John Kirtley (Step up for Students/Vouchers) asks you to pick millionaires and billionaires over teachers.

I find it ironic that John Kirtley of Step up for Students attacked the Florida Education Association for being against vouchers, when they themselves attacked the Parent Teacher Association and other parent organizations earlier in the week in the Tampa Tribune.  Why don’t they care about the parents of the state’s poorest of the poor children they opined.

To equate union’s spending with Step up for Students and Charter school spending is a false narrative.  Teachers with their seven year old cars, mortgage payments and student loans have to stick together against the millionaires and billionaires of the world that are driving education policy of which John Kirtley is one of them.

He excoriates unions for being in the political process but what exactly are they fighting for? Better working conditions for teachers and fewer tests top the list, something most parent groups are also fighting for. Kirtley on the other hand is fighting for private schools that take vouchers be exempt from accountability, for the public to subsidize a few citizens religious choices, fear of “gov’ment” schools and irrational hatred of teacher unions to go to schools that don’t offer better education outcomes and to annually siphon out hundreds of millions of dollars from already resource starved public schools.

Even if you are not a fan of the FEA there are lots of reasons why people oppose the expansion of vouchers. First for religious reasons, vouchers don’t just blur the line between church and state, it obliterates it. There is the accountability, that John Kirtley and many voucher supporters’ fight against and the fact vouchers annually siphon hundreds of millions out of public schools and the tax base which pays for many services.

But do you know what gets me the most about Step up for Students, shilling for more money from the state legislature? It’s not the fact they are already sitting on a sizeable nest egg, it’s not the fact they resist accountability, it’s not the fact that over ten percent of the schools they send money to teach creationism  as science, many don’t have recognized curriculums or certified or even degreed teachers, that the schools that they send money to don’t as a group do any better than public schools and they exaggerate their talking points about the poorest of the poor it’s the fact they undoubtedly use public money to do so.  They use public money to finance their campaign for more public money.

I would also like to mention that for every Democrat Cuomo bought and paid for by the rich and powerful, there is a Republican Geatz insisting on accountability

If John Kirtley is so concerned with our poorest of poor students why doesn’t he set up a charity to take care of them, he and his friends are rich enough after all? Why does he insist on using public money? At the end of the day this is not a battle between SUFS and the FEA but a battle between parents and teachers versus millionaires and billionaires. Which side do you want to be on?

to read Kirtley's piece, click the link: http://www.redefinedonline.org/2014/04/teachers-unions-hypocrisy-big-politics/