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Friday, January 27, 2006

Propaganda Won't Fix Broken Schools

By John Dendahl
Syndicated Columnist
    This is the Year of the Dog in China. In New Mexico, 2006 is the Year of the Child, decreed by Gov. Bill Richardson.
    Propaganda from the Governor's Office names each of four money sinks "Governor Bill Richardson's ------------------ Agenda." Fill in the blank with "Healthy Kids," "Partnering with Parent's" (sic), etc. There's not one called Gov. Bill Richardson's K-through-12 Agenda, but never fear: about $430 million has been thrown in for higher teacher pay, "closing the achievement gap" and building more government monopoly schools.
    The agendas Richardson generously named for himself are all warmed-over failures from a miserable past for education, dating from the Sixties. Four decades.
    Sadly, most of New Mexico's children will continue to be among those who either drop out of school or arrive at high school graduation inadequately prepared. Meaning no disrespect for Chinese culture, one worries that the whole kit and caboodle will be a dog.
    How many chapters of "reform" must we endure before we adopt the one reform with real promise to restore educational opportunity for our kids? Why isn't there a Gov. Bill Richardson's School Choice Agenda?
    There isn't a snowball's chance in hell that Richardson doesn't know he could pitch a perfect game with choice. But teachers' union bosses are among his owners, and they say "no" to competition. Monopolies never serve their markets well, but government schools must remain a virtual monopoly anyway.
    Think of the war being waged today by Big Labor against the largest company in the world, Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart is great because of its thirst to compete. Wal-Mart is despised by Big Labor because its employees won't vote to join unions. Yet one can be sure that many Wal-Mart customers are union members elsewhere who love quality at bargain prices.
    Similarly, many students in non-government schools are children of (mostly unionized) government schools teachers who aren't about to handicap their own children with the failures going on around them.
    ABC's 20/20 on Jan. 13 included John Stossel's blistering critique, "Stupid in America." The unions had a prompt response: all condemnation of Stossel and nothing— zero— on the merits. Just kill the messenger and everything will be peachy.
    Two years ago, New Mexicans bamboozled by Richardson and others amended the state constitution to raid the Land Grant Permanent Fund. Additional spending, we were told, was needed for "reforms" enacted by 2003 legislation.
    But wait. School choice had been ruled off-the-table by former State Rep. David Townsend, who co-chaired the long-running committee that developed the "reforms." Why? Townsend claimed choice— allowing a parent to decide which government or non-government school would be paid to educate his/her child— was unconstitutional.
    Other committee members bought that and choice remained an unmentionable, though they all knew that any constitutional problems could be amended out for a compelling purpose. It's more than a bit ironic that these "reformers," including former Republican Gov. Garrey Carruthers, were all smiles in pushing a constitutional amendment to finance little more than nibbling around the edges of a profound problem.
    School choice is fast becoming the civil rights issue of our era. Some people can afford to move to areas with good schools, or to pay tuition at non-government alternatives where they believe their children will be better prepared. Who generally cannot make those choices? E-mail me if you need this question answered.
    We all pay taxes intended to provide for children's educations. Instead, the money is used to employ union dues-payers in dysfunctional government monopoly schools, and education in too many cases is just a happy accident. There's much wrong with this picture, but Richardson's Year-of-the-Child agendas won't change it.
    Lifelong New Mexican John Dendahl is a retired executive and political leader. E-mail: jdendahl@swcp.com.