It's possible

http://www.kansascity.com/news/politics-government/election/article110847327.html


The link above is to an article in the Kansas City Star, not by any means a conservative newspaper.  It details the story of an African American woman who is not voting for Hillary for a couple of reasons.

"Hypocrisy among Clinton supporters is part of what turned her away from the Democratic candidate. But there are other factors. The main one: education."

“I sort of have arrived at becoming a single-issue voter,” she says. “And I’ve made that single issue school choice.”

I find this one particularly interesting because this brings together a bunch of constituencies which have traditionally voted democrat.  1.  African Americans, 2. Unions, 3. the education/educators status quo/establishment.   Yet it seems as though on this issue (if none other) there should be a fair amount of attractiveness to the conservative position.

To be clear, when I talk about the conservative position I mean the desire to make the focus of education spending on the student, keep education as local as possible, expect measurable results from teachers/schools, reward success/dis incentivize failure.     Allowing the funding to follow the student, wherever the family chooses.   (Yes, I realize the irony of the "pro-choice" party denying millions of families the ability to choose, but...)

I live in a metropolitan area when the two largest urban school districts spent more per pupil than anywhere else in the area, yet serve African American students horribly.  In virtually any measurable category African American students are doing poorly.   Now obviously, some of this falls squarely on the shoulders of the students and the parents or guardians.  Yet somehow, tucked throughout the districts are little islands of success for African American students.  Private schools, charter schools, open enrollment to other districts, are all demonstrating that kids from the same backgrounds and races are capable of excelling in education.   Yet, the vast majority of African American voters continue to for for the status quo, why?   To me as a parent, a parent who's primary motivation when choosing a place to live was the quality of the schools, I don't understand why other parents would vote against the best interests of their kids.  Not only kids, but family, neighborhood, community.  Maybe there is a rational reason why this happens, but I've never had anyone provide one.   Usually it's just "Do you know how racist it sounds when you call every African American in the country stupid idiotic morons?", but never a rational answer to the question.

Anyway, back to the article.  This seems like one of the issues where the conservative position is a position that any African American parent would agree with.  Which raises two questions.

1.  Why don't more African Americans reach the same conclusion as Lisa Watson (vote GOP, not necessarily Trump)?
2.  Why won't the democrat party embrace a more flexible results based stance on education?

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/news/politics-government/election/article110847327.html#storylink=cpy