Free Republic

POTOMAC WATCH Teddy Takes George to School Bush's education plan is Potemkin reform. BY PAUL A. GIGOT Friday, May 4, 2001 12:01 a.m. EDT Here's the news about President Bush's education reform: Ted Kennedy is happy but Checker Finn isn't. Mr. Kennedy is the liberal icon who just cut a deal with the Bush White House. His only beef now is that he wants more money. Mr. Finn is the conservative who helped Candidate Bush write his education plan. But after inspecting the Senate-House fine print, he now says, "I'm fairly depressed. It's Potemkin reform, a facade underwritten by billions ...

Bureaucrats First, Kids Second That's the ethos of America's public-school establishment. BY PETE DU PONT Wednesday, April 18, 2001 12:01 a.m. EDT The National Assessment of Educational Progress reading scores for American fourth-graders came out last week, and the news is abysmal. For eight years reading skills have been virtually static; they are the same as they were in 1992 and 1998 (they were slightly worse in 1994). Indeed, reading scores haven't improved in 20 years, so the overall data are nothing new. But the details are devastating. In 1992, 38% of fourth-graders were "below basic," which means they ...

I had hoped by now to be serving full-time the many citizens of New York State who elected me to be their senator. However, because of certain actions undertaken by people whose name I appear to share, it is necessary to interrupt my important work on behalf of children, women, the elderly, minorities, the constituents of the Rev. Al Sharpton, the homeless, and certain communities in Rockland County, N.Y., to point out that none of these shocking, saddening, heartbreaking, deplorable, unspeakable, wretched, repugnant and personally disappointing things had anything remotely to do with me. First I want to make clear ...