Also in today’s Morning Jolt:
Another Anti-Voucher Democrat, Sending His Children to the Best Private School
Surprise, surprise, the Virginia chapter of the NEA teachers’ union endorsed Terry McAuliffe for governor. Their endorsement is strangely quiet on the issue of vouchers. McAuliffe is pretty quiet on the issue of vouchers; here are his policy views on K-12 education, in their entirety, from his campaign web site:
Education is the single most important thing our kids need to build successful lives. Whether they’re going to invent a product, start a business, or get the job of their dreams, it all starts with the basic skills and confidence that only a good education can provide, and right now we’re not doing enough.
Total funding per student is down even as we’ve got more and more students entering our system. Only 87% of our kids are graduating high school on time.
As Governor, I will support our kids and our schools. We’re going to take the best ideas from around the country and give teachers and administrators the resources and freedom they need to make Virginia a global leader in education.
If this were any shorter, it would be a haiku.
He makes Elizabeth Colbert Busch’s policy-related sentence fragments look like Mandate for Leadership.
At least when he was chairman of the Democratic National Committee, McAuliffe listed “vouchers” as part of the policies that made Republicans so terrible.
From the 2009 race:
It was a bit of creative omission, reminiscent of his answer when someone at the Richmond town meeting asked where his kids — aged 17, 16, 14, 9, and 6 — go to school. He said one attends Gonzaga, a Catholic high school in Washington, and four go to the Potomac School in McLean. He didn’t mention that Potomac is a private school.
Current tuition rates for the Potomac School:
Kindergarten – Grade 3: $29,055
Grades 4-6: $31,185
Grades 7-8: $33,440*
Grades 9-12: $33,345
So Terry McAuliffe, who has had four kids going to a roughly $30,000-per-student tuition private school (perhaps there’s a sibling discount), opposes the use of vouchers to send poorer kids to private schools.