SENATE BILL: Power to Parents Act (Failed)

[Napoleon]

I can't even think of how this bill could be amended to get my signature.

Eliminating the Go Green Fund is out of the question.

Mandating local school districts to take on this policy is also inappropriate.

I can't stand by the removal of the community as a partner in education that this bill would bring about.

[Napoleon]

Shouldn't this be mandated at the regional or even local level?

Yes and the Northeast already allows this.

[Napoleon]

Perhaps we could come up with a compromise, and give local communities the incentive to adopt this policy, rather than a mandate?

Though I must say, I am also uncomfortable with gutting the Go Green Fund.

I don't see any reason why we should offer incentives.

[Napoleon]

Just to be clear I would veto this bill with or without Senator Scott's amendment. I am not very enthusiastic about making this an even more expensive proposal.

[Napoleon]

Again I will be vetoing this...can we move on?

[Napoleon]

Mr. President,

I don't understand what you are desiring here. A bill can't simply be stopped dead in it's tracks because the President expresses his hostility to it. It will proceed under normal procedures as far as they allow and the sponsor desires, until they exhausted. If a Senator grows impatient a tabling process may be initiated but there is no guarrantee that will do anything except cause more delay. As I stated on a previous bill, such a process is time saver only if it succeeds and a time waister if it fails.

I am asking for a final vote to be called or the bill to be withdrawn..or we can draw out the process longer and get the same result but that doesn't benefit anyone.

[Napoleon]

Once again- I believe an override is likely if you choose to veto a bill which is the result of cooperation and compromise... this game exists to have these debates and discussions and I'm sure you don't want a productive debate to end

I don't believe an override is likely once Senators wake up and realize that all this does is kill green jobs so that we can employ more bus drivers. Never mind the fact that regions like the Northeast are perfectly able to fund regional policy decisions on their own.

[Napoleon]

Senator I have made my position on this proposal very clear and you aren't interested in compromising.

[Napoleon]

Clarence has compromised by moving one disastrous policy to another. Quite a low standard if you ask me. I really hope it doesn't become a trend for this Senate to ignore common sense because the sponsor of a bill expresses a willingness to compromise. After all, the Fugitive Slave Act was a compromise.

The amount of money allocated for transportation by this bill would not be nearly enough to cover the costs. Has anyone thought about how this bill would actually affect policy? There is an average of 6 schools per school district. You are expecting school districts to cover the cost of transporting any student to any school. It already costs approximately $18 billion to provide transportation for K-12 students to get to the school serving their communities. You are trying to open the flood gates. Any student can go to any school and we are supposed to pay to transport them with expensive and polluting buses running multiple times through neighborhoods to get to schools all the way on the other side of town. And to do this we are expected to make it more difficult for working people to make their commute. I am absolutely bewildered.

[Napoleon]

I was simply going to have it come out of the planned budget surplus. If you would like to discuss options for where to cut some amount of spending to offset that, however, that's okay too. I just assumed that cutting a billion dollars into a ten billion dollar item would seriously jeopardize the success of several other transportation programs for which the details are unbeknownst to me.

I'd forgotten we had a surplus... in that case I am completely fine removing the Go Green Fund from the bill and with your version. Scott???

Because we are currently running a surplus we should implement a long term policy with long term costs and no direct funding?

[Napoleon]

While we are discussing how to waste our surplus, has anyone looked into the benefits of this bill? Like how much variance in performance typically exists within a singular school district? Not much. Its basically insignificant. School districts are normally small entities.

[Napoleon]

Would this bill not severely undermine efforts to racially diversify educational environs in a sizable number of districts, result in overcrowding the best schools, and eventually siphon funding away from the schools struggling the most (thus being least attractive to parents) to improve their levels of performance? I am a bit concerned about these things. What are your thoughts, Clarence? Is there a way to circumvent these issues or might they not be a priority?

Redalgo- I want to say first that I appreciate your respectful and genuine feedback event hough we do not often agree...

As for racial diversity- in Florida communities are often divided by race... there are parts of my county which have many blacks while others have many fewer. As is- with school boundaries divided geographically this results in some schools having a higher percentage of blacks then others. Giving blacks (particularly poorer blacks) the opportunity to attend schools in another area which are often higher performing would likely help diversify schools

Overcrowding- one of the problems with low performing schools is overcrowding as they don't have the resources for every child... they lack computers and sometimes even desks. Higher performing schools likely have the capacity to take in more students while lower perofrming schools would be able to concentrate their resources on the students who remain, therefore improving those student's learning experiences

Siphoning funds- I believe the above answer shows my theory- which is that the schools will eventually even out. The disparity now between high performing and low performing schools is a shame on our nation's educational system...I believe this will give equal opportunity to every student to have the best possible education

Overcrowding is a by district problem. A school district adjusts its school boundaries to ensure that all of their schools are run efficiently and overcrowding is not something that affects only one school in a district.

With an average of six schools per district, I highly doubt any racial diversity is achieved here.

[Napoleon]

Clarence has compromised by moving one disastrous policy to another. Quite a low standard if you ask me. I really hope it doesn't become a trend for this Senate to ignore common sense because the sponsor of a bill expresses a willingness to compromise. After all, the Fugitive Slave Act was a compromise.

You are a repulsive, loathsome individual... I'd say your immaturity never ceases to amaze be but this time- it has. I would've figured a victory would humble you as it does most people- instead, you've only extended your "my way or the highway" arrogance
If any one wants to respond to your points- they should feel free. I will choose not to engage in dialogue with a "man" who is ruining the pleasant experience of debating and discussing issues by bringing his arrogance and attitude into every discussion he enters

Grow up, Mr. President...

You've offered no reason for adopting this policy and can't defend it so you resort to personal attacks and somehow I am the immature one? Okay. Someone dares to speak out against your bill and actually debate it's merits and you say I am ruining the experience of debate. There has been no debate until now! The whole discussion has been spent nitpicking on how to implement a policy without any peep about whether its a good or bad policy and why. Grow up Senator and learn some manners.

[Napoleon]

Mr. President, it is not productive for you to personally attack members of the Senate; it only damages your image among its members.  Voice your objections without resorting to personal attacks.

Clarence is the only one making personal attacks so I will assume you meant to address him.

[Napoleon]

I do remember when you proposed school vouchers in the IDS legislature. If I recall correctly, and I do of course, you ended up resorting to personal attacks like "douchebag" similar to what you are doing here and now instead of debating the bill. I suppose this is due to maturity?

Anyway you haven't stated why we need this policy to my standards. I have already explained how your overcrowding and racial diversity arguments don't work and I haven't seen any justification for the expense, which is going to be much larger than the funding that is currently being suggested.

I have done nothing but try to present my point of view in good faith. To be blunt I am a bit aggravated that I am expected to double duty as President and Senator. This body used to be a place where ideas were debated on their merits and from what I hear here I get the impression that we are doling out Ayes for effort which I find disturbing.

[Napoleon]

How in the world can that second statement even be construed as a personal attack? I would love to see you explain that.

[Napoleon]

Mr. President, do you have any specific proposals that would improve the bill so that it would better fulfill its intention?

Kill it.

You are completely missing the point. I am not interested in fulfilling the intentions of this bill and you shouldn't be either. This is a $40 billion boondoggle by my estimates. I could not care less how the Senate decides to fund it at this point if you actually believe this policy is pratical then there is nothing I can say to convince you otherwise.

[Napoleon]

I am still weighing the pros and cons of the legislation, and even if I vote against the final draft, I want Clarence and everyone else to understand that at least I looked at both arguments and based my judgment off of that instead of simply having a knee-jerk attitude against it. 

Is that what you think I've done? Sorry, I've actually researched how this bill would affect the status quo to reach my conclusion. There is no compromise that could make this function practically.

Let's take a look at what this bill does. It gives money to school districts to provide transportation to any school from any neighborhood. Buses can't just pick kids up from a neighborhood and go from school to school. Many schools start at the same time, so that's a lot of buses and buses are expensive. That's a lot of miles, and gasoline is expensive. That's a lot of kids to a lot of schools. I really feel like I'm the only person who has thought about the impact of this bill. Now, as I said, it gives money to school districts, but it doesn't fund transportation. $1 billion is not nearly enough money to cover the costs incurred. Considering the cost of buses and gasoline and the number of schools per district, my estimation is that at least forty times that is needed to actually work, and that is a lot of money.

Now let's focus on the merits of this bill. Yes, allowing parents to send there child to the school they want to is a good idea but on who's dime? Does the outcome justify the cost? Most school districts are small- it isn't as if you will find really good schools and really bad schools within a single district very often. So what tangible benefits will be seen from this bill, and how in the world could they outweigh a $40 billion price tag?

You- on the other hand- seem to have such an inflated view that you alone are right and if one doesn't agree with you, he or she is dead wrong and either must adopt your point of view or else is not worth it.

I do believe that in regard to this bill, quite strongly in fact. I encourage you to explain how this bill would do anything other than create chaos. You haven't provided any argument as to why this policy should be adopted: the only favorable comments you made of the bill I've shown can't really apply- the racial diversity and overcrowding arguments don't align with the reality of our education system.

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Your second statement there is clearly a personal attack and your last statement is what makes it such a vile commentary overall...

Senator, that second statement is in no way a personal attack and cannot even be stretched or twisted into such. Quite clearly, I stated that your willing to compromise (which is respectable, but in this case, impossible) has resulted only in making a bad policy into a different bad policy, and saying that is a poor standard on which to judge legislation. This is in response to a Redalgo post which has since been edited out of the form my response was to. The point was that compromise is good, but you can't vote for a bad policy just because compromises were made to get there. Voting on legislation should be about the policy itself and not the process- and this process has been dreadful by the standards of this esteemed body.

The last statement was included to demonstrate that compromise in and of itself is not a virtue, and does not make something worthy of becoming law. Compromise can be good, compromise can be bad, just like anything else.

I believe that working to improve a bill is a good thing but I understand this bill is unworkable in any form if the goals Senator Clarence has set out are to be achieved, so I recommend not spending more time on it. In no way is this an attempt to stifle debate. See the problem Clarence is that there hasn't been any debate (maybe that's what made it enjoyable?), and no one was, until I spoke out, focused on the merits of the policy itself. Hopefully we can now reach a decision on this by considering the relevant facts and realize not every bill was meant to be passed.

[Napoleon]

I think we should allow open enrollment but we shouldn't pay for transportation. If you want to send your kid to a school farther away, you should arrange for the transportation.

School districts can already allow that if they want; this bill is only about paying for transportation.

[Napoleon]

Could I point out that we have this type of system in Sweden and there is no chaos or exploding costs that I'm aware of? Although, we don't do school buses, you just pay for the kids getting a public transportation card and let the families figure out transport on their own. I commuted almost an hour for several years to get to a good school in the city rather than the local one.

Also, as moderator, chill people.

Right the whole price tag is for transportation though so... :/

[Napoleon]

Senator TJ, I like your amendment .

[Napoleon]

I have some concerns with this amendment.  If fewer low-income students are attending the better schools, then not only would they be deprived of the better education, but student diversity would be lower in these schools.

I don't have a very favorable opinion on this.

Senator, have you considered that the variation in school performance within individual districts is nearly nonexistent?

[Napoleon]

Here are some maps you can look at: http://schoolperformancemaps.com/

As you can see, schools in the same areas perform very similarly. The major outlier would be Florida, which has each county functioning as a school district. But if you're expecting the federal government to send buses from inner city Miami to any of many wealthier exurbs, well, sorry, we just can't afford that. I also question whether parents would like to stick their children on a bus to take them twenty miles away from home everyday instead of keeping them in their communities with their friends and neighbors.

[Napoleon]

Napoleon- you've mentioned a few times that you did something similar in the Northeast... how is what you did in the Northeast different from this bill in substance beyond the fact the one is regional and one is national? Is it simply the stipend for transportation?

I didn't actually do it- that was Andrew when he was Governor. The law is also a bit different.

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I think the Public School Choice Act is a good law. But as you know, I believe these policies are best left up to regional governments and local school districts. My cousin is a teacher and when I asked her what she thought the sort of policy originally proposed would do in real life, she replied that it would be unmanageable chaos. We absolutely cannot afford to pay for this sort of massive scale school transportation, especially when you match it up with the benefits enacting the policy would provide.

[Napoleon]

How would you feel about an amendment to make this bill the same as the Northeast bill- simply on a national level?

I would consider it unconstitutional.

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I think you have misunderstood me throughout this debate. I've really thought about all the angles that could be taken here, I just couldn't find any that would work. It isn't that I didn't want to. I also felt it better to be honest when I plan on vetoing something because we have other things to debate, so I didn't mean for you to take it as me being rude. For example, how long should a good Senate sit on a resolution for authorizing force on Iran? Even if I disagree with that too I feel like you proposed it because you felt there was a sense of urgency. That's the only reason why I suggested tabling this bill, not because I wanted to "have my way".