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But no matter what level of government we approached we were always made cognizant of the fact that there were high stakes politics involved that our children had to take a back seat to. Democrats and the unions were not about to let go of their largest source of funding for their campaigns and the liberal policies they were advancing. I had to put my fight for choice in education on the back burner a few years ago. My family and my business needed my attention and my efforts at generating reforms appeared futile against the Goliath of the public school establishment. Then came a ruling by the US Supreme Court that school choice was in fact constitutional. I once said that any system of public education that does not incorporate choice is unconstitutional and the Supreme Court has said as much in its ruling. That is the truth and its time for New York's emotionally charged and intellectually vacuous Liberals to face reality. The only feasible solution to the problem with public schools is freedom of choice, but the entrenched bureaucrats have yet to even admit there is a problem. I recently heard a representative from NYSUT demand more money and proclaim that education is the engine of our economy. That is an egotistical statement and it is also wrong. Freedom of choice is the engine of our economy and without it we will be doomed to the same fate as that of the former Soviet Union. I would also like to educate all of you Liberals out there to the fact that the State of Vermont has always had a system of choice in education. If the Supreme Court had ruled the right to choose unconstitutional, Vermont would have had to spend billions of dollars in upgrading its educational infrastructure. You see, a long time ago when Vermont did not have enough public schools to handle the demands of its population, it acknowledged parents' rights to send their children to a more proximate private school free of charge. It was a win-win situation. The state did not have to borrow vast sums of money to build historically expensive public school buildings and that money was instead redirected to existing classrooms. They put the focus where it belonged, directly in the classrooms, not into a top-heavy monopolistic system. School choice will have a dramatic effect on more densely populated states like New York. Due to a recent court ruling, our State Legislature has been directed to develop a new formula for funding public education. It is time for politicians to start acting like statesmen and tell the education establishment that they have had enough time and money to get it right. Its time to do it the American way, the only right way, with the freedom to choose.
DRC
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