A Million Here, A Million There
February 15th, 2007 at 8:56 pm
School voucher rabble-rouser James Leininger brought out the violins for his Q&A with the Austin American-Statesman Sunday, lamenting the fact that the money has run out of his privately-funded voucher experiment in San Antonio. After paying students so they could attend private schools for the last nine years, the Horizon Program is down to its last year of funding.
“If the Legislature doesn’t act,” Leininger told the Statesman, “those kids are going to be out on the street.”
He’s already marched out John Stossel to support his crusade, and it sounds like Angela Lansbury could be next — adopt these students, for just pennies a day.
The Horizon Program offered $3,600 per student for a year of private grade school, or $4,800 for high school, according to Robert Aguirre of the voucher advocacy group Hispanic CREO. Leininger set up his Horizon Program with $50 million for ten years. It’s not chump change, until you look at where else Leininger’s money has gone.
Forgetting for a moment that, thanks to our public education system, kids in Texas will always have a school, Leininger’s play at our heartstrings (and purse strings) might ring a little more true if he weren’t also spending such an exorbitant amount on a less needy group — politicians.
Just look at the $5 million Leininger gave to voucher friendlies in the 2006 election cycle, according to Texans for Public Justice, and imagine that money going straight to students. Leininger’s campaign contributions for that cycle would have covered a year of scholarships for his private voucher program.
For last year’s elections, he spent $3.5 million on 64 candidates (the other $1.5 mil went to political groups). If you’re scoring at home, that’s 960 students he could have kept off the street for a year, or out of the dreaded public school system, for all the politicians Leininger directly bankrolled.
