if by "matter" you mean "don't matter" . . .

starting a pro-voucher political action committee and calling it All Children Matter. that's like opening up a fur coat factory and calling it Your Bunnies Are Safe Here.

or like writing a piece of legislation that passes pollution onto politically powerless communities and calling it the Clear Skies Initiative.

or like passing a bill that sanctions poor schools for not meeting impossible goals, then not giving them enough money to even attempt to meet those goals, and calling it No Child Left Behind.

All Children Matter? No Child Left Behind? where did these people get the chutzpa to come up with these names?

in the great state of texas, voucher proposals were voted down three times in 2003 alone, getting to the point that the texas legislature vowed not to consider it again for the rest of the year. texas doesn't want vouchers. yet that has not deterred these education entrepreneurs, determined to throw around their political influence to make sure that all children matter. here's what's been going on behind closed doors (of bungaloes in the bahamas):

National Vouchers Group Teams with Texan to Spend Big Bucks on Texas Political Races

By Mike Hailey
Capitol Inside Editor

School voucher advocates led by Dr. Jim Leininger of San Antonio and an out-of-state group are spending substantial amounts of money on political races in Texas this year.

Giving individually and through a new political action committee called All Children Matter, Leininger in the past five months has poured a quarter of a million dollars into the coffers of state lawmakers and statewide leaders who will have a say in whether a pilot program using public funds to pay for private school tuition is created in the special session that began last week. The national arm of All Children Matter, which is based in Grand Rapids, Michigan, pledged $50,000 to the group's Texas chapter to go with $97,500 that Leininger has donated directly to the PAC in recent months.

Leininger contributed $25,000 to Governor Rick Perry in December 2003 less than three months months before joining him for a long weekend in the Bahamas as part of a 14-member crew that included spouses, political consultants, staff advisors, the San Antonio businessman physician and another major contributor along with the leaders of a national anti-tax group and a Texas-based Republican think tank founded by Leininger. The March trip to the Abaco Islands is under investigation by the Texas Ethics Commission amid allegations by a national watchdog organization that the governor violated state law by paying the way for himself, his wife and several staffers with campaign contributions.

Perry said last week that he hoped an experimental school vouchers measure would emerge from the special session that he called for work on a new school funding system, property tax relief and academic achievement incentives. The governor has been indicating support for vouchers legislation since winning the lieutenant governor's job with substantial help from Leininger and other school choice advocates in 1998.

So far, however, the push for a pilot program has failed to gain enough support to clear the Texas House. But the odds for a vouchers bill improved dramatically when the GOP won control of the lower chamber and elected Tom Craddick as speaker in early 2003. With House Republicans holding an 88-62 edge over Democrats, the special session on school finance could present the opportunity that Perry and other voucher supporters have envisioned for years.

Leininger, the founder of the hospital bed manufacturing company Kinetic Concepts Inc., gave Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst $50,000 in November 2003 - and he and his wife contributed $50,000 to State Senator Kevin Eltife when he was seeking the job in a special election in Northeast Texas earlier this year. One of the GOP's most perinnially generous donors during the past decade, Leininger has also contributed relatively small amounts to several other legislators in the past six months while giving $2,500 to the Texas Home School Coalition and $10,000 to the Texas Right to Life PAC.

this isn't the first time that business leaders have thrown their monetary weight behind voucher proposals. in september 2000, venture capitalist john kirtley gave a $100,000 check to Jim King, then Florida Senate Majority Leader, encouraging Republican legislators to support his corporate voucher plan. the plan succeeded, allowing kirtley to reap vast rewards as the head of the scholarship funding organization FloridaPRIDE.

why do business leaders support vouchers? some would argue that it's in their interest to have an educated future workforce, and they believe the public schools aren't cutting it. some would say that the elite, wealthy, george bush business types have an interest in wresting power over education away from "the blob;" meaning, the teachers' unions, the school boards, the PTA, etc, so that they can indoctrinate kids with the "right" message.

i think it's much simpler than that. business leaders got where they are because they believe in "business values:" private is always better than public, unregulated is always better than regulated, competition improves things for everyone. if you believe that deep down in your core, vouchers just make sense, and no evidence will prove you wrong. and since your values are right, and making All Children Matter is the right thing to do, your values must be furthering those goals, even if the logical jump isn't exactly there.