(Guest post by Greg Forster)
At what point does refuting Jay Mathews’ lame rationalizations of his politically chosen position become bad sportsmanship? Well, I suppose I left that exit behind miles back, having shamelessly run up the score on him during last year’s humiliating wager, and then followed up with this.
So if he were flogging the same old lame arguments in his recent column, I’d leave it alone. But he’s not. He’s got all new lame arguments!
The main thing I want to point out is that Mathews isn’t even pretending that vouchers are politically dead. That used to be his main argument (see Wager, Last Year’s Humiliating for more information). Now he doesn’t even gesture towards it.
See this?
That’s the trophy case I just bought because I ran out of room to store all the arguments my opponents stopped making.
So now that he’s abandoned his old lame rationalization for his politically selected position, what’s his new one? Apparently, a shocking Washington Post article recently “revealed” that parents, not the corrupt D.C. school bureaucracy, are in charge of deciding whether schools taking vouchers are doing well. No, seriously, that’s his argument.
In other news, a shocking post here on JPGB recently “revealed” that water runs downhill.
Mathews goes on at some length about one (1) voucher school that isn’t up to snuff. As opposed to the D.C. public school system! Mathews himself opens the column by admitting that “if I were a D.C. parent with little money and a child in a bad public school, I would happily accept a taxpayer-supported voucher to send my kid to a private school.” So that’s pretty much the only answer I need for that.
He also waves around some big dollar figures trying to create the impression that vouchers cost a lot of money, never comparing them to the amount we spend on D.C. public schools – twice as much (or more, depending on whose figures you use). Arrest that man for flagrant violation of the Denominator Law.
And he argues that if vouchers ever got big enough to serve lots of kids, they’d have no choice but to accept government control over voucher schools comparable to what charter schools have now. Tell that to Indiana and Louisiana, which just enacted gargantuan new voucher programs. Honestly, you would think by now he’d learn to check first.
Once again, Dr. Mathews, we see there is no lame rationalization for your politically chosen position you can possess which I cannot take away.
HT to unofficial honorary Al recipient George Mitchell
Jay P. Greene's Blog 
Remember, Jay Mathews also makes $$ off of his support for the U.N.’s indoctrination program known as the International Baccalaureate program. He tries to sell this politically motivated program as quality education for students.
Anyone who’s looked at the program sees the pro-Marxist, pro-U.N. propaganda throughout.