Sunday, January 22, 2006
The GOP Re-educational System
My, my...0 comments
This certainly puts a 21st Century GOP spin on the old 1970's issue of school decentralization, doesn't it?:
College Aid Plan Widens U.S. Role in High Schools
When Republican senators quietly tucked a major new student aid program into the 774-page budget bill last month, they not only approved a five-year, $3.75 billion initiative. They also set up what could be an important shift in American education: for the first time the federal government will rate the academic rigor of the nation's 18,000 high schools. [GN emphasis]
The measure, backed by the Bush administration and expected to pass the House when it returns next month, would provide $750 to $1,300 grants to low-income college freshmen and sophomores who have completed "a rigorous secondary school program of study" and larger amounts to juniors and seniors majoring in math, science and other critical fields.
It leaves it to the secretary of education to define rigorous, giving her a new foothold in matters of high school curriculums.
Who does George W. Bush think he is? Mike Bloomberg?
Let's see...
Bush has trashed the most robust economy in our history, disembowled the most powerful military on earth, shredded the same Constitution that millions of Americans have died for, has economically barred most non-elite American families from sending their kids to college and has now found a way to codify that two-track, have/have-not system all the way down to our high schools.
So, Bush cherry-picks what smart, poor kids he can find, throws the others overboard, while squeezing what little funding goes to poor schools that aren't deemed "rigorous" by GOP-Choate-Yale standards. The academic equivalent of bodies floating down the street in New Orleans becomes clear for all to see.
"I do not see this, at all, as an expansion of the federal role," Sally L. Stroup, an assistant secretary of education, said in an interview.
Well then, ol' Sally L. Stroup is as blind as she thinks we are stupid.
Washington, she said, would not impose a curriculum, just judge programs of study outlined by states. "Our job is to make sure that those are valid standards and valid programs," she said. Furthermore, states and communities can decide on their own whether their students will compete for the grants. "We don't force people to do anything," Ms. Stroup said.
Sally just codified her own incompetence. Either that, or she hasn't been in D.C. very long. Who's campaign did Sally contribute to in order to gain this job?
Remember, the Nazis went after the school systems, too.
Welcome to the land of Lords and serfs.
Enjoy your home now.
When your children are grown, they'll live in thatched huts.
And forage.
And grunt.
While the kids of the GOP live in castles, drink wine from goblets and have private tutors.
America the Beautiful.
posted by Gotham 10:12 AM
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