Posted on 12/15/2001 2:58:23 AM PST by JohnHuang2
House and Senate negotiators reached agreement this week on education legislation that the president is expected to sign quickly. And the House of Representatives, in an overwhelming vote uniting Democrats and Republicans, passed the bill on Thursday. Representatives Tom DeLay and Peter Hoekstra led a small group of the conservative remnant in opposing the $26.5 billion package, which Bush Republicans are trying hard to portray as a prudent implementation of conservative principle. But it is, in fact, the culminating capitulation of the conservative attempt to reform the federal government's role in education.
What I wrote about the bill in September remains true today: Instead of the promised attempt to rein in government domination of education, we have an education bill that ramps-up federal funding, increases federal control and was cooperatively stripped of all elements of support for genuine school choice and local control.
However distracted conservatives may be by the drama of the war against terror, we should not let this moment pass without noticing the comprehensive defeat that Bush education policy, enshrined in the bill, represents.
Apparently ended is the struggle conservatives have waged for decades to head off the nationalization of K-12 education. Constitutional language, American tradition and fundamental principles of self-government all weigh decidedly against any federal involvement in local education. Since the first election of Ronald Reagan, the Republican Party had stood for a rollback of that involvement, even abolition of the Department of Education. Now, at the federal level, we have abandoned the argument with the public about the costs and dangers of federal involvement in K-12 education. The current bill does not artfully advance an incremental version of the principled position of President Reagan. Indeed, it takes us in precisely the opposite direction.
It also utterly and finally reneges on one of the most important of President Bush's education policy campaign promises. Candidate Bush called for cutting funds to failing schools and returning to the parents that money in a limited voucher scheme. The bill about to pass Congress for President Bush's signature will give failing schools more money! And the voucher proposal was jettisoned shortly after the inauguration.
The increase in federal education funding in this bill is staggering – over 40 percent in one year. This is more than the education budgets of an average-sized state, such as Iowa or Colorado. With the money, President Bush has eagerly taken on himself, on behalf of the national government, responsibility for the educational performance of the nation's children. No rhetoric about flexibility and local independence will prevent the inevitable – ongoing torrents of federal money, bilge about federal resolve to "leave no child behind" and ever increasing levels of federal oversight and control.
And what will happen when an extra $8 billion fails to improve our children's learning? And fail it will, because real improvement in government schools is blocked by administrative inertia, obstructionist unions and statist secularism in the professional educational establishment. Sad history and all the data show that these impediments are increased, not diminished, by federal dollars. But still the cry will go up for more money, and a more aggressive federal commitment. What will President Bush say next year when another $8 billion increase, or $12 billion, is demanded to make real reform happen? After all, the federal government can leave no child behind. What next? Shall we pass the "Lake Woebegone Act" and decree that all the children shall be "above average?"
Most discouraging of all is that the new bipartisan federal education initiative is such a distraction from the deepest source of our educational problems – the demise of the two-parent, marriage-based family. The family is the school of character and must be the primary agent in education. No federal spending can effectively energize the real reform we need – reform in which parents get control of their own lives, reassert effective, wise and moral control over the lives of their children, and extend that control finally to the common life of our public schools.
As with most federal welfare, federal education money is a drug that obscures and intensifies underlying problems. The Republican Party used to preach "Just say 'No!'" Now we are increasing the dose and inviting the country to party on. It's a prescription for GOP and national addiction that immeasurably weakens our children's future. Let us pray it does not ultimately cost us our capacity for responsible self-government.
Patently untrue.
Am overwhelming majority of Republicans oppose federal involvement in educating our children. (The proof? The Republican Platform; adopted by the democratic processes of the Party.)
The passage of this legislation is a monumental sellout of the grassroots of the GOP, by elected Republican 'leaders' who are more afraid of the NEA than they are of Republican rank-and-filers.
Time will tell if their cynicism is warranted.
Unfortunately, if their political gamesmanship fails, which it almost surely will, they will then blame their critics for the failure, as usual.
More later.
Best to you,
Richard F.
I don't need to read the legislation. I know what happens when federal bureaucrats are given authority and money by Congress to regulate,because the same thing happens every time. I cannot even think of a single federal program which hasn't expanded, become more intrusive, costly and meddlesome and has led to a deterioration of the service and choices available to people except those few times when the feds deregulated industries, such as the airline industry, but they are even trying to reregulate that.
When Medicare was implemented, critics said that the federal government would insinuate itself in the physician patient relationship and start dictating care. They were disparaged and ridiculed. Guess what happened. Medicare is 100,000 pages plus of dictating care and intimately regulating the physician patient relationship.
I will tell you exactly how they will fudge data. Some, if not all of the coming standardized "performance" tests will contain high proportions of true false questions. So in these sections, 50% correct answers may sound good, but that's exactly what random chance would give you. They will give extra points for "disadvantaged" children because of race, sex, family status, etc. such that standardized performance tests will be outcome based performance tests.
And home schoolers...just wait, the feds will be back for you in a couple of years.
The 2000 GOP Platform does not call for no federal involvement. It calls for federal grants with strings attached ("shrinking a multitude of federal programs into five flexible grants in exchange for real, measured progress in student achievement"), which is part of the recently passed bill, it calls for increased parental choice of school using federal dollars ("Assist states in closing the achievement gap and empower needy families to escape persistently failing schools by allowing federal dollars to follow their children to the school of their choice.), which is provided for in the bill, though it does not yet apply to priivate schools, and school safety, which is provided for in the bill.
The platform also says "We strongly support voluntary student-initiated prayer in school without governmental interference. ", which is provided for in the bill (I cited that portion in an earlier post.
We recognize that under the American constitutional system, education is a state, local, and family responsibility, not a federal obligation.
By the way, if that page you sent me to was the final text of the GOP platform, and not something directly from the Bush campaign, I stand corrected...the plank in its final form was highjacked by the NEA lovers in control of the process.
Doesn't change the truth of my contention that the vast majority of Republicans agree with the above statement in its entirety...i.e. no federal involvement.
I've been a teacher for 28 years, an accreditation officer, a member of the Board of the California Association of Scholars, and Higher Education reporter for the California Political Review. For full disclosure, I should add that I am a personal and professional friend of Dr. Keyes.
I can tell you that what he writes is well grounded; extra funding, whether state or federal, correlates poorly to student achievement, and federal funds have always been connected to pressure, whether explicit or implicit, to conform to federal wishes. The "School-to-Work" program is a major case in point.
On your question of whether Keyes has expertise, I can tell you this: he was made interim President of a public university in Alabama for a year, to clean up fiscal and other scandals, and all reports are that he did a good job. He has a Ph.D in American Government from Harvard, and is a voracious reader. Dr. Keyes also did extensive research on the education of Southern Blacks in the post-bellum period for his book, Masters of the Dream.
During the 2000 primary campaign, I kept him up to date on research and press reports on American Education as a voluntary contribution from me to the Keyes 2000 electoral effort. I have also had numerous private talks with him on the issue. He is well informed.
I hope that is responsive ...
Cheers, and for Lincoln and Liberty!
Richard F.
So Sayeth the PrescientOne...MUD
I think this a bit unfair to Dr. Keyes. He has spoken and written much on this issue, and you are responding to just one column.
Here is a link to an old piece of Keyes on the issue.
Cheers
Richard F.
Well, I disagree. BTW, I doubt that 10% of the people who voted for this legislation read the bill in its entirety.
You are proof, as usual, that we 'have fun doing it', as the home page claims!!
Many of today's education professionals are the problem, not the solution.
Teaching isn't rocket science, and when teaching curriculua have entire semseter classes on grading papers, you know that someone is simply stretching material in order to create credits for next-to-worthless degrees.
If 'professionalism' in the field made a difference, you wouldn't see homeschool parents able to compete in any way, but they do.
Don't we, though?!
Utmost FReegards...MUD
Many politicians are the problem too. But we still seek the ones with valuable contributions to make, right? Unless you are ready to say 100% of the people who are now or have ever been in the business of education, then there is probably someone worth listening to. On the conservative side, Bill Bennet comes ot mind as someone with REAL credentials. But I would like to hear from less political fish also. Including teachers. I know it may be hard for you to believe, but I know there are many, many teachers out there who are good at their job, who understand many of the challenges we face, and have valuable information to share.
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