What do you most like about your job? For me, it is being invited to speak about the work the Mississippi Center for Public Policy (MCPP) is doing to try to improve our state.
Typically, I get a couple of invitations each month to talk at Rotary Clubs, schools or the Kiwanis. Just the other week, I received one such invitation from the North Jackson Rotary Club. As invited to, I talked about some of our policy goals, such as school choice, deregulation and tax reform. Ever sensitive to the fact that good folk have different opinions about things, I meticulously avoided saying anything even remotely partisan. Rotary Club lunches are enjoyable precisely because they are committed to building goodwill and understanding. As I sat down after speaking, however, up popped Luther Munford, someone I had only met on my way into the event. Mr. Munford proceeded to attack school choice – and at times I almost felt, me - at length, all under the guise of asking a question. Fair enough, I thought. Free speech and all that, although Mr. Munford did not sound very big on goodwill. In fact, he sounded borderline rude. I thought no more of the incident until I read Mr. Munford’s recent newspaper article in which he appears to have continued the attack he started at the North Jackson Rotary Club. Curiously, for an article purporting to be about school choice in Mississippi, he launched his article with an attack on Brexit. Aware as he is of my role as one of the founders of the official Brexit campaign back in my native Britain, Mr. Munford perhaps thinks that by attacking the way 45 million Brits voted he is somehow getting at me. Whatever. Once Mr. Munford gets around to attacking school choice, rather than me, he makes a series of erroneous assumptions that deserve a rebuttal. Mr. Munford says school choice is unpopular. This is just not true. Polls show that more than 7 in 10 Mississippi voters, including a majority of Democrats, want school choice. Mr. Munford seems especially vexed by the idea that parents given the choice might want their children to attend a religious school. Assuming I have understood him correctly (his syntax is a little garbled) school choice would mean that “the problem of funding truly racists religious beliefs becomes even greater”. Any suggestion that Mississippi private schools are full of “racist religious beliefs” will no doubt come as a surprise to anyone that attends or teaches at one.
Mr. Munford then attacks private schools on the basis that “no one knows how well Mississippi private schools are doing because they are not subject to any form of public accountability”. Again, plain wrong. Private schools are hyper accountable to fee paying parents. It is the public school accountability system that is failing, giving A grades to school districts where many kids can’t read properly. Mr. Munford then proceeds to attack school choice on the basis that it would take money out of the public sector. Allowing each public school student to take their base share of state funds (about $6,600) to a public school of their choice (assuming the public school has capacity) would not impoverish the public sector. It would reallocate the money, forcing failing schools and underperforming districts to raise their game. Our plan for a Mississippi Parents’ Tax Credit for those that choose not to take their place at a public school, because they prefer to home school or go private, would be capped at $150 million. It is not draining money from public schools but supporting families that are currently paying twice. What I find hardest to understand about Luther Munford’s attack on school choice is that he sent his own children to one of the most expensive private schools in our state, St Andrew’s. Luther Munford is on record as saying he “believes strongly in public education”. But not strongly enough to send his own kids to public school. Mr. Munford attacks putting money into private religious schools because of the risk of “racist religious beliefs”. I presume there were no such beliefs at St Andrew’s Episcopal School when his own kids went there? He attacks private schools for not being accountable. When he was a parent at St Andrew’s was there not sufficient accountability to him as a parent? Perhaps if one were to ask why, as an advocate of public education, Mr. Munford did not take the opportunity to send his own kids to, say, Murrah High School, he might have an explanation as to why his family circumstances were different. Anti school choice activists need to recognize that every family’s circumstances are different. That’s why families need to be able to make choices about their children’s education that currently only people like Mr. Munford are able to make. Sending a child to St Andrew’s today costs about $20,000 a year. We should all support parents’ 100 percent if they are blessed enough to be able to send their children to such an awesome school. But we should at the same time help local families that cannot afford that to allocate their $6,600 of state funding to a school they can get into. To do anything else could be called hypocrisy. Douglas Carswell is the President and CEO of the Mississippi Center for Public Policy. MCPP sponsored this post.
19 comments:
Right on Douglas. Luther can be a pompous ass, however he reads this blog and should answer the question...."Why did you not send your kids to public schools, Mr. Hypocrite?"
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What I find hardest to understand about Luther Munford’s attack on school choice is that he sent his own children to one of the most expensive private schools in our state, St Andrew’s.
Munford is just one of many examples of this hypocrisy. Elite and not-so-elite Democrats LOVE them some St. Andrews.
Then you have all the supposed public school supporters who send their kiddos to the Montessori program at McWillie only then, and oh-so-predictably, to abandon JPS for one of the metros private schools when faced with the prospect of JPS crap middle and high schools.
Munford is an idiot. I hate reading his columns in the Northside Sun.
St Andrews pretends it is a “public school” because it has always been in the MHSAA. Meanwhile all their 2A opponents know they have the highest tuition and 7A facilities. Nice
Best column published on here in a while. I wish people were more willing to name names and engage in public feuds. Makes living here much more interesting.
Luther got his liberal pants pulled down.
There are hundreds of SA parents who live the same hypocrisy as Luther.
St. Andrew's didn't ask to be made a part of this conversation. It is a private school (MHSAA 3A next year). It does cost around $23,000 a year to attend. (Prep $17,000; JA $17,500; MRA $12,800; Hartfield $9,900). Please enjoy discussing Luther "I clerked for the U.S. Supreme Court" Mumford.
As long as I pay taxes, I should have a say in public education, no matter where I send my kids.
The United States spends more money per a pupil than any country in the world yet we don’t have the best schools!
The challenge I think is what is meant exactly by “school choice” to arrive at 70% acceptance? Freedom! Yeah man. What specifically does your group want though (and who funds you)? Vouchers for private schools? District choice anywhere and at any time? What else?
Luther must have forgotten when his child had to go to class in run down one room trailer "portable classrooms" at JPS. APAC and Casey both had them and it was blatantly obvious how mismanaged the schools were even in the 90s.
Who is responsible for taking students who want to go to another school from Point A to Point B and back? The parent or the school. I guess private schools will get a pass but can public schools just tell them good luck? Seems like a recipe for either chronic truancy, which is disruptive to others, or increasing costly public transportation. How do other states do it?
I know a former Chairman of the National School Board Association. An avowed Democrat, she acknowledged to me that, "For Republicans education is about teaching kids, for Democrats education is about creating jobs in education."
That is the problem with education in America. We could drastically cut funding to education, increase teacher pay, and teach kids better, if we eliminated almost all non-teacher education jobs.
Oh my! Hypocrisy has become a necessary skill in Mississippi. First, let me say I sent my children to pricey private schools. I also want to see public schools as a viable option. Some have made head way and used their limited funding well. Madison Central and Spann in Jackson are very good schools and have graduated very successful students. I suspect there are some others, I just happen to be more familiar with the quality of the teachers and the buildings of those two. When Munford sent kids to St A's, things were much worse and a large part of the problems , then and now was and is the limited curriculum. I did not want a replay of kids finding out when they went to schools out of state, that some of their fellow students had read their college textbooks while in high school. And, that while they knew a great deal about the Civil War battles and generals, they knew very little about our Founders and the Revolutionary War.
Even at the private schools, little was taught about writing research papers and foreign languages are usually Latin and French. In elsewhere, Latin is more related to reading and grammar. I hoped that changed as most schools give 5 years of a foreign language.
Indeed, now with school vouchers in some of those states have schools that teach reading, writing and arithmetic but also have foreign language taught as early as first grade. And advanced science courses come early.
Children are not all the same and discovering interests early is a good thing. It keeps the child engaged and looking forward to school, not dreading being bored to tears or never succeeding.
My take is that neither the author of this "whining" nor his "nemesis", has actually been inside public schools, private or public or looked at what is being done successfully elsewhere.
These days, everything is about the money spent on education without thinking of education as an investments in the future gains being as important at short term pleasures.
Our private schools "ebb and flow" when it comes to which ones attract the best teachers and whether the parents run the schools or listen to the faculty. Do find out how many of a school's students actually graduate and get into good colleges and universities and can do well in their choices of schools that prepare them to compete in the marketplace. Walk down the halls of every school available at the times classes change or at lunch. Are the kids happy and engaged with one another are do they look miserable? Do you hear teachers yelling at students when they are back in classes are students happily settling in and paying attention? My children and grandchildren went to public and private schools based solely on which were the best for them individually. One private school here was the best for elementary school but not for high school.
Politicizing everything as we do these days prevents us from learning anything and definitely from improving anything to make it work better. THAT last part requires and OPEN MIND.
And, as for Brexit, why on earth is that failed effort even a subject anymore? The outcome is well documented and it isn't pretty!
Thanks for posting KF!!! It’s awesome seeing more Republicans call out leftist Democrats with no moral code for their sinful hypocrisy (Trump showing them the way?).
Living behind protective gates, or EVEN WORSE, in the Republican controlled burbs while sending THEIR CHILDREN to private schools, white liberal leftist Democrats have NO SHAME AT ALL!
The Democrat party purposely uses crime and chaos to make cities like Jackson one-party Democrat forever. Without the crime and chaos - residents would flock to Jackson, but those residents might not be dumb enough to vote Democrat, so Democrats keep crime high. And even innocent children dying from stray bullets won’t back Democrats down from this tactic.
6 decades ago Malcom X so truthfully told us: “that white person that you see calling himself a liberal (today its progressive Democrat) is the most dangerous thing in the entire Western Hemisphere. He’s the most deceitful.” Malcom also said: “The White liberal is the worst enemy to America and the worst enemy to the Black man.”
There’s a debate to be had on school choice, whether it will work or not. But there’s no debating the white liberal leftist Democrat’s sinful hypocrisy
“There is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known.” Luke 12:2
Without the crime and chaos - residents would flock to Jackson ...
That's debatable. Schools, infrastructure and an outrageous total millage has an impact.
9:13 pm negative actions have negative reactions. Its 2+2. Fix the crime and good things will happen. But Democrats don’t want a crime free Jackson - can’t give up control.
Ahhhhh…such bliss
In states where this policy has been enacted this is how it went down (but I’ll apply it to this local).
For folks spending twenty grand for high school education, their $6500 is vacation money. For those wishing to get theeir kids into a private school, the low cost schools just got cheap and better be ready to expand. For poor folk, well the best public schools are full and those parents have their $6500 too. So there’s no change.
Summary, rich folks get a vacation, upper middle class folks have more to brag about. For everybody else life’s the same.
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