Trinnietta Gets a Chance
McGroarty, Daniel
Fi htin for the .g g Right to Leam Trinnietta Gets a Chance: Six Families and Their School Choice Experience Daniel McGroarty Heritage Fou~datio~ I5o pages / $9.50 (papeO REVIEWED...
...69...
...Private school is what's giving my children voucher program when he saw that public school officials couldn't care less about the boy's condition: "I used to get notes from Kevin's old school all the time, nastygrams, I call 'era," recalls Leroy...
...For the last several years, Horowitz has been skillfully articulating the need for a more aggressive and active style of conservative politics...
...voucher children, when he testified 'Probably, you won't see the fruit right now...
...after all his last book, loosely about race rela- of Political War," comes in...
...Its greatest victo U came in 1998 , Fifteen or so years ago her goddaughter was when the Supreme Court declined to chal- staying with her, "trying to s~-aighten out her lenge a Wisconsin high court ruling that life...
...Horowitz bludgeons the poor man: "There's going to be an election in twelve months...
...You have less than thirty seconds to reach the average undecided voter who, by the way, is completely uninterested in the political process, and thinks all politicians are interchangeable, not to mention low on the scale of beings you can put your trust in...
...lican failure to win even the most obvious that emanates from the campaign manHorowitz's subsequent refusal to com- political battles has a streetfightin' man ager is on par with what might ensue promise his views on race prompted him like Horowitz clearly enraged...
...calls a "stay of execution...
...Her eldest wad was assigned to three different schools in her first five years...
...more stories to tell...
...After lent writer who handles the complicat- all, he knew she wouldn't live long "In political warfare, the aggressor usualed legal and administrative history of enough to get peaches from that tree...
...Tell me something new...
...And Kevin cleans out his locker...
...it's almost as if he's trying to shame the flummoxed members of the Grand Old Party into standing up for themselves...
...Heroes peach tree...
...tles is simple: They don't deserve to...
...Real packrats...
...Whether he's describing how George Bush St...
...As None of them will be known to you: McGroarty has discovered, "choice families alternatives, even if the voucher cannot cover the entire cost of tuition...
...Kevin's locker is a disaster, it would say...
...So his locker's a mess...
...But even if Judge Oliver's ruling is upheld, there's no going back...
...Leroy Batts, the grandfather of young Kevin-whose attention deficit disorder derived from seeing his mother murdered by his Pilaf Gomez and Carol Butts of Milwau- are among the poorest of the poor, with all kee...
...What are you going to say to them to get their vote...
...Indeed, the post-t994 Republican leadership is as blind to the political reality as it is ineffectual-when a Democratic president obstructs justice, commits perjury, and violates federal sexual harassment guidelines he personally signed into law, the resulting conflagration results in not one, but two RepubliThis is where the title essay, "The Art avelli's The Prince, involves introducing Mark Hemingway A journalist friend of mine has summed up the problem ,with Washington, D.C...
...early stages...
...His first hook, Break the Chains (1996), reported on Mil- choice who appear content to keep waukee's tip and down experience with the our nrban public schools backward nation's first school voucher program, which and depraved, McGroarty displays genuine in 1995 was ocpanded to allow students from compassion for these schools' victims...
...but regularly received B's and C's...
...For all its hard-earned when they go to asking who planted this Though seemingly simple in approach, successes, school choice remains in its tree, you will tell them about me...
...N America's Sun Tsu Offers the GOP a Cojones ansplant The Art of Political War and Other Radical Pursuits David Horowitz Spence / 2o4 pages / $24.95 BY REVIEWED and starts swinging, nobody's got his back...
...straightforward, no-nonsense series of lists: Republicans are incapable of framing the debate and communicating their ideas to the electorate, it occasionally upstages his attempts to show them how...
...At times, "The Art of Political War" feels much like a litany of incidents where feckless Republicans are outwitted by witless Democrats...
...But the seed is planted...
...TheAmerican Spectator The pity is that McGroarty, an excel- and asked her what she was doing...
...In time, as the goddaughter succumbed to a life of prostitution and drugs, Roberta December ~ooo / January 2ooz r " ' found herself guardian of two more of the young woman's children...
...It was at that point that Roberta determined to send her four schoolaged children to private Christian day schools, even if that meant finding a "regular second job" to cover $6,000 in tuition...
...low-income homes to apply to religious Hence his admiration for those who've schools as well as secular private schools...
...Alvarez of San Antonio...
...But inadvertent or not, Horowitz's conHorowitz's problem is that every" time six principles of political war that "the left trolled anger at watching the self-immohe picks up a pool cue or a broken bottle understands but conservatives do not," lation of the GOP drives the ultimate...
...got crucified for his "no new taxes" pledge, the bungled impeachment process, or the ill-advised campaign tactics of any number of California Republicans, Horowitz almost always provides a negative example at the expense of his Republican audience...
...Originally had Horowitz deliberately flatulated in to lose his publisher and got him brand- published as a pamphlet Horowitz dis- a crowded elevator...
...TheAmerican Spectator ' December 2000 / January ~oor one of Horowitz's observed maxims (e.g.: it takes experience and sharp analysis to usefully scratch through the thin skin of platitudes and expose the underlying dermatitis of Republican incompetence...
...while most conservatives are so lessons on how the Republicans could do sensitive about race and other such issues better for themselves, in both electoral they immediately go on the defensive, and legislative terms...
...Leroy Barfs and Juan below the pove~' line...
...Well, okay, ADD kids," Batts continues, "they can't stand throwing anything away...
...While ~at ruling is appealed, 3,400 Cleveland children have been given what A nd unlike the inveterate haters of father when he was three--turned to a back...
...for a pack of cigarettes and never came Nonetheless, it continues to be harassed WLADYSLAW PLESZCZYNSKI i8 executive editor of The American Spectator...
...One day the goddaughter went out upheld the program's constitutionalitv...
...Of course tributed to over 8o,ooo party activists, tire so successfully makes the case that Horowitz was in the right on both of those essay outlines a series of constructive matters...
...When Two growing centers of school choice activity are Cleveland and San Antonio...
...I have invested too much to let Daniel McGroarb.:s study of six heroes of pants-like those in taxpayer-funded pro- [the public schools I turn my children into an entirely different stripe: six selfless indi- something that has a hole in it...
...Another is that these partici- a chance...
...recalled a story about an "old, old, old There will be fruit.'" School choice is here lady" who was in her garden, planting a to stay, however far it still must travel...
...Soon enough Roberta was introduced to Cleveland s pubhc schools...
...Republicans need to realize MARK HEMINGWAY is a writer living in on, and so on...
...This year Heritage has released is that at least one of their waiting lists is more than bMce as long as the roster of parand Their School Choice Ex/oerienee, ticipants...
...their commitment to voucher-backed grams- are hardly the "high-achieving students" or "cream of the crop" that critics claim would want to take advantage of credit the public schools' callousness for voucher opportunities at better schools...
...Roberta was now left with the goddaughter's three young children in her care...
...One measure of their success munism...
...68 by such progressive forces as People for the l~rnerican VCay and the NAACP, which can- at least that school wasn't drug- and gangnot abide the threat posed by a program infested, unlike the school the girt attendthat by law is limited to only 15 percent of ed in sixth grade...
...But ly prevails") followed by an extended school choice with succinct ease, hasn't she told him, "When you have your sons, example which proves this to be true...
...five agendas Republicans need to focus point home...
...But McGroar~, knew where to find them...
...The girl could barely read, public school enrollment...
...Horowitz prides him- ious to the trouble they're in...
...Not only is the Republican Party in the sense that Horowitz would probably a state of absolute crisis, it is so thoroughagree with that statement-at least in the ly incompetent its members remain oblivmetaphorical sense...
...self on being politically combative...
...Perhaps the most remarkhas survived legal challenges and near shut- able of these heroes is Roberta Kitchen...
...Johnietta McGrady and Roberta the disadvantages that accompany life far Kitchen of Cleveland...
...In the end, Horowitz ed a racist in Time magazine...
...which certainly has made Roberta's finanCold War, a book that pays tribute and Because San Antonio's two voucher progives thanks to such giants as Churchill, grams are privately fnnded, they've only Reagan, and Pope John Paul for leading had to face rhetorical attacks from the puband winning the fight against Soviet Com- lic educrats...
...withstood the daily indignities this system Although still modest in scope-- 7,624 cur- has imposed on them and found a way out rent students--the Milwaukee program for their children...
...viduals who have taken on the public edu- Time and again McGroarty's subjects cation behemoth and its ongoing cold war against educational opportunib...
...That included a 140block bus ride to her latest school--though Roberta confronted the girl's teacher, she was informed that a quota required most kids had to pass...
...Which is exactly what he does at the very end of the essay, where he describes his interaction with the campaign manager for a Michigan congressman...
...Yet conservatives have refused to listen, much less join the fray...
...Although Cleveland's voucher program is not even half the size of Milwaukee's, it's been under a legal assault no less vicious, capped by federal judge Solomon Oliver's effort late last year to strike the program down...
...It would be another four years before Cleveland started its modest voucher program, cial burden easier...
...The point was driven home "So I said to the legislators," Alvarez by Juan Mvarez, a disabled father of three recounted to McGroarty, "this is how it is...
...Reading David Horowitz's latest book, The Art of Political can speakers of the House resigning in War and Other Radical Pursuits, one gets shame...
...Last year it published Joseph Shattan's Trinnietta Gets a Chance: Six Families Architects of Victory: Six Heroes of the McGroar...
...The Repub- Needless to say the awkward silence tions, was titled Hating Whitey...
...It's probably the most important election in twenty years...
...before the Texas legislature in 1995, He I won't see the fruit...
...Fi htin for the .g g Right to Leam Trinnietta Gets a Chance: Six Families and Their School Choice Experience Daniel McGroarty Heritage Fou~datio~ I5o pages / $9.50 (papeO REVIEWED BY Wladyslaw Pleszczynski T he Heritage Foundation has this admirable thing about heroes...
...The format is a Horowitz is never afraid to pick a fight...
...downs...
...The approach, like Machi- that the reason they don't win more batWashington, D.C...
...Her grandson came along like McGroarty's will see to it...
...Td take a second job, and if that wasn't enough, I would quit my job and home school them," Roberta told McGroarty...
...thusly: Not enough bar fights...
...At New Life [Kevin's new school], the principa] teI]s me once every few weeks, he says, 'Kevin, time to clean out your locker,' and he walks down with him and stands there," says Batts with a smile, "pretty much like we do at home...
Vol. 33 • December 2000 • No. 10
