Principle Over Party

In a wonderful twist of irony, the ACLU is suing Florida School Districts over their abysmal education outcomes and graduation rates. They are in fact using the same phrase from the teachers contracts that the teacher unions used to get the voucher system thrown out. (Hat tip: Liberty Is For Me) The phrase is

uniform, efficient, safe, secure and high-quality education

Here are a few quotes from the Palm Beach Post [Emphasis mine]:

Low graduation rates in Palm Beach County show the school district has failed its students, especially minority children, by not providing a “uniform, efficient, safe, secure and high-quality education,” according to a lawsuit filed Tuesday by the American Civil Liberties Union.
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The suit alleges that the district is violating students’ rights to a high-quality education as outlined in the state constitution.
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Hansen said the organization intentionally left out specific remedies to allow school district officials to do what they think is best to improve achievement.

So, we have students rights being violated and the same school district that is violating this rights will be left to come up with their own solution to fix the problem. Sorry, but if they could have fixed the problem it would have been done already. The school officials will just go to the teachers unions and the teachers unions answer will be give us more money. Thus never solving the problem but making education even more expensive and you’ll get an even more entrenched bureaucracy.

The teachers union doesn’t want change, they want protection. This is why they fought the voucher system. They don’t want competition that would force them to improve educational outcomes. They want status quo and more money.

I bet the right lawyer could take this same clause and use it toward the goal of funding all children equally. The argument is simple. The education bureaucracy has failed our children. They allow unequal funding based on residence. To end this the State provides money equally to each school age child. This money can then be used at any accredited school of the parents choosing. The parents are then in charge of the money and competition will abound.

I have written about this very topic many times before. Here are just a few of the links to those stories:

• Equal Access To a Good Education
• Land of the Free or Land of Local Fiefs
• School Funding and the Courts
• Anti-Catholic Bigotry and How It Affects Public Education
• School Choice Saves Money
• Lesson from New Zealand