Tuesday, December 19, 2006

In Support of Rick Jore

By the Liberal gnashing of teeth and tearing of clothing, the appointment of Rick Jore as the new Chairman of the Education Committee must be a wise choice. I admire Scott Sales' courage to appoint a man who has different views from the established government education monopoly and the Liberal teacher's unions. Instead of going along with the same old, same old, he might actually do some good and make improvements on how we educate our kids.

I found this to be the best article regarding Rick's appointment and his beliefs on education.

He believes in school choice for parents. This puts the education of our kids, mine included, in the hands of their parents and the free market. Give me tax credits if I choose to send my kids to a private school. If enough kids leave a public school, for a "better" school, that public school will need to improve to attract those kids back, thus ensuring a better education for those kids. Free market competition.

Representative Jore puts forth the concept of parental educational choice as an alternative premise to compulsory public school attendance. “The current system is monopolistic in nature. There is compulsory funding and compulsory attendance, which is the equivalent of providing a guaranteed clientele. If we implement school choice, that will introduce free market ideas and diminish the consequences of a monopolistic system,” Jore told the MNA Press reporter.

One of Jore’s ideas is to provide parents with tuition tax credits. This would be a win-win solution, in that parents who opt out of public school education for their children, and choose either to home school or go with an alternate private school education, would receive a tax credit of, potentially, $1,000. In past legislative sessions, it has been noted that tuition tax credits could mean prospective savings of millions of dollars for the state. It costs roughly $8,000 a year to educate one student. The state would give parents $1,000 of their money back, thus negating double payment (taxes and tuition) for their child’s education. The state would realize a $7,000 savings per student, per year. “These are rough numbers, but you get the point” emphasized Jore.

He also challenges Liberal's favorite way of passing laws, the court system. He also rightly believes in the local school board's authority for making decisions.

Jore also maintains that the legislature, not the courts, has the responsibility to determine proper funding levels. “It is not the role of the courts to dictate how much money is allocated to schools,” declared Jore. “And it’s not the legislature’s role to interfere with the workings of the local school boards. It’s up to the trustees to understand and realize their constitutional authority. I don’t advocate the state getting involved with local school board authority, but it’s important for the board members not to feel that they have to automatically acquiesce to administrators and the local educational establishment.”

And then there is this radical quote from his web site:

“I include education and family in the same category because education is in fact an extension of the family and parents have an inalienable right and responsibility, along with a compelling interest, to control the educational setting and content for their children.”

6 comments:

  1. You just signed your own notice to Montana saying "I am not a serious blogger, I am only here to go against the liberals" or, you just showed your true beliefs. Here is what Jore supports, and by proxy YOU.

    * Rick Jore would greatly decrease funding for higher education
    * Rick Jore would greatly decrease funding for high schools
    * Rick Jore would greatly decrease funding for elementary schools
    * Rick Jore would greatly decrease funding for the environment
    * Rick Jore would decrease funding for law enforcement
    * Rick Jore would decrease funding for highways
    * Rick Jore would eliminate funding for health care
    * Rick Jore would eliminate funding for welfare
    * Rick Jore does not support any type of campaign finance controls
    * Rick Jore does not support programs to provide prison inmates with vocational and job-related skills
    * Rick Jore does not support increasing state funding for community centers and other social agencies in areas with at-risk youth
    * Rick Jore does not support increasing state funding for state and local emergency agencies to prevent or respond to terrorism
    * Rick Jore does not support increasing state funding for state and local emergency agencies to prevent or respond to terrorism
    * Rick Jore does not support the restriction of the sale of products used to make methamphetamine
    * Rick Jore does not support the Montana Meth Project and similar initiatives
    * Rick Jore does not promote increased use of alternative fuel technology

    Source: Rick Jore's answers to the Project Vote Smart questionair.

    You want to take that article and say 'OH, this guy is great because you are tow damn stupid to do your own research?? Look at his answers to vote smart and at his website. He puts the truth right out there. Either that article is lying about his beliefs or he lies about them.

    ReplyDelete
  2. “You are tow damn stupid to do you own research”. Gee-whiz I thought libs where kind, compassionate, and open minded. Shane, you can simply list all the ways Jore would cut things in an effort to demonize him. The more open-minded question should be: Would those “cuts” cause more harm or more good? In your closed liberal mind you instantly see less government spending as a bad thing. Just for a second, open your mind to the possibility that a better service can arise with less government involvement. Jore very clearly states all over his vote smart questionnaire that he wants the free market (the people), not government, to provide all those services. There is a very strong argument that the free market can do a much better job of providing higher quality services than the government. The free market has a much better ability than the government to cut waste and provide much more specialize options in everything from education to healthcare. If the free market can do a better job but liberalism is forcing us to use the government, I think the argument can be made that Jore is actually more compassionate that all the “Left in the West” boys combined.

    I would love to debate the pros and cons of the free market versus the government, but first you have to realize we aren’t evil greed capitalist who want to hurt people. We want the exact same things you want (less poverty, better healthcare, better education), we just have a different (I would argue better) way of getting there.

    Fan boy

    ReplyDelete
  3. Ryan,

    There are many areas where the open market does out perform govenmental services. There are many areas where they do not.

    Education is one of them.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Wow Shane,way to be a Kinda-Capitalist,eh?

    More competition always yeilds better results.

    Trent Hill

    ReplyDelete
  5. Wow, Shane, do you really believe that the government outperforms the private sector in the education business? You better check the government's own SAT-score stats. The last I checked, it was government schools, 50th percentile; private schools, 80th percentile; and home schools, 90th percentile.

    ReplyDelete
  6. ...but that was quite a few years ago. Maybe the government schools have improved hand over fist since then. Anyone have any more recent stats.?

    ReplyDelete