Comments on: Montana a Battleground for School Choice
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By Marshal Cogburn on 06-20-12 @ 2:47 pm
News flash for Makowski… There is a simple method to resolve your perceived heartburn with being unfairly muted. If the muzzle is too onerous, you can simply forgo your non-profit status. Then you
will be free to bellow from the mountain tops your belief that public money should fund religious
schools. Otherwise, I would suggest you comply with the Federal election laws you actively
ignored. Remember the rule from kindergarten… we can’t have our cake and eat it too.
By MTLiberty on 06-20-12 @ 5:13 pm
Tutvedt needs to re-think his stance. Parents know what is best for their child. The moneyshould follow the
student, not just be allocated to the educational institution.
It’s my understanding that Tutvedt did not attend the school choice convention. Perhaps he is
just so set in
his position that he stubornly clings to that he refuses to become more informed. Is he afraid
to change? It is
very clear from his statements that he has no clue how the so called tax credits actually work.
Studies have shown that perhaps 3-5% of students in an area will leave the public school and
most of those
are disadvantaged and lower income.
By Mark Phillips on 06-20-12 @ 9:47 pm
Thanks Paul. As a 4th generation Flathead Valley resident with the 5th generation in local rural schools, I want to encourage you to support policies so that the next generation can continue to mix
so they learn to understand one another. Separatism is the major issue that is tearing our communities
apart.
By Marshal Cogburn on 06-21-12 @ 9:29 am
Gentlemen, Laszloffy’s contention that this is not public money relies on semantic nuances and is disingenuous. Under the proposed system, a parent would be allowed to donate to a private school
scholarship foundation and then receive a corresponding tax credit for that donation. When the
credit is applied (by the donor to their taxes) the state will receive only that portion of the tax
remaining after the subtraction of the credit. Therefore, the implementation of this system requires
the state to knowingly forgo the collection of previously established revenue from a pre-existing tax.
All this system really accomplishes is the removal of an intermediate step in the normal tax and
appropriation methodology (while also skirting serious constitutional impediments).
Of course, we should ask ourselves why the ‘public v. private’ distinction is even relevant. The
answer is simple. These donations will be used to fund private schools that are primarily religious in
nature. Public money cannot support religious activities and private money can.
I suggest, in the interest of fairness, that we should pose the school choice question to the citizens
of Montana in this new light. If we did, it might read: ‘Should established, but uncollected public
funds, be used to support religious education?’ This is the real question and I am certain the
answer does not support the tax credit agenda.
By reggie on 06-21-12 @ 11:48 am
Good comment, Marshal. The other way this misdirected tax money can be used is in “for profit” schools where the financial well being of a corporation is paramont and education is
reduced to secondary status.
Another way for public money to be transfeered to private companies that has few, if any,
positive results.
By John Galt on 06-21-12 @ 3:37 pm
1) In a sense we already have school vouchers at the adult level. It’s a called the GI Bill and I used it to go to a Big Ten undergrad school and later to get an advanced degree from an Ivy
League University.
2) Gallup’s yearly poll on American’s opinion of public schools just came out. It it at its lowest
level since the poll began in 1973. Only 29% of the American people have a favorable opinion
of public schools.
3) Republicans for the most part are for giving parents and children a choice in schools.
Democrats are not. I never went to a public school and my children did not go either. I have
gone to private schools with both John Kerry (Senator - Mass) and Howard Dean (former
Chairman of the Democratic Natioanl Committe. Clinton, Obama, Gore and Kerry never went to
public schools and neither did ANY of their children. Why? They and their parents had the
money to opt out of the local public school system to choose far better schools. Makes sense
to them and to me.
So, why not let poor and middle class families have choice as well. It is their tax money afterall.
Most importantly it’s their children.
By Marshal Cogburn on 06-22-12 @ 5:53 am
Johnny, it would appear that ‘America’s opinion’ of public schools does not track very well with Montana’s opinion of its public schools. In late 2010, Montanans responded with the following in
regards to the performance of their local school: 86% favorable, 8% unfavorable, and 6% unsure. It
seems that, because Montana’s public ed system is not failing, the school choice folks always roll
out an erroneous national poll. Naughty, naughty…
Your last point implicitly assumes that private schools have better performance. How would we
know? The vast majority of Montana’s private schools do not partake in output measurements and,
when they do, their performance is usually worse than the local public school. Just the facts,
Johnny!
And again, these credits are nothing more than a covert attempt to direct uncollected tax revenue
to religious institutions. The proposal should at least make you ask: Would I be comfortable with
public money supporting a school whose religious affiliation is different from my own? What if the
school were not religious, but rather it had a connection to known hate groups like the Aryan
nation, the Black Panthers, or the KKK? Should we be forced to spend public money in support of
bigoted nonsense?
These are but several of the questions that beg answers before Montanans can make an educated
choice on this issue. I suggest we set aside the fiction of Ms. Rand, study the relevant statistics,
and cease with the catchy sound bites. Surely, our children deserve better.
By John Galt on 06-22-12 @ 10:12 am
Marshal,
The public school monopoly is ending in the United States. State by state, city by city the
populace and the politicians are getting wise to a broken system. It will take time as many
things do. Of course you could move to “progressive” Sweden, but they have instituted
nationwide school vouchers.
By justaduce on 06-22-12 @ 7:52 pm
The money should follow the student; now there is a simpleton thought; the taxpayer should pay for one education system and that system should have governmental
checks and balances period.
By Turnrow on 06-22-12 @ 8:15 pm
I was a teacher and mid-level administrator for over twenty years, and served on a stateappointed team that visited and evaluated charter schools, both public and for-profit. I and
other members of the team were appalled at how the private charters failed to measure up,
particularly in the area of financial accountability. The bottom line seemed to be all that
mattered, and we found numerous instances of questionable financial practices. Another areas in
which the private schools fell down were in staffing (they could not begin to measure up to
public schools or public charters in the qualifications or abilities of their teachers) and in
physical facilities (many were in converted commercial buildings that were totally inappropriate
and inadequate).
I believe there’s nothing wrong with our public schools that cannot be corrected fairly to
everyone involved, and if anyone out there believes we don’t get value for our school tax
dollars, just go ahead and privatize education. It won’t be long until you’re paying some
corporate education CEO $10,000,000 a year and he sure won’t be answering to the local school board.
By Am Trans on 06-23-12 @ 7:00 am
i’m so glad you all aren’t talking badly about my favorite private school. The one that puts out so many outstanding young citizens with bright career capabilities and 4.0 GPAs. Sadly it isn’t attended by rich
kids, mostly hard working average families who want their child to do better. These parents also know
that they have to help do the work, too. Yes, Kalispell Montessori is wonderful.
By waterman on 06-23-12 @ 10:41 am
Montana has a great public education system. I am and my son are products of it. Thanks to our public system my son was able to attend some prestigious unverisities and is now a professor at
one of them.
I have attended public schools in 4 other states and do think Montana is the best of them. That
however is not enough to give the gov’t carte blanche to decide what is best for our children.
I am however still pro private school as I think many parents choose to not have their kids subject
to our tasteless forced sex ed. programs the state mandates. To me, the choice is about the
curriculum offered and not having some progressive school board decide that my child will have
the program of their poor choice forced upon them.
The problem may not always be about the money. Public ed. has to ask themselves, “Why are
parents choosing private over public?” They will not have to look very far.
Or, is it the teacher unions are looking out to protect themselves ?
By Marshal Cogburn on 06-24-12 @ 11:37 am
Waterman, Montana’s public education system provides an ‘opt out’ provision for sexual education. It is a simple matter for any parent to allow their child to avoid this portion of the curriculum. The
parent is then free to teach their child as much, or as little, as they see fit in regards to procreation.
The boogey man of unwanted sexual education is just that…a fictitious monster whose existence
is perpetrated by private school supporters as a means to terrify the under informed. The means to
slay this monster resides in every parent’s toolbox. Simply opt out! Additionally, local school
board control, as supported by Senator Tutvedt, ensures that area taxpayers and parents retain the
ability to review and influence curriculums.
By thinker on 06-25-12 @ 6:34 am
Dear John Galt: More than 50% of wage earners pay NO TAXES. They are, presumably, the poor and lower middle class.
These are clearly not THEIR TAX DOLLARS. They are other people’s tax dollars. It’s called
redistribution of wealth.
Trapping kids in bad schools negatively affects the rest of their lives. We need better schools,
better teachers, more community involvement, and more parents who actually pay attention to what
their kids need to learn. Maybe what we really need is to raise kids to love to learn, which does
not include living to operate the latest computer game device. We long ago lost direction when we
started to ignore the content in our schools. All anyone has to do is read comments in the
newspaper to see how pitiful the language skills of adults have become.
If I had kids today, they would be home schooled.
To believe that opting out of sex education is simple is naive. The kids who take the class will talk
about it. The kids who did not will learn from them. That’s not a good situation. Having parents
who don’t know biology or repeat the old wives’ tales we all heard does not promote intelligent
understanding of a basic issue in our lives.
By Am Trans on 06-25-12 @ 7:36 am
thinker you have nailed one of Maria Montessori’s primary objectives. To encourage kids to want to learn. Plus you lightly touched parental involvement in school.
On a lighter note i want to tell you something about sex education forty years ago. One of my sixth
grade buddies was HORRIFIED at the description of physical activity that causes pregnancy. He
insisted that his Mom and Dad would NEVER, EVER do that.
The views expressed in the comments section do not reflect those of the Beacon.