PCE Campaign Phrasebook

With the onslaught of Parents for Choice In Education's literature and media buys, here's your handy pocket guide to understanding what they're really saying. For a fun game, say "ding" each time you encounter one of these phrases:

Bureaucrat = An elected public official or staff member under his or her direction who disagrees with PCE.

Innovating Pioneer = An elected public official or staff member under his or her direction who agrees with PCE.

Union = A group of underpaid teachers who apparently wield mind-bending control over students, parents and legislators.

Union Thug = Anyone who belongs to a union who is intelligent and thus a threat.

Liberal = A catch-all term to characterize anyone or anything for which PCE doesn’t like.

Socialist, Communist, Fascist = See Liberal.

Moderate Republican = A Republican who disagrees with PCE and therefore must be removed from office.

Monopoly = Meaningless but effective scare-word describing the fact that public education is indeed run by the public.

Educrat = A principal, superintendant, school board member, or staff member who disagrees with PCE.

Silver Bullet = what Patrick Byrne says he would like to use to shoot the teacher’s union.

Strategic Campaigning = Lying to suit your agenda.

Privatization of Public Education = The ideology embraced by the free-market think-tanks that bankroll voucher initiatives. Extremely unpopular, which is why it’s not in the talking points.

Activist Judges = Ironic phrase describing the conservative Utah Supreme Court after they issued a smack-down on PCE’s attempt to invalidate the petition drive.

School Choice = Manufactured catch-phrase intended to legitimize vouchers by lumping them in with more popular, accountable academic programs (such as charters, magnets, and open enrollment).

Anti-Choice = Someone who supports public schools, private schools, homeschooling, charters, magnets, open enrollment, special-focus schools, and perhaps even vouchers, but who disagrees with the flawed, unaccountable, swiss-cheese voucher bill passed under duress.

Enemy of School Choice = Someone who opposes vouchers.

Government Schools = Public Schools (but it sounds worse when you say “Government Schools”)

Government = The people (but it sounds worse when you say “Government”)

Impartial Analysis on Referendum #1 = Dangerous document produced by the state which proves that vouchers will cost far more than they will save and are at risk for being held unconstitutional.

Liberal Entitlement Program = Any program which grows the size of government—except for vouchers.