Posted on 11/12/2006 9:14:45 AM PST by mcvey
Education ping list
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I don't think the Federal Government has any role in public education. All standards, decisions and funding should be handled at the local level.
Why is education a federal issue? Did I miss that somewhere in the US Constitution? What happened to the people who wanted to abolish the federal department of education? I guess we've all accepted that the federal government's supposed to tell us what we're supposed to know. Thanks, Nanny State!
It's just another of the socialist ideas rammed down our throats by Karl Rove to buy a permanent Republcian majority.
I would like to see the federal government get out of the education mandate and funding business altogether and leave education to each state and local government.
It became a prominent federal issue when the Supreme Court started legislating from the bench with Brown v. Board of Education.
And what a smashing success it was! Er...uh...ahem. Nevermind.
I don't see anything wrong with holding students and teachers to standards. It is totally the way European countries do it, and their educational systems have to be better than ours.
Teachers don't like it, and I believe it is implemented poorly at the state level by the teachers' unions.
Nevertheless, standards and accountability are good things.
We homeschooled, tho. And currently I tutor -- mainly picking up the pieces that the teachers' unions have dropped, I suspect.
No Child Left Behind is another intrusive federal program that takes away from the state and local school board's rights to do what they want.
While I don't disagree that I want the Feds out of education, my saying that will be seen as conceding the point that this was "another bad Bush program." Being in the business, I am aware of just what awful products our public schools are turning out. And I want to go further--not only are my students deficient in the basics, but they are also deficient in learning the work ethic needed to survive, they have zero intellectual curousity, they have never been forced to prove themselves (with a corresponding lack of realism and earned pride) and their study skills approach zero.
So, I don't want to concede this point, but I also want to carry the day for our side!
McVey
Teaching decisions ought to be made at the local level, not in Washington. As a conservative I resent and fear the federal government telling all of us to do anything.
The fact that Teddy Kennedy was involved in this ought to tell you how detrimental it is; the fact that many millions of federal dollars goes into it convicts the program utterly. Like many liberal programs it is well-intentioned but disastrously ill-thought-out. It was President Bush's first great mistake, trying to reach out to the dems and make nice with them.
"I would like to see the federal government get out of the education mandate and funding business altogether and leave education to each state and local government."
I'd like school vouchers and public schools totally abolished. We gave up on public schools. We have our daughter in a private school.
The education in public school is ridiculous and our school district is a "blue ribbon" district - LOL!!!! Concerning NCLB, teachers cheat, teach to the test etc..
One thing I've read about NCLB is that its provisions aren't being enforced. Many families with kids in failing schools aren't being told by their school districts that there are alternatives available to them under federal law, and the Education Department isn't doing anything about it. A similar situation with the laws against hiring illegals comes to mind: if the administration isn't willing to enforce a law, it might as well not exist, so defending it is pointless.
In a word, no.
First, responsibility for education should be pushed down to local levels as far as possible; involving the federal government is foolish and antithetical to conservative principles.
Second, NCLB does not account for kids with serious problems who simply are not capable of being mainstreamed. Instead, these kids are forced to take standardized tests, thereby further ridiculing this program.
Third, the program requires inordinate paperwork in order to satisfy the education bureaucracy.
There's more, but suffice to say there is not much positive to be said about this program.
I think a lot of people don't understand what it is and think it's just another give away program. It actually sets standards, for the first time in years, and that's why the lazy, incompetent teacher's union hacks don't like it. I hear all these ditzes whining that now they have to "teach to the test." That's fine, because before they weren't teaching to anything and nobody ever penalized them or their schools for the fact that the kids came out as ignorant as when they went in.
That said, I think until we have regular recertification exams for teachers and make sure that the teachers actually know the subject, we're not going to make much progress.
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