Whenever I see legislation sponsored by Rep. Hope Damon, I wonder if she’s trying to be sneaky or if she’s just stupid.
For example, not too long ago, Damon was prime sponsor on a bill to require homeschooled students to take standardized tests. The bill was so badly drafted, it provoked 500 independent home education families to show up to testify against it. In order to save face, she ended up having to vote against her own bill. That’s evidence that she’s just stupid. But if her intention was to lump independent home educated students with EFA students and control both groups, then she’s sneaky.
Here Rep. Damon comes again, trying to deny students educational opportunities.
HB1512 Allowing municipalities to hold a vote to prevent their residents from receiving education freedom account vouchers.
Committee: Municipal and County Government
There are so many things wrong with this bill:
- It’s trying to circumvent the education committees, hoping no one who cares about education will see it. This makes Damon seem sneaky.
- It’s trying to give the power to towns, and not school districts. Odd, no? They’d get a better vote at annual district meetings than town meetings. At least that’s how it works in my town. Even people who vote conservative during the town meetings lose their heads in the district meetings. Maybe Damon doesn’t realize that EFAs are about education. This makes her just seem stupid.
- EFAs are handled completely by the state, not municipalities, so it’s not clear why they would want to give that power to towns. If she doesn’t understand that it completely undermines the intent of the EFA program, it makes her seem stupid. If she does understand it, it makes her seem sneaky.
- She refers to EFAs as “vouchers”, which they are decidedly not. There are two problems with this. First, many people have been conditioned to reflexively oppose any proposal that involves “vouchers”. Second, many people have learned that using the word inappropriately allows them to import arguments against voucher programs into discussions of programs that have nothing to do with vouchers. Both of these muddy the waters, and make it much harder to have substantive discussions based on the merits of the EFA program. If her intent is to undermine substantive discussions, that makes her seem sneaky. If she just doesn’t understand that EFAs aren’t vouchers, that makes her seem stupid.
- Maybe using “vouchers” is like a hashtag for the people against EFAs, so they can find all the #voucher bills and vote accordingly. That’s just sneaky.
- It’s hard to know what problem this bill is trying to solve since the purpose isn’t stated. That makes it hard to decide if the sponsors are sneaky or stupid.
But the worst thing about this bill is that these sponsors want to make sure every student is stuck in their assigned district schools, whether they fit there or not. That makes them not just sneaky, but malicious — like burning the lifeboats on a sinking ship.
