Democrats long ago gave up on persuading people. They harangue. They lie. They spew propaganda. They scare the bejeezus out of people.

It has been thus for a long time, and one of the reasons Donald Trump got elected in 2016 was that Republicans were tired of getting beaten up in public without fighting back.

Of course that only made the Democrats worse. They upped their game–spewing lies at an ever-increasing rate, and screaming crisis at every moment over every disagreement.

North Carolina Roy Cooper tries to give a master class in spewing scary nonsense. He is screaming that expanding a school choice program in the state is like dropping a bomb on the public school system.

we now have a Democrat Governor declaring school choice a "State of Emergency."

they're losing control over the minds of other people's children and they can't handle it. good.

cry harder, @RoyCooperNC.

— Corey A. DeAngelis, school choice evangelist (@DeAngelisCorey) May 22, 2023

Cooper has declared a “state of emergency” in NC, in a bizarre attempt to stop the expansion of school choice. It’s not clear exactly what that means, except that he believes in the magic of words to change reality. He doesn’t have the votes, and the Republicans have a veto-proof majority. I assume he expects that through rhetoric alone he can scare enough North Carolinians to badger the legislature into voting against school choice.

Hi everybody. It’s time to declare a State of Emergency for public education in North Carolina. There’s no Executive Order like with a hurricane or the pandemic, but it’s no less important.

It’s clear that the Republican legislature is aiming to choke the life out of public education. I’m declaring this state of emergency because you need to know what’s happening. If you care about public schools in North Carolina, it’s time to take immediate action and tell them to stop the damage that will set back our schools for a generation.

Cooper himself doesn’t particularly care for the public school system himself. A believer in “rules for thee, not for me” he insists that other, less wealthy parents do not have the same choice.

Private schools are for the wealthy, not the plebs.

His speech was filled with, not to put it finely, a bunch of lies.

Cooper must have learned to love ridiculously scary rhetoric. He maintained the COVID state of emergency for 2 1/2 years, which is a long time to enjoy being an unchecked demagogic tyrant. Apparently, he longs to repeat his glory days.

Their private school voucher scheme will pour your tax money into private schools that are unaccountable to the public and can decide which students they want to keep out. They want to expand private school vouchers so that anyone, even a millionaire, can get taxpayer money for their children’s private academy tuition.

Yep. Allowing parents to get a PARTIAL reimbursement that amounts to HALF the state subsidy to public schools is going to ruin the state because of millionaires using it.

North Carolina’s Senate Bill 406, named the “Choose Your School, Choose Your Future” bill, would eliminate income requirements for any student to apply for a scholarship covering up to 45% of tuition at a school of his choice.

The governor also claimed that when students “leave public schools for private schools, the public schools lose hundreds of millions of dollars.”

No evidence supports this claim. In 2021, North Carolina spent $10,791 a year per student.

State Sen. Michael Lee, R-New Hanover, said at a press conference that the average expected award per student under SB 406 would be $5,600 annually—almost half of what North Carolina already pays per student.

Of course, if you think about it, the schools wouldn’t lose a dime unless parents thought that their children weren’t well served in the public schools. It requires time and effort to pick out a school, apply, and get subsidies that will still leave you paying 55% of the ticket…

Hmmm. Maybe the quality of the public schools is the emergency, not the school choice. If parents are willing to do all that and spend thousands out of their own pockets, the governor is aiming his ire in the wrong direction.

Just sayin’.

Cooper warned that the legislation “drops an atomic bomb on public education by shrinking the state’s budget by almost 20%.” The governor also argued that school superintendents would have to cut programs in art, music, and sports, as well as advanced classes.

Missing from the Governor’s speech was…anything related to reality. He and his teacher union paymasters are panicking because their monopoly is slipping, and their product sucks. If public schools hadn’t screwed the pooch so badly they wouldn’t face a mass exodus in favor of an alternative that will STILL cost parents thousands of dollars a year.

Which brings up a good point: why not give parents the full public school subsidy to use as they will? On this I agree with the governor–the legislature should go back and change the bill, expanding the program to include the full subsidy for all students to use at whatever school they choose.

This bill really should be better than it is.

As for the damage to the public schools? Given how much the teachers’ unions and the educrats have done, it is time for them to quit giving advice and making demands. We have all seen over the past few years how devastatingly bad the choices that they have made have been for students.

Believe it or not, there are still schools in NC closing due to COVID cases. When will it end? Not in 2023, apparently.

There is indeed an education crisis in North Carolina and America, but it has nothing to do with insufficient funding and everything to do with the people who run these schools. They have thrown children to the alphabet wolves and turned their back on the responsibility to actually teach children.

Even good teachers, of whom there are many, are getting worn down. They have little authority, are dealing with petty tyrants above them in the chain of command and petty tyrants in their classrooms, given how impossible it is to punish wayward students. They can’t win.

The only solution is to opt out. Universal school choice is a great place to start, and 45% of tuition is hardly enough.

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 Gold👇🏼

Study Shows Kids Who Are Homeschooled Could Miss Out On Opportunity To Be A Gay Communist | The Babylon Bee https://t.co/xLbDSYUE4R

— Clapton (@YanktonSDWins) June 18, 2022