Star Parker is a regular contributor to WorldNetDaily.com, a politically conservative site. She writes sensibly
on the insidious racial blackmailers (Jackson, Sharpton, et al.), as well as the destructive nature of the
welfare state, particularly on black America.
She favors educational freedom. Fair enough. Unfortunately, her solution revolves around vouchers, which
depend on government stealing from people, then giving some of it back to be used to prompt the
government schools to clean up their collective act. In other words, the bureaucrats are still calling the
shots. A very bad idea.
My missive:
Dear Ms. Parker,
When it comes to the awful government school system, you will not find a harsher critic. How anyone could
possibly expect a socialist system modeled after the U.S. Postal Service to be successful in teaching children
how to read and write is incomprehensible to me. It has failed so completely that those with good
intentions have raised the white flag. The primary focus of the teachers' unions now is not to improve
education, but to disguise its criminally negligent performance from its customers. This job gets easier now
that many of the parents who should be outraged are themselves products of the system. Simply put,
they're too ignorant to know any better.
I also agree with you about the NAACP. It long ago stopped being an advocate for blacks and has since
become a hindrance to progress. Unlike you, however, I sense that its motives are much more sinister. It is
my belief that black "leaders" actually want and need for black children to fail. The instructive question one
must ask: cui bono? In this case, a permanently downtrodden black underclass gives the Jacksons and
Sharptons of the world a perpetual constituency. They are the beneficiaries, and if millions are left to exist
in a world that has passed them by, so be it.
Imagine a world where there is no perceptible gap in test scores among races, where opportunity is not
limited by anything other than ambition to succeed. What would Jesse do in such a world? I would submit
that he would have to stop whining about inequality (real or perceived) and would be forced to earn a
legitimate living for the first time in his life. The mere thought probably scares the man.
As for vouchers, I understand your desire to breathe some life into the atrocious public school monopoly.
Unfortunately, the long term trend would be to permit the stultifying bureaucracy of the state to control
private schools. Those who have the money make the rules, and the government would still be the middle
man in this equation. A superior and far simpler solution is the total and complete separation of education
and state. That gives parents and students true educational and intellectual freedom from politicians,
bureaucrats, and race hustlers.
Sincerely,
Steve Hogan
Sunnyvale CA
