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A few days ago, Rep. Mike Merrifield resigned as head of the Colorado House Education Committee on account of an email he wrote last December.
Merrifield, an El Paso County Democrat (strange words to
write, for I thought I had once met both Democrats in El
Paso County), had corresponded with his Senate counterpart,
Sue Windels, an Arvada Democrat. They were discussing
charter schools, and he wrote There must be a place in
hell for these Privatizers, Charterizers and Voucherizers.
They deserve it!
Using the Colorado Open Records Act, a political web
site called Face the State got hold of the correspondence
and made it public. Merrifield soon quit as chairman, since
he did not want his remarks to sidetrack the important
work of the House Education Committee,
but will remain
on the committee. He also apologized for his strong
language and disrespectful tone.
Merrifield supports public education, and obviously sees charter schools and vouchers as a threat. Many other supporters of public schools see it the same way, but they could be wrong. Giving parents options with vouchers could be the best thing that ever happened to public schools.
As it is, school administrators and teachers have to
step very carefully to avoid offense. The result is
sanitized history, bland literature and incomplete science.
As the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche put it, In
large states public education will always be mediocre, for
the same reason that in large kitchens the cooking is
usually bad.
When you try to please everybody, you get white bread and bland casseroles, instead of pungent cuisine. But imagine that you sat at the complaint desk of a public high school where vouchers were freely available, and you dealt with parents:
Mrs. Rosary, I understand you're upset because your
daughter, in our European history class, was taught that
the Church was quite corrupt in late medieval times, and
you do not want her exposed to that information. We're not
going to change the teacher or the curriculum. So here's
your voucher. You can take it down the street to a school
that will keep your daughter in blissful ignorance.
Then to the next irate parent:
As I understand it, Mr. Jackson, you are offended
because your son is reading 'The Adventures of Huckleberry
Finn' in his American literature class, and it contains
that pernicious n-word. But as Ernest Hemingway said, 'All
modern American literature comes from one book by Mark
Twain called Huckleberry Finn. It's the best book we've
had.' We can't teach American literature and ignore it. So
take your voucher, and see if you can find a school that
suits you better.
And the next:
Ms. Fundament, we are not about to start teaching
'Intelligent Design' in biology, and in earth science,
we're going to hold with 4.5 billion years, instead of your
6,000. Nor are we planning any adjustments in the Colorado
history class to reflect your view that Sand Creek was a
noble effort to uplift the pagans of the plains. But I've
heard there's a new academy across town that might fit your
family's values. I'm not recommending it, but you should
check it out. Here's a voucher you can take with
you.
By providing vouchers to all parents who do not want their children to get a thorough education, our public schools would be free to devote themselves to excellence, rather than cultural and political pandering. And if Merrifield had thought this through, he might have suggested a place other than hell for those voucherizers.
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