(Guest Post by Matthew Ladner)
BOOOOM! The Virginia House passed HB 2238, a special needs ESA bill, by a vote of 57-42 yesterday.
Jay P. Greene's Blog
With Help From Some Friends
(Guest Post by Matthew Ladner)
BOOOOM! The Virginia House passed HB 2238, a special needs ESA bill, by a vote of 57-42 yesterday.
Jay P. Greene's Blog 
This illegal bill is currently in the VA senate, so your VA state Senator needs to hear your objections to HB2238
http://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?151+sum+HB2238
Use this “app” to determine who your State Senator is in the Virginia General Assembly:
http://whosmy.virginiageneralassembly.gov/
Atheists and Muslims paying taxes to fund Christian and Jewish schools?
Atheists, Christians, and Jews paying taxes to fund Muslim schools?
That’s what VA HB 2238 would have happen.
On its surface, it’s meant to tug at your heart strings paying for “special needs” kids’ alternative educational options; but like oil and water don’t mix, legislative good intentions don’t mix with bad procedure and public policy. But it takes 90% of the lump sum of state money attributed to the public school student, and transfers it to an account to be paid out to a school of the parents’ choosing, with the public school system then washing their hands of the student’s education, other than to collect taxes and state and federal monies as if the student were a public school student, and then transferring 90% to the account for the kid’s new school.
No matter if your dollars go to a school your conscience or religious affiliation agrees with funding or not. No matter whether the child actually receives the education the state is paying for or not, that money goes to the school, which is not under the state’s supervision (though the state pays for the kid), and which can be of any religious order, or even anti American in its nature and curriculum. Would the special needs kid even be ignored, put into a corner, while the school rakes in the state funds?
As with any private school, I personally think that the parents should get a refund of their taxes paid to public school system, while they’re paying for their kid to go to a different school, but not the thousands of $$ that everyone’s paid for their public, non-sectarian school for all kids, along with all of the grants and federal credits. I should not force a Muslim to pay for my child’s Christian education, nor vice-versa.
Found within the feel good legislation:
http://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?151+ful+HB2238S2+pdf
Line 29 – “Qualified school” means a private, sectarian or nonsectarian elementary or secondary school or preschool for students that is located in the Commonwealth and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, or national origin.
Line 189 – “A. Nothing in this article shall be construed to permit any agency of the Commonwealth to exercise control or supervision over any private school or program of home instruction.
Line 193 – C. No qualified school shall be required to alter its creed, practices, admissions policies, or curriculum in order to receive moneys from a Savings Account pursuant to this article.