OR House Speaker secretly has a crush on charter schools
March 28, 2008 by libertyisforme
My good friend Paul Jacob made a great observation on Oregon House Speaker Jeff Merkley.
Years ago, Oregon House Speaker Jeff Merkley voted against Oregon’s charter school legislation. He lost.
Later, he and his wife applied to send two of their kids to a newly forming charter school. The school was late in starting up, so he lost again as the application wasn’t acted on.
So, what’s the deal behind his vote and new affection for charter schools?
The House Speaker is a Democrat. Usually Democrats are influenced by teachers union. Unions feel that the only system politicians should invest money in are public schools.
Stop, wait a minute!
Charter schools are public schools.
The catch is that they don’t have to answer to school boards and teachers aren’t unionized. So, a teachers union would never support a system where they don’t get membership dues.
So, this is another perfect example of a union buying a politicans vote and a politician having no back bone.
