Vouching For Bauer
Although “right to work” dominated the talk around the State House Monday, Democratic Leader Pat Bauer got my attention when he unveiled the Democrats’ ‘Helping Hoosiers Now” plan. The plan hits the usual Democratic themes of jobs, education and child protection services. However what stopped me in my tracks was Bauer calling for vouchers for preschool. Yes, in the same sentence I wrote “Bauer”, “voucher” and “preschool”. You can pick your jaw up off the floor.
The same party that fled the state for five weeks, in part because of education reform is supporting vouchers, albeit for preschool. But they are still supporting vouchers nonetheless.
Bauer said the voucher plan would be used to help promote early childhood education. The vouchers would be used for low-income students to enroll in preschool education programs. Bauer and the Democrats say the plan will help close the achievement gap by ensuring more Hoosier kids are prepared for kindergarten. He says less than one-percent of Hoosier children are in state preschool.
Details on the program were scarce. The Democratic Leader said the program would cost between $5 – $10 million annually and the money would come from the state surplus. Bauer could not say whether the program would cover religious preschools or what other criteria would be used to determine eligibility. But for now, that’s beside the point.
Democrats are on the record for supporting vouchers for low-income families to go toward education. I am not sure how this conversion came about, but there are days when I don’t need to know why someone finally decided to come to the light. I’m just glad they can finally see it. Now if I could just get my Democratic friends to support vouchers for K-12 education, then we’ll be making progress.
The next thing you know they’ll be supporting right-to-work.
