This past week, North Carolina media outlets buzzed with news from hearings conducted by the state election board. At issue were suspect financial contributions made to Speaker Black’s campaign by the optometrists’ lobby. The stakes are high for our embattled Speaker and his campaign committee: a top state elections official indicated last week that laws had been violated.
These developments serve as an interesting footnote to my January 5th journal, in which I highlighted “Black’s Eye Exam Scam.” This new law, supported by Speaker Black (an optometrist himself) and slipped quietly into the state budget, requires all North Carolina students to receive a comprehensive eye exam by a licensed optometrist or ophthalmologist before entering public kindergarten. A financial windfall to North Carolina optometrists everywhere, this legislation had political payback written all over it before hearings commenced; now our Speaker’s motivations seem murkier than ever.
The good news is that influential Senate Democrats are already making plans to repeal the requirement when the General Assembly session begins in May. Is their newfound eagerness to change the law due to the intense glare of public scrutiny? No one knows for sure, but it certainly calls to mind Senator William Proxmire’s observation, “Sunlight remains the world’s best disinfectant.”
And when it comes to public education, a good clean-up is in order. Speaker Black’s legislation (along with other politically-motivated policies around the country) is proof positive of the unholy alliance between politicians and K-12 education. All too often, parents and students are left to sift through the fallout from this tangled web of power, money, and influence.
How can we shift course? For starters, we ought to abandon our practice of attaching money to a system of government schools, and instead start linking educational dollars to children. And basic educational decisions ought to be made in homes, not in legislative buildings in Raleigh. Our entrenched government educational monopoly must be dissolved, so that school systems are forced to compete for customers, rather than keeping children captive in failing schools.
Fortunately, a committed band of reformers is already effecting change across the country. According to the Alliance for School Choice, publicly-funded school choice programs now operate in 12 states; nationally, more than 130,000 children participate in some form of educational choice. Change can happen here as well, if legislators (and the Governor) will stand against the powerful education lobby and pass a school choice bill.
But public support for choice is critical if we are to move ahead. As citizens, we need to be willing to advocate for change, and we must become knowledgeable about the issues. One way to become informed is to attend the North Carolina Conservative Leadership Conference. Sponsored by the John William Pope Civitas Institute, this conference will be held April 7th-8th at the Sheraton Imperial Hotel in Durham. Speakers will address a number of current issues facing our state, and the Alliance will participate in an education workshop. Please don’t miss this opportunity to begin “Reclaiming Our State” – for our children and ourselves.
To learn more about school choice, as well as the latest education news, visit the Alliance online at www.nceducationalliance.org. Check out the “Headlines” section of our home page, updated daily with articles from every major newspaper in the state. At the Alliance, we are committed to keeping you informed and empowered as we join together to improve education for the children of North Carolina.