School Choice: News Miner 15
Notes on school choice in Arizona, Kevin Priola, Joe O'Dea, Erik Aadland, Tina Peters, and more.
Arizona’s School Choice Program
Complete Colorado published my article, “Rethinking the meaning of a public education,” partly about Arizona’s newly expanded Empowerment Scholarship Account program.
Here is how the program works, according a release from Governor Doug Ducey:
Arizona families who participate would receive more than $6,500 per year per child for private school, homeschooling, micro schools, tutoring, or any other kinds of educational service that helps meet the needs of their students outside the traditional public school system.
Here is part of my commentary:
I think what drives support for public education is an egalitarian ideal of equal educational opportunities, even though we all know the public schools fail many children. We need a system, many people believe, in which students are guaranteed a slot at a specific school with a specific amount of funding ($9,014 per pupil, says the Department of Education). That system offers the mirage of equality without the substance. Yet a lot of people would rather cling to the fantasy of equality than consider an alternative in which students generally get a better education but in which equality is not the main purported aim.
The major alternative view is that what most matters is family choice. Parents best know their children and are in the best position to help them succeed with their education.
Politician Update
Priola: State Senator Kevin Priola has left the Trumpist Republican Party to join the Democrats. I appreciate the anti-Trump message. There is, of course, more to it than that. Priola often voted with the Democrats anyway. And redistricting dramatically changed his constituency. I’ll be interested to see what committee assignments Priola gets and what sort of opportunities open up to him after his stint in the legislature. I’ll also be interested to see whether a recall effort goes anywhere.
O’Dea on Abortion: “Republican U.S. Senate candidate Joe O’Dea believes abortions should be legal through 20 weeks of pregnancy, after which the procedure should be allowed only in cases of rape and incest or when a mother’s life is at risk,” Jesse Paul reports. However, O’Dea voted for “Proposition 115, the 2020 ballot measure in Colorado that sought to ban abortions at 22 weeks” except “in certain situations where the life of a mother was at risk. There were no exceptions built into the proposal for rape, incest or a lethal fetal diagnosis.”
O’Dea on Libertarianism: A message from Joe O’Dea says, “It’s been well-chronicled. Joe is a libertarian on social issues. ‘You live your life, I’ll live mine’—that’s what Joe believes. That same libertarian streak has Joe fired up about Joe Biden’s reckless decision to add $300 billion to the new national debt by ‘forgiving’ student loans.” Jeff Hunt, of course, insists, “The Republican Party is not ‘libertarian on social issues.’”
Aadland: Congressional candidate Erik Aadland said—and I have viewed the 2021 video—”The 2020 election—it was rigged, absolutely rigged. . . . It's extremely scary what transpired. There was a significant amount of fraud in the 2020 election.” Chase Woodruff reported about this last year, as did Seat Price of the Colorado Times Recorder. Woodruff also wrote a follow-up about the video in question.
Peters: Wow. Jesse Paul reports, “Indicted Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters’ deputy, Belinda Knisley, has agreed to cooperate with investigators and testify in court against her former boss as part of a plea deal. . . . Peters [faces] felony charges stemming from a security breach of her county’s election system last year during a software update when election system passwords were photographed and later posted online.”
Quick Takes
Poop: When you camp or backpack, carry out your poop.
Lead: Airplanes still sometimes use leaded fuel, and that’s cause for concern around Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport. See Luke Zarzecki’s story. Cars used to use leaded gasoline but governments clamped down. To my mind, auto fuel is an example of needed regulation to solve a real harm. Lead is really bad for people!
Education: “Denver Public Schools has the largest test score gaps in all of Colorado between white and Black students, and between white and Hispanic students, in both literacy and math,” reports Chalkbeat.
Abuse: This is an absolutely crazy lead paragraph by Christopher Osher: “The ex-partner of the former embattled Aurora police chief, already charged criminally with falsely reporting that a vocal critic of the chief sexually abused her son, now is under investigation by the FBI on new allegations of manipulating the child protective system where she worked to gain the upper hand in her own child custody battle. Robin Niceta is being investigated for faking an attack by a former partner.”
Police: RTD has its own small police force. Who knew?
Food Trucks: “Denver moved forward with a plan to reduce crowds and crimes downtown—by targeting food trucks that did nothing wrong” (Reason).
Homelessness: Quite a line from CPR about homelessness in the metro area: “The northern (law enforcement) agencies are using the light rail like an underground railroad. They’re shoving them all on the light rails, pushing them south. We’re shoving them all on the light rails pushing them north, and we’re playing this tag game.” The key thing here is to fully legalize the building, use, sales, and rentals of housing. Then let’s talk about shelters. We should not allow the degradation of neighborhoods by street squatting.
Panhandling: Aurora will spend around $30,000 for signage and such trying to convince people not to give money to panhandlers, but to give it to charities instead. Although I question the appropriateness of this tax expenditure, it’s definitely a bad idea to give money to street beggars. Panhandling often creates traffic dangers, and beggars often spend money on alcohol and drugs. Give to something like the Food Bank of the Rockies instead. Krista Kafer has out a column on this.