Tag Archives: Choice

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Round-up of good news for conservatives from the past week

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First, from Heritage Foundation think tank, school choice reform passes in Washington, D.C. and Indiana. Now poor parents will have a choice to send their children to better schools without having to move to a richer neighborhood.

Excerpt:

The month of March closed with a victorious week for schoolchildren and families across the nation. School choice bills passed in both Washington, D.C., and in Indiana to expand educational options for students.

In Washington, the SOAR Act sailed through the House on a 225–195 vote, reauthorizing and expanding the successful D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program (DCOSP), which has been under attack by the Obama Administration for the last two years. In Indiana, legislation that has been cited as the “broadest” voucher expansion bill in the country similarly won hands-down in the Indiana House.

In Washington, House Education Committee chairman John Kline (R–MN) said last Wednesday:

Today’s vote is a victory for disadvantaged students throughout our nation’s capital. Over the last seven years, the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program has placed a quality education within reach of students previously trapped in underperforming schools. This program has engaged parents, motivated children, and helped the dream of a diploma become a reality for thousands of D.C. students.

In a similar vein, Indiana House Speaker Brian Bosma noted:

This is about promoting opportunity, focused tightly on those that have no choice today. … I’m here to give parents—especially parents without the means—opportunities for their children.”

The SOAR Act not only restores the DCOSP—which provides scholarships to low-income students in D.C.—it also expands the DCOSP to allow more students to receive scholarships.

Indiana’s legislation would provide families with a portion of their children’s public school funding to use on their choice of private schools. The amount of money families receive would be based on income levels.

Christian parents are not well served by government-run public schools, because public schools undermine Christian beliefs and result in poorly-educated educated children to boot. Let us have our tax money back so we can choose a school that serves our needs. We don’t let the government pick our laptop and cell phone, why should we let the government take our money and then choose a failing school for our children? I want to choose the school my children will go to – because I am the one who will be held accountable to God later for the children I’ve produced. And I want the poor parents and the rich parents to get the same voucher so that everyone can choose. I want the poor to have the exact same options that the rich have. And I want the failing schools to be closed down due to lack of funds, just the way that a business that fails its customers is closed down due to competitive pressures.

Next, Denver Republicans reject same-sex civil union bill.

Excerpt:

A bill to allow civil unions for same-sex couples in Colorado was stopped on Thursday night by a vote in the House Judiciary Committee.

The committee voted 6-5 to stop the bill from moving on to the full House.

The vote came after eight hours of testimony in a packed chamber at the State Capitol.

The measure easily passed the Senate last week with three Republicans joining all the Democrats voting for it.

Democrats said Senate Bill 172 could have cleared the House if all members there were allowed to vote.

This is a good idea because marriage benefits are given out to promote marriage, which is the most stable environment to raise children. Same-sex civil unions are proven to be less stable than opposite-sex marriages, and that is bad for children. If we care about children, then we need to give tax incentives for traditional marriage – the best environment in which to raise children. It’s not personal – it’s business.

Next, Texas Republicans shift money from contraceptive programs to crisis-pregnancy centers.

Excerpt:

About $7 million over the next two years would be moved from state-funded family planning services into crisis pregnancy center funding under an amendment passed by the Texas House during the budget debate.

The House voted 100-44 to pass the amendment, despite a short battle between author Rep. Randy Weber, R-Pearland, and several Democrats, who argued that family planning services help not only in the prevention of unwanted pregnancies, but also allow low-income women to get healthy check ups and cancer screenings. They said the amendment would cost the state money in the end.

“This takes money from the pot of funds used to reduce the rate of unplanned pregnancy to give money to counsel women who are pregnant already. Isn’t that counter-productive? asked Rep. Mike Villarreal, D-San Antonio.

Author of the amendment Rep. Randy Weber, R-Pearland, said that the “most innocent” need to be protected, which he said more funding for abortion-prevention centers would accomplish. He also said studies point to statistics that the poorest families using contraceptives were not successful.

I am not a big fan of single motherhood, but I am a big fan of adoption. And murdering an innocent child is certainly worse than either of those. Studies show that more contraception does not prevent abortions, it increases them.

Next, more education reform by Florida Republicans.

Excerpt:

Florida is widely recognized as the state leader in education reform. Students in the Sunshine State have made the strongest academic achievement gains in the nation since 2003, and they are one of the only states that have been able to narrow the achievement gap between white and minority students. Yesterday, the Washington Post highlighted the Florida model, and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush’s role in its creation:

“The president who turned No Child Left Behind from slogan into statute is gone from Washington, and the influence of his signature education law is fading. But another brand of Bush school reform is on the rise.

“The salesman is not the 43rd president, George W. Bush, but the 43rd governor of Florida, his brother Jeb.

“At the core of the Jeb Bush agenda are ideas drawn from his Florida playbook: Give every public school a grade from A to F. Offer students vouchers to help pay for private school. Don’t let them move into fourth grade unless they know how to read.”

State leaders seem to know a good reform strategy when they see it, and many across the country are beginning to embrace the Florida reform model.

Governor Susana Martinez of New Mexico and Governor Gary Herbert of Utah just signed the Florida-style A-F grading system into law in their respective states. The scale grades schools and school districts on a straightforward, transparent scale designed to inform parents and taxpayers about achievement results. The move will arm parents with more information about school performance – a necessary step to improving education. State leaders in Indiana, Arizona and Louisiana also recently implemented the A-F grading scale.

While transparency about school performance is essential to results-based education reform, providing parents with opportunities to act on that information is crucial. Many states are now working to enact that most important piece of the Florida reform model – school choice.

[…]Florida students have demonstrated the strongest gains on the NAEP in the nation since 2003, when all 50 states began taking NAEP exams. Moreover, between 1998 and 2008, the average score for black students increased by 12 points in reading from 192 to 204. In Florida, it increased by 25 points—twice the gains of the national average. If African American students nationwide had made the same amount of progress as African American students in Florida, the fourth-grade reading gap between black and white would be approximately half the size it is today.

Republicans are all about helping the poorest African-American children to get high-quality educations. And we don’t just talk about it, and we don’t just express good intentions, and we don’t just pass ineffective laws to much media fanfare. We deliver the goods – we walk the walk – we have the evidence of good results. It’s not about vague rhetoric and happy feelings. It’s about delivering the goods we promised to deliver. Better educations for poor minority students. Higher standards. Better outcomes.

If we care about children, then we do not kill them, we do not make them grow up without mothers and fathers, we do not force them into failing schools. Conservatism is pro-family, pro-parent, and pro-child. This is what we believe, and we act on those beliefs when we are voted in. No more happy talk about hope and change. If you want results for poor minorities, you vote Republican. And we don’t provide “compassionate” welfare programs to incentivize broken homes either, because that is the number one cause of child poverty. Conservatives hate making people slaves to the government.

Must-see videos on education policy

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Commentary

Men should prefer women who allow moral judging and spiritual leading

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I wanted to write about a common mistake that I see men making today when they are selecting women for marriage.

Some women prefer men who don’t have strong views on moral, spiritual, economic and political issues, and who don’t try to lead them in moral and spiritual areas. This is because if men know a lot about things then they tend to have definite opinions which might constitute grounds for rejecting the woman if she does something wrong, and women fear rejection. For the spiritual leadership, again, if the man has studied this a lot, then the woman fears that he will make her do a bunch of reading and debating which may not be much fun for her. So, some women avoid men like that. The question I want to ask in this post is – should men marry a woman who doesn’t like that they know a lot about moral issues and spiritual issues? I don’t think that men should, and I’m going to explain why.

Good men will want to set moral boundaries and lead spiritually when they have children.

Children usually look to Dad for guidance about the real world, because he is viewed as more “practical”. And fathers tend to want to protect children by setting moral boundaries and debating moral issues. Additionally, fathers want to protect children from believing lies that may cause them to make bad decisions. So, fathers are going to talk about things like chastity and oxytocin, as well as things like the big bang and the cosmic background radiation. They do this to tell children right and wrong with evidence and to tell children the truth about the world with evidence. What they do is NOT just state opinions or preferences – these are not take-it-or-leave it. And this can be offensive to some women who reject that morality is one way or the other, or that the universe is one way or the other. Some women elevate happiness above morality and truth, and men need to be aware that those women will not let them state moral principles or tell the truth about spiritual things. They value “compassion” (the denial of moral absolutes and personal responsibility) and “pluralism” (the denial that anyone’s beliefs about the world can be false). If a good man has children, he needs to be sure that the woman is not undermining all of his boundary-setting and truth-arguing at home. He has to test for this during the courtship.

Sometimes men are stupid, and choose women without regard to what God wants from the marriage.

Let’s pretend that men are choosing medicine instead of a wife. Some men are choosing their medicine based on the pretty packaging, and yummy taste, and then complaining when it doesn’t fix the illness. They want to choose a medicine without knowing anything about their illness and anything about the candidate medicines. They want to be “free” to choose a medicine based on the feelings they have about the medicine – not whether it will do the job required. They say: “But it looked good and tasted good! Medicines that look good and taste good should work!” They think that they can judge everything about a woman in her physical appearance and her manner. (Women do this too, when they talk about wanting things like “a deep voice” and “confidence” – without looking for signs that the man can meet marriage/parenting requirements). The purpose of the woman and the marriage, for some men, seems to be to meet their needs. So their criteria are the only criteria that matter. God is nowhere in the picture. He supposedly doesn’t want a marriage and children that honor him – oh no. He supposedly wants the man to be happy. The customer of the marriage is the man, not God.

And men really need to be on the alert to detect women who will block them from doing what good men do with marriage and children, otherwise they will not be allowed to make moral judgments and to lead the family. Men – make sure when you are choosing a wife that you choose someone who loves moral judgments and the way that you like to build other people up to be effective and influential. If the candidate resents your setting of moral boundaries, or resents your knowledge of issues, or resents your efforts to “bully” them into correct views using reasons and evidence, then you need to pass on that woman. You are a man. Men are interested in morality, truth, fixing problems and making things better. You must make sure your wife is supporting you in that role. Make sure she is choosing you for the right reasons, using the right criteria. You are a quarterback. Do not play for a team where you will be reduced to cheerleader and mascot. You were not designed to do that.

And women – it makes no sense to complain that men are not raising the children properly if you deliberately chose a man who didn’t believe in moral judgments or truth. If the man makes you behave morally in the courtship, he will make your children behave morally. If the man makes you believe true things in the courtship, he will make your children believe true things. You will just have to learn to like being judged on moral grounds and being led about spiritual things.

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Commentary

New report finds that America is falling behind on international trade

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This is a good editorial on why Obama’s policies haven’t led to more exports.

Excerpt:

President Obama claims he’ll double U.S. exports in five years. But a new report from Congress shows U.S. firms losing major ground to competitors because he won’t act on free trade pacts with Colombia and Panama.

In a report titled “Losing Jobs and Alienating Friends: The Consequences of Falling Behind on Free Trade With Colombia and Panama,” the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s Richard Lugar presents a bleak picture of Latin American markets and allies slipping away as the administration fails to enact the Colombia and Panama free-trade agreements.

While President Obama tries to get on the good side of business by saying he’d go forward with the U.S.-Korea free-trade deal, he’s making only vague statements of support for the other two treaties.

“What the president says matters a lot less than what he does,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said Monday in calling for the passage of the long-languishing other two pacts.

Staffer Carl Meacham visited Colombia and Panama in late January and has returned with a long list of horror stories for the Foreign Relations Committee report to be released Tuesday. He tells of lost contracts, evaporating market share and unhappy allies writing off America as a partner in favor of new relationships with more trade-friendly partners like China.

The trend also affects other Latin states. Obama is getting ready to visit Brazil and Chile next month and will tout those new relationships. But he’s unlikely to note that both have quietly made China, instead of the U.S., their top trading partner.

In 10 years, China will also become the top trade partner of Colombia and Panama, nations that would rather have America in that spot. Without the trade pacts, however, it won’t happen.

Meacham found that the contractual losses to American companies in the absence of the pacts are already mounting. They include $5.25 billion for Panama Canal expansion, $1.5 billion for Panama City Metro construction and millions in highway contracts in both Panama and Colombia.

These contracts are going to foreigners from countries where duty-free trade has given their companies a competitive advantage as U.S. companies pay tariffs.

Meacham also found market-share losses in the same grim league, as Colombia signs off on free-trade deals with Canada (expected in two or three months), Europe (expected this summer) and South Korea (in third-stage negotiations in Los Angeles now).

Free trade is not only good for jobs, but also for foreign policy. It gives you leverage with a country because you’re more tightly coupled to them. Unfortunately, Obama is a socialist and he opposes free trade. So not only will be lose jobs, but also influence and goodwill abroad.