School choice

It has been interesting watching the U.S. Senate debate the confirmation of Betsy DeVos to become Secretary of Education. It seemed to be that a large number of the Senators that opposed the confirmation were also the same Senators who took large amounts of teacher's union money in their campaigns for office.

The final Senate vote confirming DeVos was a squeaker with DeVos confirmed by the Senate by a 51--50 margin, with Vice President Mike Pence breaking the tie in favor of DeVos's nomination. All 48 Democrat Senators voted against DeVos along with two liberal-leaning Republicans, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine. It will be interesting to follow DeVos's actions in the Department of Education as she is supposedly a strong champion of school choice enabled by a voucher system.

Betsy is married to multi-billionaire Dick DeVos. The money comes in part from a fortune built by Amway. Your columnist never met the couple. I did have a chance to observe the Amway Company from a distance when I was attending Lear Jet training at Grand Rapids Airport, Michigan. About to retire from the Air Force in 1979 I chose to attend Lear school to earn my Airline Transport Pilot Rating (ATP) using tuition credits accrued in my G.I. Bill. At Grand Rapids we students noticed an early morning flight by a privately owned helicopter departing the airport each morning. It landed at a mansion nearby, picked up passengers and then flew out of sight to the south. Each evening the same helicopter appeared again, landed on the lawn near the mansion, dropped off passengers then returned to the airport. When asked our instructor replied, "Oh that is the Amway corporate helicopter taking the owner to and from work at Amway Headquarters."

Someone has a bit of money somewhere! Way different from my world. Still it is impressive that such caliber of people will step away from their successful business interests to do public service. I can only hope that their success in business will translate to their public service position and better serve our country. I digress.

Betsy DeVos has a record of advocating school vouchers and alternative or charter-schools. Curious as to what might be the impact on education here in Southwest Nebraska if DeVos were to be confirmed as Secretary of Education I visited a bit with one of the local school board members a man of whom I have great respect. He wasn't exactly in favor of the school voucher program where tax money would depart from the public schools and follow a student to an alternative school, charter, parochial or whatever. We didn't address home schooled students.

Understandably one can see why an elected school board would be concerned about losing money from their budget. In my opinion schools in general, not talking the local system, haven't exactly been financially frugal. It has been too easy to just raise the taxes a little bit to meet what may be a bit of a fatter than normal budget. With the prospect of tax money being whittled away from the public schools, it will be even more painful to adopt a responsible budget. Now, of course, you and I have to trim our personal budget each year to meet our projected income but such action seems to be hard for local governmental bodies to do the same. That, by the way, is experience talking.

Stepping back away from the voucher program, so frustrating to public schools, it is instructive to look at our local practices. I know of local McCook student residents that are bussed each day to attend grade school in Culbertson and others that go the other direction to Bartley. The money their parents pay in school taxes doesn't go with them. A good number of McCook grade school students attend the parochial school at Saint Patrick and I understand that school is totally funded by the local parish. By the way, the public (including all us heathens) is welcome to the Parish fundraiser spaghetti feed and silent auction this coming Sunday. Funds generated go to their parochial school. There is also a local Christian Academy welcoming students to an education alternative to the public school system. I have little clue as to the number of local home-schooled students. It is my understanding that none of the local schools offering an alternative to the public school shares in any of the money paid by their parents in local school taxes. Hmm, maybe that is why the public school system is somewhat against the voucher system to help fund alternative schools.

Understand that I am not knocking our local public education. Your humble correspondent, Grannie Annie, our children and some of our grandchildren are well-prepared products of the McCook public schools. I think our local systems are totally blessed with excellent teachers and a well-run system. My school board friend offered some insight. He says that what is important to maintaining quality in the school is the interest that parents take in what their child is receiving inside the school building. He says that our local parents are involved and that is what helps make our local schools as good as they are.

Personally, I think that this area is blessed with good schools. I'd hate to see them go downhill but I also think that a voucher system to help the alternative schools provide quality education may be a blessing to both sides of the equation. We'll see what happens.

That is the way I saw it.

Dick Trail