Pay to Play Brought to You By the Tea Party

If you have a student-athlete in the Meridian School District, make sure you tell the next Tea Party Patriot you see, "THANK YOU!" Thank you, for forcing my family to pay $100 for my middle or high school student to participate in athletics. You see, thanks to the Tea Party and Austin Hill stridently opposing the recent school bond levy election, the District is being forced to adopt a Pay to Play scheme in order to maintain its school sports.

There is nothing more patriotic then telling the poor kid he can't play middle school football because his mom and/or dad can't afford to fork out the dough. After all, elitism and exclusivity is the American Way! Just think, if you have a family with four students between 6th and 12th grade and each of your students play a sport in the fall and in the spring, you'll be lucky enough to pay $800! That's a bargain compared to the $25 the levy would have cost!

Now, Austin Hill and the Tea Party Patriots, as great as they are, don't deserve all the credit! No way! Our wonderful Anti-Education Legislature definitely should be given a nice slap on the back for a job well done. Instead of taking advantage of numerous alternatives to raise revenue without raising taxes they knew, in their infinite wisdom, that the best solution was pass the buck. So again, THANK YOU!

Alright... I'm done being snarky. Seriously though, pay to play? Yeah, its come to that in Meridian. Its a shame.

200,000

Yesterday I was on Facebook and read something that struck me as pretty major. According to a post on the Reject Luna Laws Facebook page, they collected over 200,000 verified signatures. That is A-M-A-Z-I-N-G. While my friend, Dennis Mansfield, is taking this as an opportunity to bash the IEA, I think it says a lot more about the pathetic excuse for education reform better known as "Student's Come First" than it does the power (or lack thereof) of the IEA.

Getting 200,000 signatures from people in Idaho to do anything is a feat in and of itself. I know people that would have signed, but never got the chance. The Statesman Editorial Board says that it won't be a slam dunk. They are right. It won't be. What it will be is the single most important issue of the 2012 election cycle. I invite the Idaho GOP to use its power to align itself as pro-Students Come First in hopes it can kill the referendum. I hope they do so because when moderates and independents get burned by the fact they aren't welcome in the GOP primary in May their arrogance and cavalierly support of Student Come First will be the final straw in November. You reap what you sow.

You can take that to the bank.