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Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.)
UPDATE: Wesley Denton, a spokesperson for Sen. DeMint, has responded by email:
"The Washington Times misreported Senator DeMint’s comments, they were not his opinion, he was in fact quoting a D.C. mother who had spoken to him this week of her concern for her child joining a gang," Denton wrote.
The email also links to a New York Post account of the press conference, which gives the quote as follows: "Parents tell us . . . if they are sending their kids off to public schools, the chances are very good that they are going to end up in a gang rather than graduating high school."
Unless Sen. DeMint's office is claiming that he actually meant to say he disagrees with that statement, doesn't seem to us like this clarification changes the meaning of what he said very much.
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We can't decide whether to laugh or hold our heads and groan. The Washington Times reports something we hadn't heard about from yesterday's GOP school voucher press conference. They got the following quote from Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.): "If you send a kid to [public] school in D.C., chances are that they will end up in a gang rather than graduating."
For the record, DCPS has about a 70 percent graduation rate, which is on par with the national average.
DeMint was arguing in favor of preserving the D.C. Opportunity Scholarships program, an experimental voucher program in the District which is in danger of being killed by language in a Democrat-authored spending bill. (The bill was blocked by Senate Republicans last night, but will likely proceed next week.)
Naturally, the D.C. Council was not pleased. Yvette Alexander (Ward 7) basically called DeMint an idiot: "He has no sense of what D.C. has to offer making statements like that ... If someone outside of [the District] is to make a gross misjudgment like that one, he should keep his comments to himself," she told the Times. Phil Mendelson (D-At Large), defending the District, said, "I'm a public school parent. My daughter is in third grade, and she is not likely to be a gang member." (However, he did damage his creditability somewhat by bizarrely adding, "I am quite pleased with the public school system." That's a pretty tough stance to defend.)
The spending bill has renewed debate over school vouchers as editorial boards across the country have weighed in. U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has even gotten involved, trying to straddle both sides by coming out in support of the program, while disagreeing with vouchers generally. D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee has not offered a formal position on vouchers, but has spoken in support of the Opportunity Scholarships in the past. Currently, 1,715 students attend nearly 49 private schools through the program.
A 2007 Department of Education report found no evidence of a statistically significant difference in test scores between students who were offered an OSP scholarship and students who were not offered a scholarship, and that students who were offered OSP scholarships did not report being more satisfied with school or feeling safer in school than those without. However, the program did have a generally positive impact on parent satisfaction and their perceptions of school safety.
Maybe because all public school kids join gangs?
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Well sex you, DeMint! It's obvious that in South Carolina they have enough dicks lying around that they can send one of them to the U.S. Senate.
I mean, he's right about the gang part. How many people do you know in Jimbo's demographic that don't think any and all groups of more than 3 black teens aren't gangs. So all he's saying is you're more likely to make friends with which you'll share a lifetime bond while attending public school than graduate. That's sensible.
mmm...I dunno...the graduation rate may be the same as the national average, but since you can graduate with a 3rd grade reading level, I'm not sure that says much.
does it strike anyone else as hilarous that, now that the democrats have total control of the federal government, the republicans are trying to stick their fingers deeper and deeper into local governance than they have in years?
oh, it's not funny?
deal with your own state, ass. don't you have enough shit to handle in a state that has higher unemployment than anywhere but michigan?
DeMint is an idiot. When he ran for the Senate in 2004 he said that gays and single mothers shouldn't be allowed to teach in public schools. He has consistently put his far-out conservative beliefs ahead of kids.
Ah yes, my daily DCist update reminding me how stupid Republicans are... Heh. Republicans. Just heh.
*smugly writes a comment supporting DC voting rights that trample the Constitution*
So adopting a marginally flexible reading of the word "states" in the Constitution counts as "trampling" it? What word would you use to describe what the Republicans were doing to the document over the last eight years, then?
So two wrongs make a right? How about we completely follow the Constitution, and not when it's convenient to a liberal or conservative cause?
No, but three rights make a left.
Does this guy realize that he's talking about actual families and children, and not just some blips on his SimCity game?
It depends on your definition of 'family'...
Do you a city in Simcity that is a copy of washington dc? That would be so awesome.
I don't, but SimCity 2000 (iirc) or one of the expansion packs came with real-life cities. I can't remember if DC was one of them. (Looking around the Internet, it doesn't seem that it was.. but other players have created their own versions of DC that you can download).
DeMint is now claiming that the Washington Times misquoted him; he claims he was quoting a District woman who said that her son was more likely to join a gang rather than graduate if the voucher program wasn't restored.
Which, if it's what he actually said, is entirely plausible -- clearly some teenagers drop out of school and join gangs, and her son could be one of them -- but if we're going to base government policies upon what one person will or won't do, I'd like to remind Sen. DeMint that studies have shown that I'm 200% more likely to discover new oil fields in the Carolina uplands when I'm dating former Sleater-Kinney drummer Janet Weiss. Perhaps Congress could pass legislation requiring her to meet me at 8 PM at Jaleo Saturday after next? Supplemental stimulus legislation authorizing $1.3 million for dinner and two tickets for "The Dog In The Manger" would also be appreciated.
Even if he was quoting a district woman, Sen. DeMint should be aware that the plural of anecdote is not data.
politburo: that line right there is reason enough for dcist to bring back the feature where they reviewed comments of the week. that was pitch-perfect!
Hear hear! Bravo!
Perfect.
Jeezis, can you PLEASE stop posting pictures of these lipless wonders? Between their dead eyes, helmet haircuts, and poop-eating grins, I'm about to vomit with rage.
More La Jolie, less smug honkey jackass.
But his Just for Men® hair color looks so lovely....
South Carolina's graduation rate is 56%...
http://www.all4ed.org/files/SouthCarolina_wc.pdf
What Mr. DeMint is failing to tell you is that if you graduate from public school in South Carolina you have a 15% chance of having all of your teeth. And you’re probably inbred as well.
STFU DeMint.
Remember: the South will rise again! One of these days.
I went to grade school in Oklahoma (very poor, under-funded and low performing schools) and high school in Wisconsin (very well-funded, high performing schools) and I feel safe in saying that DC's education system (as with the rest of this area) is probably somewhere in the middle... so while it's not the Harvard of K-12, it's by no means the worst I've seen. Having said that, this guy is still a blithering idiot and no matter how well a school system performs, voucher programs serve no purpose other than to further degrade and destroy the public school system by taking the best kids out and leaving the bottom of the barrel behind... so I'd be all in favor of not giving people a free pass to private school at my expense as a tax payer! I'd rather see that money go to improving the public schools not funding some religious school that's going to teach kids how to be gun-hugging republicans.
And gangs? Please, that white-bred idiot probably things most of DC is a gang since most of DC is not-white like him...jeez...
I am a product of a DC Charter School and raised in ward 8 all my life. I am a graduate of Morehouse College and I am trying to pursue a Masters degree. I have never had/felt the need to join a gang. I was blessed to have family that took the time to actually raise me. Maybe we need to stop looking to the government for every solution and be proactive and take some responsibility.
As far the as the vouchers go, I believe fundamentally it is a good idea, however there needs to be strict oversight of how this program needs to run.
The context of his statement was that DC schools are so bad that they should be forced by Congress (over local objections) to continue an experimental school voucher program that DeMint supports.
What DeMint failed to mention is that the graduation rate in DC is actually close to the national average at 70%, while DeMint’s state of South Carolina has the fourth lowest graduation rate in the nation, at less than 54%.
Got this good hard information from a classic blog called PoliticalIrony, a wonderful blog that points out the humor and irony in real politics.
See http://politicalirony.com/
The context of his statement was that DC schools are so bad that they should be forced by Congress (over local objections) to continue an experimental school voucher program that DeMint supports.
What DeMint failed to mention is that the graduation rate in DC is actually close to the national average at 70%, while DeMint’s state of South Carolina has the fourth lowest graduation rate in the nation, at less than 54%.
Got this good hard information from a classic blog called PoliticalIrony, a wonderful blog that points out the humor and irony in real politics.
See http://politicalirony.com/