from families that don’t accept their kid’s chosen “gender identity.”

Parents who oppose or criticize the LGBT agenda will be considered potential “child abusers” and may have their children taken away by the state, according to the new bill. If the parents are ruled to be abusers by failing to wholeheartedly support their child’s gender choice, that child “can be removed from that environment and placed into protection where the abuse stops.”

[…]The old law allowed parents to “direct the child’s education and religious upbringing” but now says a parent must influence a child’s education and upbringing “in accordance with the child’s or young person’s creed, community identity and cultural identity.”

That bill passed 63-23. So you can imagine what sort of sympathy you could expect from Canadians as a whole if you dissented from this law.

News

Canadian elementary schools vote to promote gay activism during Gay Pride month

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Kathleen Wynne and Justin Trudeau
Ontario governor Kathleen Wynne and Canada’s president Justin Trudeau

The Daily Wire reports on the latest gay rights story from Canada:

Every elementary school in Ontario, Canada, will be forced to fly the gay pride flag for at least one week in June, which is Pride Month in the province.

[…]”The rainbow flag, symbol of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities, will fly in front of all public elementary schools for at least one week during Pride Month in June,” reported Windsor Star.

Greater Essex County District School Board vice chairman Julia Burgess, who introduced the motion, said the flag will let students know that “we have their back.”

Julia’s motion to force all elementary schools to promote the gay activist agenda was supported by 9 out of 10 school board trustees.

The lone dissenter was swiftly shut down by by chairwoman Jessica Sartori:

Linda Qin, the sole trustee to question the mandate explained that the flag might confuse such young children, particularly with concern to gender identity.

[…]Qin was told her time was up, according to Windsor Star, and was cut off by chairwoman Jessica Sartori.

“Who wouldn’t be proud to fly that flag?” an emotional Sartori asked, who said she flies the gay pride flag at her home.

It’s important to note that not only will there be no opt-out for schools, but there is also no opt-out for parents. Parents have to pay mandatory taxes for the salaries of public school teachers and administrators like Julia and Jessica.

Julia and Jessica didn’t do difficult STEM degrees in college. And when they graduated, they couldn’t find jobs programming software in the private sector. Since they needed something to do, being proper feminists, they decided to spend their days pushing their progressive values onto other people’s children, at taxpayer expense. It sure beats getting married and having to raise children of your own under the leadership of a provider husband. The public schools of every country are filled with women like Julia and Jessica, who think that their feelings-based method of evaluating religion and morality should be pushed onto everyone else’s children.

Daily Wire notes that this is not the only school district doing this:

As noted by LifeSiteNews, Peel District School Board similarly voted in May to fly the gay pride flag. “The board was lobbied by Pride Employee Resource Group (PERG) and heard emotional appeals in favor of raising the flag from parents of ‘gender-creative’ children and homosexual parents in a May meeting packed with LGBT activists wearing pink,” reported the outlet.

What will happen to parents who oppose having their children indoctrinated by radical leftists, at their own expense? Well, the province of Ontario thinks that dissent from their agenda is “child abuse”, so they will seize the children of those parents.

The Daily Caller explains:

Ontario passed a law Thursday that gives the government the right to take away children from families that don’t accept their kid’s chosen “gender identity.”

Parents who oppose or criticize the LGBT agenda will be considered potential “child abusers” and may have their children taken away by the state, according to the new bill. If the parents are ruled to be abusers by failing to wholeheartedly support their child’s gender choice, that child “can be removed from that environment and placed into protection where the abuse stops.”

[…]The old law allowed parents to “direct the child’s education and religious upbringing” but now says a parent must influence a child’s education and upbringing “in accordance with the child’s or young person’s creed, community identity and cultural identity.”

It passed 63-23.

I think it’s important to remember who is behind all of the recent education policies in Ontario. His name is Ben Levin. Remember him?

Life Site News reports.

Excerpt:

Ben Levin, the man who “appeared to have it all,” was today sentenced to three years in prison for three child pornography offences.

[…]A member of Liberal Premier Kathleen Wynne’s transition team, Levin was deputy minister of education in 2009 when he and then-minister of education Wynne developed the “equity and inclusive education strategy,” part of which was the 2010 radical sex-ed curriculum shelved by then-Premier Dalton McGuinty after parental backlash. The 2015 sex-ed curriculum is virtually the same as the 2010 version.

[…]The curriculum, to be rolled out this September, prematurely sexualizes children by introducing homosexuality in Grade 3, masturbation in Grade 6, and oral and anal sex in Grade 7.

[…]Levin himself claimed in a 2010 interview: “I was the deputy minister of education. In that role, I was the chief civil servant. I was responsible for the operation of the Ministry of Education and everything that they do; I was brought in to implement the new education policy.”

[…]Levin pled guilty on March 3, 2015, to three of an original seven child pornography related charges.

McArthur related how in 2010, Levin created a profile on an “alternative sexual lifestyle networking site” frequenting chat-rooms on “incest” and “teens.” He subsequently “came to the attention of three undercover officers.”

In the course of sex-chats with these officers, Levin “wrote a story detailing the violent sexual abuse of a child” and “counseled another officer, posing as a young mother, to sadistically sexually assault her eight-year-old daughter.”

[…]He “collected child pornography over two years.

[…]Levin also had a list of about 1,750 online contacts with whom he communicated on “subversive sexual interests,” primarily “sexual contact between parents and children.”

In his sex-chats, Levin “normalized the subject of the sexual touching of children.”

[…]The “sadistic overtones to the counseling adds a disturbing dimension to the offence,” McArthur stated, noting that psychiatrist Dr. Julian Gojer testified that Levin had a “pedophiliac interest in children” which was “intense” for three to four years. Gojer stated Levin “had sadistic impulses that seemed interwoven with his pedophilic interest” and “was on the extreme end of the sadomasochistic spectrum as it relates to the sexual abuse of children.”

I don’t think that it is a stretch to say that his views on sexuality and children reflect the broader views of Canadian progressives as a whole, and their allies in the public schools. The difference is that he just got caught.

What makes these Ontario liberals any different than the Democrat liberals we have in America? Nothing. They’re the same ideas as American Democrats hold to, but Canada is just further along at implementing them.