SC Democrat slams own party on education issue
Pete Chagnon - OneNewsNow - 3/25/2009 7:00:00 AM
State Senator Robert Ford of Charleston County is breaking ranks with Democrats on educational choice. He says it is not fair that politicians are able to exercise school choice while their constituents are stuck sending their children to failing public schools. He adds that failing schools are a waste of tax dollars.
"Whatever the amount of money that we spend on a child per year, that money is for the child -- it's not for the school," he contends. "So if you got a failing school, it simply means that that parent is wasting taxpayer money."
Senator Ford tells OneNewsNow that politicians should be willing to support all educational options -- even using vouchers to send kids to religious schools if that is what the parents want. But he adds that he is not getting any support from his fellow elected African-American officials because they are not willing to think outside the box.
"They stay in their little nest, and then they satisfy each other's ignorance and stupidity by being in that nest," Ford notes. "You got to leave that nest sometime and find out what the rest of the world is doing."
According to Ford, the Democratic Party is failing its constituents, especially its minority constituents, on the educational issue. Ford supported Obama in the general election, and he hopes that Obama will step up to the plate and take a leadership role when it comes to education -- especially since the president was able to benefit from educational choice as a child and his daughters are able to do the same in DC, he points out.
Senator Ford also offered the following response to the recent vote in Congress on DC education vouchers: "I don't understand what the Democratic Party's point is on this. They are definitely on the wrong side of history, and it looks like they're proving it to their more loyal supporters -- African-Americans -- that we don't give a [expletive] about you all's education or your children. That's the honest message they are sending," he believes.
"And I hate to say that, but it's loud and clear. And it's about time that everybody wake up and realize what is going on in this country. Particularly with African-Americans who have been loyal to the Democratic Party all these years and the response we get from the United States Senate -- the most important position on this planet -- those Democratic gentlemen voted not to...give those kids in [the District of Columbia] some choices, they have to go to a failing school. Lord have mercy, I can't understand what the world has come to. It don't make no common sense [sic]."
Hear the entire interview with South Carolina State Senator Robert Ford
