Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton slammed private-school voucher proposals yesterday, predicting that vouchers would eventually lead to the creation of taxpayer-financed white supremacist academies - or even a government-funded "School of the Jihad."
Clinton, a longtime voucher foe who earned the backing of the city teachers union in 2000, says government financing of sectarian groups would incite ethnic and religious conflict - and encourage fringe groups to demand government cash to run their schools.
President George W. Bush has long favored laws that require states to provide vouchers, a position that earned him the allegiance of conservative Christian groups that have clamored for public education dollars.
"First family that comes and says 'I want to send my daughter to St. Peter's Roman Catholic School' and you say 'Great, wonderful school, here's your voucher,'" Clinton said. "Next parent that comes and says, 'I want to send my child to the school of the Church of the White Supremacist ...' The parent says, 'The way that I read Genesis, Cain was marked, therefore I believe in white supremacy. ... You gave it to a Catholic parent, you gave it to a Jewish parent, under the Constitution, you can't discriminate against me.'"
As an adoring, if somewhat puzzled, audience of Bronx activists looked on, Clinton added, "So what if the next parent comes and says, 'I want to send my child to the School of the Jihad? ... I won't stand for it."
She won't stand for it? I wonder if she'll stand for the unmitigated success a voucher program in Florida had with raising test scores, especially among low-income and minority students. Unfortunately, that program in Florida has now been struck down by the court system (after a lawsuit was filed by the teacher unions, predictably), but it was one of the few instances of education vouchers ever to exist here in the U.S....and it worked.
I can't help but feel that Clinton, with these statements, is more concerned about her standing with union interests than she is with the quality of education our kids receive. Especially when evidence to suggest that vouchers work, and work well, is readily at hand.