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Education an Issue in Election

Linda Bowles

August 31, 1999

The education of children will be one of the key issues in the next election cycle. This is as it should be. Our schools are failing to perform their most elementary assignment: teaching children to read, write, and do arithmetic.

Everyone agrees we have a serious problem. Everyone has been agreeing for decades, but we are apparently helpless to bring about necessary and obvious changes and reforms. Why?

There are two primary reasons: First, the federal government has progressively increased its control over the education of American children.

There are several problems with this: It is unconstitutional, that is, if one assumes the 10th Amendment to the Constitution is still in place and Supreme Court justices know how to read; centralization stifles creativity and makes a mockery of the concept of neighborhood schools and parental rights; it is dangerous for the federal government to get involved in decisions about what values should be instilled in children and what values should be withheld from them; government schools, like most government institutions, are wallowing grounds for bureaucratic pork, bloat and incompetence; and finally, government cannot resist the temptation to insert its political propaganda into the school curriculum.

The second reason is government unions, in particular teacher's unions. The growth of educational unions correlates almost perfectly with the decline in the quality and increase in the cost of public education.

In a nutshell, there is absolutely no way to avoid the conclusion that the children of America have been sold out. The largest and most powerful union in America, the National Education Association (NEA), has struck a Faustian deal with liberal politicians in Congress and in the White House The deal is this:

In exchange for millions of dollars of campaign contributions, across the board support for all their candidates and propagation of all their policies and agendas inside and outside the classroom, Democrats have agreed to protect the union's educational monopoly from competition, insulate it from reform, and reward its failures with increased funding.

But let's be fair. There's another side to the story of education in America. While it is true that a good case could be made that we are on the verge of being overrun by an avalanche of ignorance, it would not be entirely fair to say our kids are graduating empty-headed.

Perhaps it's time for an updated review of some of the important things our children have learned in government school classrooms:

While Johnny and Jill may not be learning how to read, they are learning that: teachers are underpaid, God is irrelevant, big business is ruining the environment, rewards should be based on need rather than performance, bisexual individuals are under the command of unstable genes, the Alamo was a great Mexican victory, society rather than the individual is responsible for crime, teachers are quite underpaid, Thomas Jefferson was a racist, two plus two equals whatever, competition is destructive, the right to be wrong makes wrong right, all rules and standards are mutable, God is a homophobe, porpoises are smarter than people, the Constitution requires the government to censor religious speech, taxes are the same as charitable contributions, boys and girls are exactly the same except for unimportant differences, it is loving to approve and reinforce the wrong in others, George Washington was a racist, rich people enjoy stomping on poor people, the condom is mightier than the conscience, Columbus infected the natives with syphilis, one person's opinion is as good as any other, the American Constitution was written by racists and sexists, teachers are grossly underpaid, sex between consenting children is inevitable, all sexual orientations are created equal, religious people are bigots, in the beginning there was a big explosion, trees are important because money grows on them, the right to kill unborn babies is in the Constitution, it is un-American to have more than someone else, the only hope of the world is for workers everywhere to unite, and it is the constitutional responsibility of government to provide jobs, housing, clothing, condoms, hot lunches and medical care to all citizens.

An entire generation of children has been indoctrinated into mind-sets that resonate with hedonistic socialism. When these children come of age, what choices will they make? What will be their view of government? When they assume positions of leadership, how will they change America?

The well-publicized 1983 report, "A Nation at Risk," concluded with this dire statement: "The educational foundations of our society are presently being eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as a nation and a people." Translation: There is a basic incompatibility between self-governance and a dumbed-down citizenry.

In his book, The Outline of History, British author H.G. Wells observed, "Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe." This is a race America is losing.

COPYRIGHT 1999 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.

Linda Bowles' 'take no prisoners' attitude has made her one of the few conservative women columnists in America with a large readership. She formerly managed Bowles Associates consulting firm, and has written speeches and been a researcher.

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