One Cheer for Senator Shapiro

A story by Holly K.Hacker entitled Charter schools spread across Texas with goal of newer, better teaching was published in The Dallas Morning News on Sunday, July 4, 2010.I quote from the article:

State Sen. Florence Shapiro, R-Plano, said legislators should respond to parent demand and lift the "arbitrary" state cap."You've got 40,000 students waiting in line to go to a charter school. Tell me another school in the state of Texas that has that type of demand," said Shapiro, chairwoman of the Senate Education Committee.

This earns the esteemed Senator one cheer from me. Only one because while the Senator has been a champion of charter schools, she refuses to take the next needed step and embrace school vouchers for all of the children of Texas.What is most interesting is that the Republican leader is at odds with her own party’s platform that was adopted at the end of June. According the platform, Texas Republicans support:

Parental School Choice – We encourage the Governor and the Texas Legislature to enact child-centered school funding options – which fund the student, not schools or districts – to allow maximum freedom of choice in public, private or parochial education for all children. As a prerequisite, we urge passage of a constitutional amendment prohibiting imposition of state regulations on private and parochial schools.

This does, of course, puts her in alignment with Democrats, such as Barack Obama and the teacher’s unions. Hmmmm?Come on Senator Shapiro! Lets give parents some real choice for schooling their kids. By the way it might reduce the budget gap as well.Oh, I almost forgot, here is your one cheer, “Hip hip, hooray!”