Sykes' "soft bigotry of low expectations"

Do voucher supporters want to know if these children are getting a good education?

No they don't. Otherwise they would support some sort of standards and accountability for achievement in Milwaukee's voucher schools.

"We have a moral obligation to make sure every child gets a good education. That's how I -- it's a moral obligation to make sure that we herald success and challenge failure. It's not right to have a system that quits on kids. I mean, some schools may not think they're quitting on kids, but when you shuffle kids through the schools without determining whether or not they can read and write and add and subtract, I view that as quitting on kids. I called it the soft bigotry of low expectations. In other words, you believe certain children can't learn, so, therefore, just move them through. It's kind of a process world, isn't it? It's more important that somebody be shuffled through than it is to determine whether or not they're capable of meeting certain standards in certain grades."

That's voucher supporter, George Bush. Should these comments apply to Milwaukee's voucher program? Most people would say yes and they're right, but the GOP legislature doesn't believe we should care if these kids are being left behind.

See any hypocrisy here? If voucher supporters really cared about these kids they would be spending their time trying to find a good school for them, not lobbying for a way to give a school like L.E.A.D.E.R more taxpayer money in the form of lifting the cap on the school choice program.

The next time Charlie Sykes talks about "standing in the schoolhouse door" he needs to take a look in the mirror, because it is he who is standing there letting the kids who need a quality education most enter the door of a failed school like L.E.A.D.E.R.