The latest from Chicago’s public schools is rather scary, specially if you are a parent concerned with a good education or paying taxes to finance it. This is from The American Interest:
While blue model decay is more advanced in Chicago than any other American city, the problems underlying the crisis in the school district — recalcitrant public sector unions, pliant lawmakers, fiscal incompetence, and an acute drought of ideas — are weighing on municipal governments from coast to coast.
In the short run, we are likely to see more pension-induced crises of governance in big blue cities and states.
It’s not really hard to understand. One plus one equals two not three, as my late father used to tell me whenever we would discuss the inherent falsehood of socialism.
As the article points out, this is just the beginning of many blue jurisdictions coming to terms with reality:
First, taxpayers flee or put their kids in other schools; and,
Second, more state legislatures will not bail out inner cities.
This is also the beginning of a “Blue Civil War”, as the aforementioned article explains:
Democrats in places like Chicago have historically been able to depend on both the unionized producers of government services (strike-happy teachers unions demanding ever-more generous pension contributions) as well as the people who depend most on high-quality service (the parents of low-income students in Chicago public schools).
As the cost of bureaucracy continues to increase and the quality continues to deteriorate, the interests of these two constituencies will increasingly diverge.
The Blue Civil War has the potential to scramble our political coalitions in big and unpredictable ways.
Of course, don’t expect anyone to ask President Obama why he never sent his daughters to Chicago’s public schools. The answer is obvious: the schools stink and he did not want his girls anywhere near them. It’s a shame that he does not support giving other black or Hispanic parents the same opportunity with vouchers or choice.
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