July 26, 2004
THEY KNOW THEY LOST, WHY CAN'T WE FIGURE OUT WE WON:
Educate All Children: Adequate and equitable funding is required for schools to provide qualified teachers, small classes and up-to-date facilities (Barbara Miner, July 22, 2004, In These Times)
The right to a free, public education is enshrined in the constitutions of all 50 states. That right is under attack by the Bush administration and its allies.Using the club of its shamelessly misnamed No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), the Bush agenda punishes and sets up public schools for failure while promoting privatization schemes that funnel dollars to for-profit and religiously based programs.
Free? Then why are we taxed to pay for it? All NCLB does--eventually, though not yet, unfortunately--is let you choose a private education instead. If public schools don't offer educations that are competitive with those offered by private schools why should children pay the price of the Left's statist dreams? Posted by Orrin Judd at July 26, 2004 4:01 PM
I had never really thought about it until reading this article but why can't our children be taught by volunteers. There are millions of retired Americans, many capable of teaching, who can be tapped to reduce the cost of our "free" education. Most do not want to golf and knit until they die anyway.
Posted by: Pilgrim at July 26, 2004 6:04 PMPilgrim:
Because of the Unions they can't even teach in most states unless they go back to school and get "Education" educations.
Posted by: oj at July 26, 2004 6:42 PMI know we have a so-called seperation of Church and State in this country, but wouldn't it be great if nuns were allowed to teach in public schools. Because of their vow of poverty, they would do it for free, and I believe they would do a much better job of educating and disciplining our kids. Seriously though, what if a nun volunteered to teach for free at a public school, but she promised not to preach any Catholicism, would she still be violating the First Amendment?
Posted by: Vince at July 26, 2004 7:00 PMVince;
She still wouldn't have a degree in Education and as we all know, it's impossible to teach children without that piece of paper.
A few years ago I was talking with a history professor at the local public university, at some faculty event or another (my wife is a prof there). He was complaining that the School of Education had again that year increased their required course load meaning that the prospective teachers would be taking even fewer arts and sciences courses than they had been. He said, "They're learning to teach but they don't know the subjects they're teaching very well." This is the triunph of the education establishment.
Posted by: Jeff at July 26, 2004 9:40 PM"They're learning to teach but they don't know the subjects they're teaching very well."
But their Political Consciousness has been increased. (Just like the chocolate ration...) And they can indoctrinate the new generation of empty minds with that Political Consciousness:
war is peace
freedom is slavery
ignorance is strength
oceania has never been at war with eurasia
the chocolate ration has been increased from twenty grams to ten
bush is goldstein
long live the party