Patrick Byrne can't do math either

Patrick Byrne, CEO of Overstock.com, hasn't ever been good at math. One can see that in how he's run (or run aground) his company - which has yet to make a profit. (Can he even add or subtract??)

(Byrne also can't hold his temper and is always offering to "fight" people. As he did at Fechheimer Bros when he offered to settle a union dispute with fisticuffs, Gary Weiss noted here yesterday that Byrne got into a tussle with Utah legislators, too. Weiss also notes that Byrne has labeled 60% of Utahns as "bigots." Hardly a temperate comment.)

But, I digress. Byrne can't do math. That view is reinforced by Byrne's position in a "business leaders" (aka "business bullies") group that wants CEOs to intimidate their employees into supporting the Utah voucher measure. None of them can do the math - which also makes me a little wary of their role as company heads.

If Byrne and the others COULD do math, they might know that it would take over 20% of students in public schools to switch to private schools to make the Utah voucher measure come close to "breaking even." And, folks, that isn't going to happen. There aren't enough spaces in Utah private schools to hold even that many students. Plus, historically, not that many students are going to "switch" and leave Utah's public schools.

But, Byrne just joins a growing list of pro-voucher folks who can't do math.

See Paul Rolly's articles here and here where Sen. Bramble not only bumbled the so-called fiscal analysis of vouchers by presuming that ALL private school students would end up in public schools, his subsequent analysis of public school enrollment was off, too. Wildly off. In both cases.

The Parents for Choice in Education pro-voucher group also can't do math. They keep claiming that tuition would be affordable for average Utah families with a voucher and they cite erroneous tuition data.

But, as reported here in this morning's Deseret News, even with a voucher most families (and particularly the low income families that all the millionaires seem to want to "help") cannot afford to send their children to private school. Period. Even the highest level voucher of $3,000 would barely cover half the cost of tuition. And, then when you add in uniforms, books, school activities, transportation to and from school, then vouchers seem even more paltry.

Since Byrne and all the other the people supporting school vouchers can't seem to do basic math you've got to ask: What they are trying to put over on the people of Utah?

Stunning Milwaukee failure

Last Friday I posted some information about the very few existing voucher experiments around the country, in order to get some perspective about the proposed Utah voucher law.

So today when I scanned through the various blogs keeping track of the voucher "discussion", I spotted Accountability First's entry today about the latest research on the Milwaukee voucher experiment.

WOW. To have Howard Fuller, one of the leaders of the voucher movement, and the conservative Wisconsin Research Policy Institute say that vouchers haven't worked for Milwaukee students is an absolutely stunning admission of failure.

Competition didn't improve student performance, or the public schools. Lack of oversight led to fraud and abuse (and fly-by-night schools). AND, Milwaukee taxpayers have been forced to foot the bill with ever increasing property taxes to pay for the voucher program.

It's all there for us to learn from. The dismal failure of vouchers in Milwaukee is reason enough to reject them in Utah.

Here's the full story from the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. I encourage anyone still undecided how to vote on Referendum 1 to read this.

And I sincerely hope that Paul Rolly, or Glen Warchol at the Trib or Tiffany Erickson at the News will put some hard questions before the parade of out-of-staters that the Sutherland Institute is bringing in to try to bolster the failing voucher effort.

And I hope all the business leaders who are trying to intimidate their employees into voting for vouchers will really check the record on tax increases in Milwaukee. School vouchers caused taxes to go up. As the Journal-Sentinel reported here:

"In a letter last week to state Rep. Sheldon Wasserman (D-Milwaukee), Milwaukee School Board President Joe Dannecker said that $7.6 million of the $16.5 million increase in the amount of property tax to be collected for schools for this school year is due to the voucher program and that each voucher student increased property tax collections by $447, while each MPS student increased collections by $91. The total property tax bill being levied by MPS increased this fall by 7.7%."

Vouchers are a dismal failure.

Voucher "savings" not true

Well, hmmm. For months now voucher supporters have been claiming that giving voucher schools tax dollars would actually save Utah money.

No one could credibly arrive at the astronomical savings legislative leaders touted, and Sen. Bramble would not allow the worksheets of the fiscal analyst to be released.

Well, no wonder!

Under pressure, Bramble finally released the background information, as Paul Rolly reported in the Salt Lake City Tribune this weekend:

"Utah legislators pimping their personal agendas appear to be getting more adept at using (abusing) their professional staffs to produce data that supposedly justify their political initiatives. Take the recent trek into Fantasyland by Senate Majority Leader Curtis Bramble, who waved numbers from the Legislative Fiscal Analyst's Office to back his claim that the private school voucher bill would save Utah $1.4 billion over 13 years.

"Alas, the only problem is that it's not true.

"Nevertheless, this "fact" has been oft-repeated by Bramble and other pro-voucher legislators, and it was included in a promotional film produced by the Informed Voter Project, a committee formed - and misnamed - by those same lawmakers.

"Critics contend the committee's claim of dizzying voucher savings is a gross misrepresentation, a result of Bramble's manipulation of the Legislature's professional staff. Not surprisingly, Bramble was reluctant to share the research supporting the conclusion. That is, until he learned that the anti-voucher side had released other research from the same Legislative Fiscal Analyst's Office showing that vouchers would actually cost the state millions of dollars.

"Once Bramble caved and released his data, the picture cleared. It showed that he had asked the analysts for a calculation based on what all students eligible for vouchers would cost the state if every one of them were in the public system. That includes all the students already in private schools and those potentially moving into the state.

"In other words, it was a house of cards. But structural deficiency is not part of the message being trumpeted by lawmakers trying to persuade voters to approve vouchers in next month's ballot referendum on the law they passed last winter."


You can read the full story here.

What a sad day when voucher supporters resort to lies.

Don't get on Towner's SPAM list

There is an e-mail "poll" circulating from Parents for Choice, the pro-voucher folks. If it lands in your e-mail box, don't answer it unless you WANT to be on Mark Towner's SPAM list...

Here it is (edited for brevity):

"A lot of people in Utah are rightfully concerned that the NEA, a national union headquartered in Washington DC, is spending at least $3 million to overturn an important education law passed by our state legislature..

Do you think the NEA should be spending $3 million to take away parents' rights?

YES or NO

(click a response above to cast your vote)

If you'd like to help protect the rights of Utah families, click here.

PCE
PO Box 57637
Salt Lake City, Utah
84157
United States"

Towner admits to spam

Well, Mark Towner came clean to Paul Rolly at the Tribune. He was behind the spam from Utahns for Public School (singular) that was created to look as though it was from the coalition of teachers, parents and community members opposed to vouchers (Utahns for Public Schools - plural).

Hat tip to Jesse, WasatchWatcher, and all the others who brought attention to Rolly's blog.

As for Towner, his explanation is, well, er....BIZARRE.

"Sting" operation? To see who would visit his pro-voucher, anti-teacher website???

Wait a minute. If Towner were to operate an effective "sting" wouldn't he have preferred, instead, to see who visited the ANTI-voucher website on "company time??"

And, Mark, you really MUST apologize to Jesse for calling him a liar. He is NOT. You, sir, are.

* Shakes head. * Sigh.

Going after parents?

Not content with attacking Utah's public school teachers, voucher supporters now are turning their sights on Utah's parents!

Paul Rolly reported in today's Salt Lake City Tribune that:

"After receiving a number of complaints, the Utah Lieutenant Governor's Office says it is investigating whether the state PTA should register as a Political Issues Committee (PIC) because it apparently is spending money to defeat the voucher law in the November referendum. We're not sure whether the complainants are the same folks who refuse to reveal who is spending money for pro-voucher radio ads."

(BTW: Did that issue with the anonymous client of Crowell Advertising who paid for those radio ads ever get resolved? If so, I didn't see it, so please let me know.)

Parents, especially parents who belong to and lead the PTA, are the most unlikely targets for the continued intimidation tactics of the pro-voucher crowd. I'm not sure who is advising PCE and its friends, but their tactics are crude, ugly and totally unnecessary. Parents and teachers have just as much a right to speak out as say, Paul Mero at the Sutherland Institute does.

Wait! I am sure that with all the flacking that the Sutherland Institute has been doing on the pro voucher side they certainly are registered as a Political Issues Committee (PIC).

After all, the Lt. Governor's site lists this definition of a PIC:

"Political Issues Committees (Utah Code 20A-11-101)

"A Political Issue Committee is an entity, or any group of individuals or entities within or outside this state, that solicits or receives donations from any other person, group, or entity or makes disbursements to influence, or to intend to influence, directly or indirectly, any person to assist in placing a statewide ballot proposition on the ballot, assist in keeping a statewide ballot proposition off the ballot, or refrain from voting or vote for or vote against any statewide ballot proposition; or sign or refuse to sign an incorporation petition or refrain from voting, vote for, or vote against any proposed incorporation in an incorporation election."

Hasn't Sutherland made "disbursements" (i.e. spent money) to try and influence the outcome of Referendum 1? Isn't Paul Mero unabashedly pro-voucher? Haven't all of Sutherland's so-called "research" papers and news releases made private school vouchers sound better than sliced bread?

Then, surely they must be registered as a PIC!

Alas, no. No sign of the Sutherland Institute in the list of PICs. You can check the list here.

Wonder why not???

Out of state friend? Dick Morris? In Utah?

Paul Rolly's notes in the Salt Lake City Tribune caught my eye this morning, particularly this piece:

"Consulting the guru: Dick Morris, the former political adviser to President Clinton who resigned in the 1990s amid a call-girl and toe-sucking scandal, subsequently repented his wayward ways, including being a Clinton supporter. Now a regular Sean Hannity buddy on Fox News, he's joined Utah's voucher fight.
Morris contacted the pro-voucher Parents for Choice in Education recently and offered his expertise in campaign strategies, said PCE's Joe Hunter. He said Morris is not a full-time consultant, but lent his counsel to the campaign several days ago. Hunter said he doesn't know how much Morris was paid, but doubted it was much."

Well, so Dick Morris, the big-wig consultant wants to be on the Parents for Choice in Education (PCE) payroll? Interesting.

Morris gets paid between $20,000 and $25,000 for each speaking engagement, so tapping him to help the pro-private school voucher effort would cost a pretty penny.

But then PCE's funders(we still don't know who they are) may think Morris can help them win this campaign. Did they tell the Utah pro-voucher folks to retain him?

Still, don't look for Dick to spend too much time in Utah. Morris is speaking to a Republican group in Winston-Salem, NC on October 22. Oh and tickets to the event are only $25, so let's hope they have room for a big crowd.

Maybe it's that Morris really needs work. After all, it seems he owes the state of Connecticut some $280,000 in unpaid taxes, as reported by WTNH-TV of Hartford, CT.

Or perhaps it's that Morris needs to "buff" his reputation. You note that Rolly's piece referenced a "scandal" that Morris got caught up in.

Indeed. We're not just talking about a call-girl and toe-sucking situation. We're talking about Dick Morris, consultant, who let the prostitute he was cavorting with listen in to conversations with the President. You can read the full story here. Now, really, what kind of judgement does the man have?

Oh, wait, he says he has "reformed." OK, then maybe it won't be true that his phone number is in Deborah Jean Palfrey's telephone logs as reported here. Deborah Jean is the "DC Madam" who claims she supplied women for many powerful men in Washington, D.C.

But if Morris has reformed, and is the consultant that PCE's shadowy funders support, then maybe he can help their campaign.

Then again, maybe not. See what even his "friends" say about Morris' record:

"FOX News Managing Editor and Chief Washington Correspondent Brit Hume, anchor of Special Report with Brit Hume, has said of Dick Morris -- the onetime adviser to Bill Clinton turned FOX News Channel contributor -- "[S]ometimes he says things that you think are inspired from another planet. ... If you're a political analyst, being wrong is a drawback." Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia's Center for Politics, has said, "He's frequently wrong." And a Boston Globe review of Morris's 1999 book, The New Prince: Machiavelli Updated for the Twenty-First Century, noted that "Morris's contradictions and factual errors too often make a hash of what is supposed to be his argument." [USA Today, 8/16/00; The Boston Globe, 7/20/99]

Maybe that's a little harsh. Morris did, after all, predict that Newt Gingrich would enter the 2008 presidential race.