THE "BALANCED APPROACH" IN EDUCATION | 2001-06-02
Only about seven percent of America's total public educational expenditures are Federal expenditures. But with that small part, the Feds have developed a titanic educational bureaucracy and are in control of every major phase of public teaching in this country.
The collapse of public educational standards has gone hand in hand with the expansion of the Federal role in education. Nothing else corresponds as perfectly with the decline of American education as does the imposition of Federal "solutions."
In the interest of getting through a "bipartisan" education bill this year, the Bush Administration surrendered all the conservative proposals, from school choice to consistent, nationwide testing.
So the Bush Administration agreed to an educational initiative which is the very picture of what liberals call "a balanced approach." It consists of 1) increases in bureaucratic control over education and 2) more money for the present Federal education programs.
So in education, the short-term fix is more bureaucrats and more government expenditures. The long-term liberal educational fix is liberal multibillion-dollar programs like Head Start.
It is not a conspiracy that makes leftists oppose anything that might work to end a crisis. What makes them fight any real solution is their secret desire for continued bureaucratic control in the name of the crisis.
For example, liberals fight the phonic method of teaching children reading with every weapon in their arsenal. They fight phonics, not in spite of the fact that it works, but BECAUSE it works.
We see "Hooked On Phonics" offering your money back if your child does not a get a full grade improvement in his grades. We all know that no liberal is ever going to make that kind of guarantee for any liberal program.
The bottom line here is that there is a reason why nothing liberals advocate ever works.