Vouchers: Eric Zorn Calls it "Pixie Dust" But He Calls For A Stall to Avoid Getting Pinned!

A Stall gets a warning, then penalty points awarded to the opponent and then disqualified.

The financial losses in Indiana this year to public schools and the gains to parochial schools will amount to rounding errors.

But that enrollment limit will grow to 15,000 for the next school year, then the cap will come off the year after that.

So give it a few years. We'll then be able to study firsthand the largest and most ambitious voucher program in the country and see whether, this time, pixie dust has somehow conquered fear and history.

Eric Zorn in chair of Public Education Team Fish.

Pixie Dust? So a State like Indiana denies Gold Dust to the education lobby ( teachers unions, bus companies, vendors, cafeteria's serving tax-funded mandated healthy-choice meals to kiddies, special ed co-ops, and etc.) and therefore a social injustice is prefabricated. Well yeah.

Inquiry, science, data, tests and measures, expectations and outcomes, graphs, and logarithms are pulled out of the John Dewey sandbox and put on display by Diane Ravitch. Awed quiet descends upon the cowed masses. Eric Zorn trucks out the Dewey sand buckets, shovels and rakes once again.

However, Eric Zorn and the opponents of School Reform ( see education lobby above) are not crowing victory and going for the pin on the wrestling mat of public debate.
Nope, Eric Zorn is coaching the pencil-necked geeks on the mat to 'fish' off and stall. The referee gives a warning and then calls penalty points against Team Zorn - Point Vouchers! Stalling! Points get added to the lustier and more honest opponent and eventually The fish of Team Zorn get disqualified.

For a clear assessment of the Milwaukee Voucher Program, click my post title and scroll down to pages nine(9) and ten (10). The lads explain the math. John Dewey, the Daddy of Public Education demands that inquiry is the Alpha and Omega - where you want an argument to end is the beginning of all inquiry.

One very cogent critic of Diane Ravitch's Inquiry states this

Vouchers have seen at least modestly positive results for test scores in several studies, and have boosted graduation rates and college attendance everywhere that question has been studied. (The latest study of Milwaukee found that students who received vouchers for all four years of high school graduated at a 94% rate, compared to 75% for equivalent students who stayed in the public school system. The college attendance rates for the two groups were 54.4% and 34.5% respectively.)

In the overwhelming majority of studies, vouchers have also boosted the performance of public schools as well.

"They do allow more privileged constituents to divest from the education of Milwaukee's inner city children."

It's very odd to describe the recipients of vouchers as "more privileged," given the income limitations. Are you one of those people who classify impoverished inner city residents into the "privileged" and "not-privileged" simply based on who decides to pursue a voucher?

Indiana had the political will enact school reform by making school vouchers and school choice a reality. That scares the bejesus out of the education lobby that is so thick (literally and rhetorically) here in Illinois.

As soon as Charter schools became a reality in Illinois, SEIU and the Chicago Teachers Union went judge shopping and politician corralling in order to 'allow' the unionization of Charter Schools ( Ralph Ellison Charter just west of Catholic Leo High School), in order to bring the blessings of public education to Charters and make them ultimately disastrous public schools.

Catholic, Dutch, Jewish, and Independent schools outperform public schools. Leo High School, where the only privileged person in this hoary structure is me, serves African young men from Englewood, Gresham, Brainerd, Grand Crossing, Chatham and a white kid from Canaryville and sent every one of last years graduates off to great schools armed with scholarship based upon achievment money. Our ACT scores rose by 4.5% points in the last two years. It is not brain surgery, nor is it Pixie Dust.

Public Education is a disaster because it has, nor wants, fairness. All Public Education wants is more tax-payer dollars.

The Stall is for fish in wrestling - kids that are too timid, too weak, and too unskilled to grapple on the mat. The Stall sometimes employed to avoid outcomes - a pin, a decision, a loss. Pixie Dust? Naw, just the rules. If you can't compete, you lose.

Stalling (you get one warning before you are penalized and points are awarded).

The first and second time you are penalized, your opponent is awarded one point. The third time you are penalized, your opponent is awarded two points. The fourth time you are penalized, you are disqualified. (Except for illegal starting position or false start - you are cautioned twice, then one point awarded for each infraction, but you will not be disqualified. In the event of Flagrant Misconduct, you are ejected from the match on the first offense, you lose the match, and 3 team points are deducted).


http://blogs.chicagotribune.com/news_columnists_ezorn/2011/09/heres-some-school-choice-for-you-lets-choose-to-wait-and-see-on-vouchers.html