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.
Hmmmm...and Castration fer Infidelity...LOL!! We'll have this Nasty Country of Dope-Smokin' Fornicators cleaned up lickety-split, eh?!!
Or were you serious, Mr. War?!
MUD
Once again, you underestimate my Powers of Perception...LOL!!
Need I quote Sun Tzu...AGAIN?!!
LOL...you listenin' to Rush?! Dude's a friggin' genius...MUD
Rush? Did someone say Rush? You mean this Rush?
Unstable condition,
A symptom of life,
Of mental and environmental change.
Atmosphereic disturbance,
The feverish flux
Of human interface and interchange.
The impulse is pure;
Sometimes our circuits get shorted
By external interference.
Signals get crossed
And the balance distorted
By internal incoherence.
A tired mind become a shape shifter,
Everybody need a mood lifter,
Everybody need reverse polarity.
Everybody got mixed feelings
About the function and the form.
Everybody got to elevate from the norm.
An ounce of perception,
A pound of obscure.
Process information at half speed.
Pause, rewind, replay,
Warm memory chip,
Random sample, hold the one you need.
Leave out the fiction,
The fact is, this friction
Will only be won by persistence.
Leave out conditions,
Courageous convictions
Will drag the dream into existence.
A tired mind become a shape shifter,
Everybody need a soft filter,
Everybody need reverse polarity.
Everybody got mixed feelings
About the function and the form.
Everybody got to elevate from the norm...
["Vital Signs"]
Mark W.
Ah yes...he's been helping maintain the sanity here too----Excellent choice---shouldn't surprise me!!!!!!!!!!
LOL, Your Sidekick, LGE
Are there 'good' things in the bill that could with 'conservative leadership' be implemented that would 'de facto' reduce the federal influence in education while yet returning the $$$$ that have 'inadvertantly' found their way to Washington?
The bill is a compromise, but in my view a bad one, in which we lost much more than we gained. The two best items are the inclusion of private and religious groups in the eligible "tutoring" contractors, and the increased flexibility in the way the states use federal money.
One very bad element is the negative sanctions placed on "uncertified" teachers. That will keep competent but non-ed-school types, like retired military and engineers, from getting teaching jobs.
Cheers,
Richard F.
I guess maybe I should have finished that education minor, before becoming a 'certified, or is that certifiable, accountant. {;~)
Thanks for the 'strengths and weaknesses' clarifications, Richard. I can't do more than any other citizen can do; but, I'll add my voice to yours, so that we are heard, in pushing for more 'wisdom'(school of life) and less 'knowledge'(life of school) in the classrooms. In so many cases I have often found that MBA stands for 'More B******t Added'--not ALL, but many.
If there are other 'highlights' of the bill, that I might miss on casual reading, or not get from the networks, or that are totally obfuscated by the verbage, I would appreciate any insights you care to provide. I have been picking up on your 'links' periodically, Richard; but, have found that I am at odds with, or misunderstand, Dr. Keyes. I can understand wanting 'better cards' to play with, and I keep wanting to get the 'cards' Dr. Keyes is calling for. However, until then, I would rather continue to make the best of the cards I've got, rather than 'fold', and give up the hand when there are cards yet to be drawn. Especially when I know that we win on the 'Final Draw'.
Merry Christmas, Richard, as we celebrate the birth of the One who has made us victorious in the battle we are constantly fighting.
Richard F.
I am hoping for another Keyes column on all this.
Best to you,
Richard F.
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