How the Education Lobby Might Prevail
Excuse me while I ponder this aloud. I’m trying to follow the logic. First pass a sweeping education reform bill with a friendly-sounding name ( lets call it No Child Left Behind) with the aim of holding teachers and school districts accountable for student achievement. OK, Sounds good.
Next, we rearrange government spending to funnel funds to our war efforts by cutting from - among other places - education budgets. Then we wait three years and hold the states responsible for failing to meat the new guidelines without adequate funding.
And how does the federal government plan to sanction the recalcitrant states? By withholding money! The states have no money to implement the new law because funding for the necessary transition period was cut, so failure to conform to NCLB was inevitable. Because they failed, the feds are threatening to not pay the states.
… I’m still not getting it… How does this benefit the children? They only get one chance to go through school, they have no means to make up for the effects of undercutting education costs. Most families who have children enrolled in public schools do not have money enough to pull them out and send them to private teaching institutions.
Corporations are pressuring the federal government to revamp our public education system lest our nation loses a competitive edge. Civil liberty organizations are bemoaning the educational divide between white and minorities. They all are asking the wrong people. Our education system cannot be mandated from Washington. But if the same parties donated the money they spend on lobbyists to education groups within the state they operate, perhaps the problem of plummeting test scores would miraculously correct itself. If Washington would sanction such efforts by providing (gasp!) tax-relief to corporate and private benefactors, perhaps something good would happen.
Just a thought. ("I don’t suppose I’m right," said Pooh…)
July 26th, 2006 at 2:15 pm
nice blog entry!