EDUCATION

By Dan Winterrowd

Historically speaking, we now spend, in real terms, more per pupil than ever before - then why can't Johnny read?

There are of course exceptions, and many survive the government educational system with their wits, and with their critical thinking caps still attached. These are though exceptions and not the rule as the SAT scores - even when adjusted upward - readily show.

The Federal government has no moral or constitutional justification for delving into the area of education. Sending our income to Washington D.C. so that the Department of Education(DOE) can funnel it back to the most politically connected has nothing to do with sound education and everything to do with furthering power in D.C. Recently, the DOE declared the Jerry Springer Show an "enriching cultural experience," and has recently spent 1.3 BILLION to close caption the Jerry Springer, Ricki Lake, and Montel Williams talk shows. We now have about 20,000 employees in the DOE disbursing tax money throughout the public schools with little say from parents and taxpayers. We have education "experts" continually force feeding their government projects on hapless local schools. With more and more Federal control comes less and less local control. The parents who should be making the decisions in their childrens' education are being pushed aside.

It is time to put educational decisions back into the parents' hands. A good first step is to get the Federal government out of the education business altogether. We don't need educational decisions handed down from D.C. Parents, not bureaucrats, know what is best for their children. Parents, not bureaucrats, have the greatest incentive to see their children educated.