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I have a problem with cutting educational spending outright though. See, I have a problem with speaking in terms of money minus the more important ingredients of effort and quality. It doesn't COST more to try harder. It doesn't cost more to choose sane and effective curriculum. Get rid of the politics like environmentalism, multiculturalism, revisionist history, whole language, new new new new NEW lame math, etc.... End the huge disparities between administrative funding and classroom funding. Do more with the money that's there.

I'm tired of this "all roads lead to swiping more of my money" educational arguments using our own children against us. Maybe our kids need a financially free future too. The arguements are always: If the kids are failing, it's because they're underfunded. If the kids are doing well, they need more money to maintain it. Like Jeb Bush said, "A trillion dollars could fall from the sky into the hands of educators and it still wouldn't be enough."

Show me an end to the cries for more of my money. Are our kids that stupid? Buy 'em a book and give 'em a few hours with it. You might be surprised how easy it is.

Yes, yes, and YES! No more throwing good money after bad. Here in Texas, for example, the state education board is pulling off a fraud on the taxpayers. Under the guise of "higher standards and improved accountability", they replaced the TAAS student assessment test with a (they claim) "much tougher'' TAKS test. They then had the teachers "teach to the test" for the whole year, and cheered when a "much higher than anticipated" percentage of students "passed" the TAKS. The truth of the matter is that the standards were watered down so as to assure a positive outcome for public consumption. Third graders had to get 20 of 36 correct (55%!!!!) to "pass" the reading portion. What's even more frightening is that 11th graders only had to score 37/73 in English and 25/60 in Math to be "passed". A previous poster opined that literacy levels would be even worse without this "free" education. Well, I'm sorry, but a young person who performs at a 51% level in English and a 42% level in Math hardly fits the description of a literate person!

Thanks for a good post!