“President Bush said Wednesday the nation needs to keep on the cutting edge in research in the face of growing competition over jobs and natural resources from India and China.”
And this….”In the fiscal year 2005 budget for the National Science Foundation, which is the federal body most responsible for promoting research and funding more and better science education, was actually cut by $105 million.” Does that sound like the work of people who actually believe we need to be on the cutting edge? Yes, you’re right - it was the work of a Republican Congress and a Republican President.
And in case you hadn’t noticed, the No Child Left Behind program is failing. (As expected) More and more states are desperately seeking loopholes that will allow them to gather up the money…and they are finding them.
The N.C.L.B. was never designed to work anyway. This administration needed something to divert the public’s attention and nothing does that as well as some harsh rhetoric about the condition of our education system. And a “plan” to save the day! Glorious speeches about the importance of readin’, ‘ritin’, and ‘rithmetic were trotted out and dutifully recited. (Notice that nothing was ever said about the importance of science, arts and technical knowledge. And there is no mandatory testing for those subjects.)
Bureaucracies were created to gather the data from all of the mandatory testing and then those same bureaucrats become the final arbiter as to whether or not a school district could receive a share of the money. T’s must be crossed and I’s dotted if the money is to flow.
For this administration, the whole N.C.L.B. program is a win-win situation. When it finally fails, utterly and completely; the Bush administration will quickly blame those that they have already demonized; the teachers and the unions will share the blame. The public, of course, will believe it. School administrators will be safe from criticism, due to their titles; “administrator”.
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