Blunt appoints another voucher proponent to State Board of Education

You have to hand it to Matt Blunt. At least, our governor is consistent.
He has appointed another educational voucher proponent to the State Board of Education.

The background of former State Representative Derio Gambaro, a St. Louis Democrat, is revealed in Janese Heavin's Columbia Tribune Class Notes blog:

Gambaro served in the Missouri House of Representatives from 1998 to 2002 and unsuccessfully ran for the Senate last year. His 2006 campaign was padded by a more than $9,000 donation from All Children Matter, a Michigan-based pro-voucher organization.

Gambaro is also on the board of directors of the Children’s Education Alliance of Missouri, a school choice organization based in Columbia.

It's Gov. Matt Blunt's second attempt to put a vocal voucher supporter on the board that oversees Missouri's public school system. Donayle Whitmore-Smith’s nomination was withdrawn in December after her elected senator, Jeff Smith, D-St. Louis, announced his opposition to the appointment.

As much as I appreciate Ms. Heavin's blog, which is the best educational blog in the state, I beg to differ on her observation that this is the second attempt to put a voucher proponent on the board.

As I noted in the Dec. 17, 2006 Turner Report, Blunt's first appointment to the board, Debi Demien, managed to fly under the rader with little or no investigation.

In that post, I examined Mrs. Demien's background:

Unfortunately, no one put the governor's first board appointment, Debi Demien of Wentzville, under the microscope. She was promoted as a former public schoolteacher and director of marketing for Demien Construction. A little bit of digging would have shown that the Southwest Missouri State University graduate is far more than that.
It appears all three of the governor's choices are closely in line with his thinking on vouchers, meaning he most likely has the power to move state education in whatever direction he wishes.
Mrs. Demien was appointed to the board in March. While it was noted that she was involved in the family business, Demien Construction, what wasn't noted is that she is director of marketing for the company's Building God's Way division, which builds churches and Christian schools. Any sort of movement of public money into private schools will obviously benefit Mrs. Demien.
Seven years ago, she wrote a book entitled Stealing America, the National Takeover of the Economy, Education and State Governments, which primarily criticizes the school-to-work programs being used in public schools. She is an outspoken critic of Missouri's A+ program, which allows students involved in the program to receive free schooling at Missouri community colleges.
In 1996, Mrs. Demien was an Alan Keyes delegate to the National Republican Convention. What are Keyes' thoughts on education:

Vouchers will help children and families, just as school choice has benefited those pursuing higher education. The educational benefit of choosing schools for reasons of instructional quality, instead of economic necessity, are obvious. Voucher programs also end the "double taxation" many families face – paying for public schools through their taxes, and yet also paying to send their children to non-public institutions. Parental choice will also increase parental involvement. When parents think that education is the government's business, they tend to leave it to the so-called professional educators. But having chosen a school, and personally directed the dollars that pay for their child's attendance there, more parents will understand that their role in learning should not be passive. The natural motive to evaluate and assist a service we have chosen and purchased provides an important additional impetus for parental involvement. Vouchers will broaden participation in access to quality education. After decades of national fretting about unequal access, sometimes with racial overtones that have nothing to do with education, will we reject this simple solution to the plight of those – particularly in the inner city – who simply do not have access to any but failed, monopolistic public-school systems?

What has also not been mentioned about Mrs. Demien has been her role as president of "Restoring America." The organization's website talks about a war of values being taught in America:

Dr. James Dobson of 'Focus on the Family' has repeatedly stated that we are engaged in "a Civil War of values" in our culture, and the prize is our children.
He wrote - "Children are the prize to the winners of the second great civil war. Those who control what young people are taught and what they experience – what they see, hear, think, and believe – will determine the future course for the nation. Given that influence, the predominant value system of an entire culture can be overhauled in one generation, or certainly in two, by those with unlimited access to children."

Or this quote:

"...this is supposed to be a Constitutional Republic - based entirely upon Christian principles – with no separation of Church and State. Since our very form of government and legal system were formed from, and based on, God's natural law and the Bible, then how can we separate church from State? We cannot. The heart cannot be removed from the body without the death of that body. Unfortunately and to our shame, none of this is being taught in our schools today. We will either educate our children to be the enemies of freedom and independence - as we are currently doing – or, we can educate them in the truths and visions of our Founding Fathers – raising future patriots for America.

The Restoring America site proudly reprints an article entitled "On the sin of sending kids to public schools," which talks about the book The Harsh Truth About Public Schools. The article includes the following passage:


In the book, Shortt documents the pitfalls of public schools, saying the anti-Christian thrust of the governmental school system produces inevitable results: "moral relativism (no fixed standards), academic dumbing down, far-left programs, near absence of discipline and the persistent but pitiable rationalizations offered by government education professionals."

Shortt also urges pastors to read the book so they might "understand why the church can no longer abdicate its historic role in the education of our children."

Says Short: "'The Harsh Truth About Public Schools' makes it clear why no Christian child should be left behind in government schools. Our Christian children are perishing because parents and pastors lack knowledge. The information in this book exposes the 'salt and light' and the 'our schools are different' rationalizations for educating Christian children in pagan schools for the contemptible falsehoods they are.

"Any parent or pastor who genuinely desires to be faithful in the education of Christian children needs to find out what the public schools are actually doing, rather than relying on what they are saying they are doing or on memories of the public schools as they may have existed 10, 20 or 30 years ago."


As for "reforming" the public schools, the article posted so prominently on Mrs. Demien's organization's website offers the following:

But what about reforming the public schools? Isn't that a solution?

Responds Shortt: "Public schools cannot be reformed to provide a Christian education, and the evidence is overwhelming that even conventional secular reforms to reinstate traditional academic and moral standards will continue to fail. But even if you think that we should nevertheless try to reinstate traditional academic and moral standards in the schools, taking your children out is the most effective thing you can do to help the children whose parents have left them behind in the public schools. Only the threat of a collapse of the entire public school system offers even the remotest prospect of positive change. Traditional reform efforts are a waste of time.

According to documents on file with the Missouri Secretary of State's office, Restoring America is owned by Mrs. Demien and Richard Vieth of St. Charles.

If Blunt had been successful in placing Donayle Whitmore-Smith on the State Board, he would be well on his way to placing educational vouchers in Missouri and devaluing Missouri's public school system.