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25/03/2005
Education 2006
One reason conservatives and moderates chose to support George W Bush in November was the illusion of the “No Child Left Behind” program passed in the first year of the Bush administration. This law turned out to be positive in name only.
Congress is considering next year’s budget and education is once again on the table. Conservatives have total control of both houses of congress and they can pretty much pass whatever law they deem necessary to improve the education of our children. The Far Right Republicans lead by George W Bush say that they don’t want to leave any children behind. However, the proposals for this budget say differently.
The House resolution would lead to $38 billion in cuts to education and training from 2006-2010, compared to current spending adjusted for inflation. The Senate version of the bill was protected with an amendment by Senator Kennedy to protect education funding. However, if both versions of the bill are passed a conference committee is likely to strip the bill of this amendment in order to reach consensus.
President Bush is breaking his promise to Americans. He called on the nation to reform our public schools, pledging to make sure that all children receive a quality education, the president has ignored his own pledge. Bush's budget is $12 billion short on funds he promised for the No Child Left Behind Act the program that he touted in the election. The president's proposals would also cut 25,000 children from Head Start, leave 1.7 million children without after-school programs, and kick 2.8 million adults out of programs that help them learn to read.
Why doesn’t the Government have money for education? The government doesn’t have any money for education because the far right radical Republicans have cut taxes to the wealthy. Far Right Republicans don’t really care about public education, because their kids are in private schools. And, the whole reason that the government sponsors education is to keep America a democracy. People need to understand the facts in order to make good decisions. But radical Republicans don’t care about the truth and less education benefits their cause. They can get the uneducated to support the agenda of the wealthy while the poor children don’t get the education they need to keep America a Democracy.
14:08 Posted in Politics | Permalink | Comments (10) | Email this | Tags: Politics
Comments
We are like mined on this topic. In fact how could we not be? Facts are facts.
Posted by: Gene | 25/03/2005
NCLB was not made to get conservative votes -- it could be plausibly argued it resulted in a net loss of conservative votes. But it is very popular among moderates, so your point there is granted.
Speaking for myself, I do not "not care" about public education. I want to end socialist education. We have terrible, terrible, terrible secondary schools. Sadly, NCLB only dealt with primary schools, which are generally pretty good.
Posted by: Dan | 25/03/2005
Dan:
What is "socialist education," and how does it manifest itself in our education system?
Posted by: Dr. Forbush | 30/03/2005
What else would you call a system of near-complete state ownership of one of the largest service industries? Oligarchic?
Socialism is marked by broken price systems, confused incentives, lack of market discipline, lack of responsiveness to customers, lack of private properties, and terrible service. US public education exhibits all of these faults.
Posted by: Dan | 30/03/2005
Dan:
Your state education system is much different than mine. In our state the poor neighborhoods get much less money than the rich neighborhoods. Teachers in the poor school districts make much less money than the teachers in the wealthy school districts. Therefore teachers who are good can go to the wealthy schools.
Students that want to pay for an even better education can go to a private school and pay more. Students that want to be taught religious studies can go to a religious school, as long as they pay for it. What could be more capitalistic than that?
I guess you must live in a socialist state.
Posted by: Dr. Forbush | 30/03/2005
In my state school administrators are not penalized for poor performance. Funding comes from the state capital (which funds through a student-population formula) and local taxpayers (who are suspicious of paying more in any circumstances). Administrators have little incentive to higher good teachers. In any case, it is difficult to dismiss teachers and there is no "merit pay" for teachers. Perhaps your state is different?
Your second point misses the point. It's like denying Canada has socialized medicine, because rich people always find a way for the best service. Forced education socialism mandates that the residents of every region of every state pay for public education. It is impossible to opt-out of the system -- the rich can pay on-top of what the state takes, but the poor are unable to get even their school taxes refunded to pay for other education options. (There are some voucher systems, but they are typically attacked by the anti-choice left and "white flight" suburbs).
A capitlist system allows customers to choose where their money goes. When everyone is forced to support state corporations (which local school districts are), it is not a capitlist system.
Of course my state has socialist education. As does yours.
Posted by: Dan | 31/03/2005
Dan:
You pay for public schools so that you can live in a Democracy. Without public education we would have a class of ignorant illiterates that could be swayed to support any leader regardless of truth. Hopefully the public education is enough information to prevent those who have selfish intent to take over the country without outrage from the public.
Every citizen should want to live in a free society, and the public education system assures that this is the case. If you desire education on top of the default education, then you need to pay on top of this. This means that every person regard less of the whether they have children or not have it in their best interest to fund the best education system they can.
A weak education system will result in a weak Democracy and eventually a self interested government. Maybe we are already there, but this means that we need strengthen education, not weaken it.
Posted by: Dr. Forbush | 31/03/2005
I agree that education is important. I also agree that food is important, yet somehow we manage without state farms!
It is a fallacy to equate publicly-funded education with socialist education.
(The US managed to have the greatest and widest franchise in the world for decades without public education of any sort, but that's a discussion for another time...)
I agree that in a Market Liberal/Augmented Capitalist/whatever economy, the public would pay for education. And I agree that those who want more than is provided should pay more. But the current system makes that impossible for most Americans.
We have a terrible secondary system. This shouldn't be surprising, because socialized industries tend to provide services terribly.
Why do you deny or avoid the socialist nature of U.S. public education?
Posted by: Dan | 31/03/2005
Dan:
You wrote:
"yet somehow we manage without state farms!"
Funny how you pick the farms. The farms get subsidies not to grow food every year. And, how are they not a socialist program when there are tarriffs to assure that farmers make more money in the US than they would in a free market system?
The current system actually makes it easier for Americans to get a better education system than was possible at any time in US history. More Americans go to private schools now than since the public education system was founded.
The US education system is capitalist, not socialist. You are able to get the education that you are willing to pay for. That is the definition of a capitalist system.
Posted by: Dr. Forbush | 31/03/2005
Currently, American policy is to subsidize the agricultural production of individuals and and private corporations. This may or may not be good policy. But it is not socialist, because it is not marked by state ownership.
Tarrifs do not socialism make. Subsidies do not socialism make. Socialism is defined by state ownership. To paraphrase you, that should be known by anyone who studies economics.
Where are you getting your definition of "socialism" from? Crackpots like Mike Savage? Certainly not an economics text!
Most "free market" solutions for education advocate subsidies to either the state schools or individual schools. So yeah, the farm analogy is a good one.
One of the reasons I like reading your blog is that you keep me guessing about your politics. You say anyone who kills another is crazy, so I assume (I don't know) that you are a deep pacifist. Your answer to complaints that the poor are priced out of the private education market is that many, many rich are not -- so you seem very tolerant of high income inequalities. Are these statements accurate?
Posted by: Dan | 31/03/2005
The comments are closed.