It’s called “The Butterfield Effect.”
It’s what happens when someone on the left makes a
statement that is ludicrous on its face, yet reveals what the
speaker truly believes — no matter how dumb.
“The Butterfield Effect” is named in honor of ace New York
Times crime reporter Fox Butterfield, the intrepid analyst
responsible for such brilliantly headlined stories as “More
Inmates, Despite Drop In Crime,” and “Number in Prison Grows
Despite Crime Reduction,” not to mention the poetic 1997
header, “Crime Keeps on Falling, but Prisons Keep on Filling.”
Mr. Butterfield is truly perplexed at what he calls the
“paradox” of more criminals in prison coinciding with less
crime in neighborhoods. An observation that might appear
obvious to an 8th grader (crooks + jail = fewer crimes) is
simply beyond his grasp. Butterfield of the Times is the
poster boy for the greatest conundrum facing the American left
today: How do you explain to people who just don’t get it that
the problem is they just don’t get it?
If you want to see the Butterfield Effect up close here in
South Carolina, take a listen to Superintendent of Education
Inez Tenenbaum. An adamant opponent of the free market when it
comes to education, she is fighting Gov. Sanford’s efforts to
let parents choose the best available schools for their
children. She is adamant that taxpayers should only give
education money to government bureaucrats, no matter how
incompetent these bureaucrats might be.
“I don’t know if South Carolina has ever had a situation
where we have a governor who is just against public
education,” Tenenbaum said recently. “I just don’t understand
his philosophy on it. The governor may not take much interest
in the public schools, but most South Carolinians do.”
Inez Butterfield and her fellow education bureaucrats have
yet to master that simple, and well known, mathematical
formula: Government + education = suck.
More than 40 percent of South Carolina’s ninth graders will
not graduate in four years. This year’s graduating class will
have the lowest collective SAT score in the nation. Only 20
percent of 4th and 8th graders score “at or above proficient”
on the NAEP in math and reading. For my fellow Pelion High
grads, that means four out of five students score at or near
the Jethro Bodine level for cypherin’ and knowin’ their
letters.
And while our students rank at or near the bottom in
virtually every performance category, our taxpayers rank near
the middle when it comes to paying for education. In other
words, we’re paying for a Toyota, but driving a Yugo.
So tell me again why anyone should be for government-run
education?
While opponents of school choice insist that Americans are
die-hard supporters of government schools, most parents could
care less about “public education.” What we want is an
educated public. If that’s what liberals cared about, they
would be leading the fight to free students from the horrible,
failing government gulags that imprison young minds and limit
opportunities.
If she cared about actually educating children, Inez
Tenenbaum would be banging on the doors of privately run
schools and begging them to rescue motivated, low-income
students. How can liberals watch these poor kids ride on
school buses that literally pass in front of high-achieving
parochial schools on their way to some government-run
hellhole? How can they not get it?
I don’t mean to pick on poor Inez, especially after her
recent electoral defeat. Her fellow liberals are just as
clueless. The Washington Post, for example, had an editorial
just this week on the declining number of black students
applying to major universities. The Post, which adamantly
supports racial quotas and fiercely opposes school choice,
acknowledges that “American public schools are preparing many
fewer African-American students — particularly males — for
education at elite universities than those universities would
like to admit.”
So the government school system doesn’t work, and the
people suffering the most are black students who tend to be
trapped in the worst of the schools. This is news? Meanwhile,
school choice would free these black kids to go to privately
run schools where they are more likely to succeed, and The
Washington Post’s suggestion is to…
Do nothing. Keep the current system. “The key to increasing
minority enrollment,” the Post editorializes, “lies partly in
intelligent affirmative action programs; partly in awarding
tuition aid on need, not merit.” In other words, lower
standards for black students and more money for kids who meet
those lower standards.
Yeah, that’s how you encourage higher academic achievement
— demand less of it! And pay more for those who don’t make the
grade!
How can any sentient, rational being — white, black, or
otherwise — write that sentence? How blind do you have to be?
How utterly clueless about people, about human nature, about
life itself?
I wish I had a magic wand to send school vouchers to every
kid stuck in America’s worst public schools, just so I could
read the resulting headlines. A year from today, Fox
Butterfield would be quoting Inez Tenenbaum in a special for
The Washington Post entitled “More Graduate, Despite Lower
Public School Enrollment” or “Drop-Out Rates Keep Falling, But
Private Schools Keep Filling.”
The best part: They still wouldn’t get it.
