Where Did The 65% Rule Come From?

While reading this Austin Chronicle article, Perry takes a weak stab at education reform, I figured I should start looking around a little. This looked like a good place to start:

The "65% rule" is actually a national campaign launched by Overstock.com owner Patrick Byrne, a fact that galls most education groups. They say it's an arbitrary figure based on whim rather than research.

Turns out Mr. it's all about the O, has gone off and created himself a think tank complete with glamour shot, First Class Education. Now it's got all the right endorsements. I mean who could reform education without the endorsement of Grover Norquist after all?

"The First Class Education Initiative allows taxpayer dollars to directly reach the children instead of school bureaucrats. Voters can AND will send a powerful message to union leadership. Opposition to this measure to increase funding for classroom instruction and more qualified educators will be detrimental to their general membership."

Turns out that this campaign has nothing to do with making schools better it's just another "conservative" campaign against unions. Here's how another great "conservative" describes the so called solution:

His idea -- call it the 65 Percent Solution -- is politically delicious because it unites parents, taxpayers and teachers while, he hopes, sowing dissension in the ranks of the teachers unions, which he considers the principal institutional impediment to improving primary and secondary education.

While it might do that it also does this:

Inherent in Perry’s spending rule is the faulty assumption that school districts waste their money on things unrelated to education. Like administrators. Or librarians. Or computer specialists. Or social workers. Or school nurses.

So it turns out the "65% solution" is not about schools. Turns out it's about...hang on...wait for it...school vouchers. I know you find that hard to believe. Ever heard of All Children Matter? Ever heard of Amway? Well Richard DeVos, billionaire and former President of Amway, who runs this pro-voucher PAC, is also running for governor of Michigan. And last year in Utah we got to see what happens when these two and a few other of these groups get together:

Certain Republican incumbents in the Utah House of Representatives were the targets of aggressive and sometimes vicious campaigns funded mostly by out-of-state donors.

Three Utah political action committees -- married by one issue -- were financed generously by All Children Matter (ACM), based in Alexandria, Va.

In fact, ACM's $ 252,000 combined with $ 50,000 from Overstock.com's Patrick Byrne accounted for 86 percent of the $ 355,000 taken in by Parents for Choice in Education, the main Utah advocate for tuition tax credits for parents who enroll their children in private schools.

The principals and major local contributors to Parents for Choice in Education overlap considerably with those involved with Education Excellence and Children First, which also promote tuition tax credits.

Those three organizations, made up mostly of Republican Party supporters and contributors, tried mightily to defeat Rep. Dave Hogue, R-Riverton, despite Hogue's credentials as a proven conservative and the support he received from most of his colleagues in the House Republican caucus. The reason? Hogue has voted against tuition tax credit legislation.

For our discussion the Orwellian "tuition tax credit" is a school voucher. Look out Republicans that voted against vouchers, the bell tolls for thee. This is a preview of what is going to happen in many Republican house primaries in Texas next year. The Houston Chronicle shows us some of their handywork in Texas already, and Williamson County's own Dan Gattis has taken $10,000 from All Children Matter. To see who they've given to in Texas just go here and next to Contributor type in All Children Matter and click search, it's quite an interesting list of names.

These groups along with those in Texas that already support vouchers will be spending millions in the Republican primary in an effort to take out those that are against vouchers and install those that are for them. As I pointed out earlier in the week, I don't believe that the last special session had anything to do with school finance. It was just about paying back big donors (Telecom bill) and highlighting moderate Republican house members to be challenged in the upcoming primary. If the Republicans get a majority in the legislature that will pass vouchers the defunding of our public schools will begin in earnest and 65% of nothing is nothing.