Evans, Here; Fairchild, Here; God, God?

From Mose Lake, Washington to Virginia Tech tragedy has struck at schools across this country:

Moses Lake, Washington 2/2/96
Bethel, Alaska 2/19/97
Pearl, Mississippi 10/1/97
West Paducah, Kentucky 12/1/97
Stamp, Arkansas 12/15/97
Jonesboro, Arkansas 3/24/98
Edinboro, Pennsylvania 4/24/98
Fayetteville, Tennessee 5/19/98
Springfield, Oregon 5/21/98
Richmond, Virginia 6/15/98
Littleton, Colorado 4/20/99
Conyers, Georgia 5/20/99
Deming, New Mexico 11/19/99
Fort Gibson, Oklahoma 12/6/99
Santee, California 3/ 5/01
El Cajon, California 3/22/01
Blacksburg, VA 4/16/07

Do you know who was absent on all those days. GOD.

Why do you think GOD was absent? He was expelled from school.

It started in 1960 when Madeline Murray O'Hare complained to the Baltimore Maryland School District to ban prayer in school. She took her case all the way to the Supreme Court. The court ruled in her favor 8-1.

How does a small minority group like the aetheists have so much power? How can the ACLU have more power than all the Christians in the US (89% of the population)?

I send my kids to Catholic Schools for this very reason. We need school vouchers so everyone regardless of their financial situation can send their kids to school where God has a desk and a locker.

Conservative Kids Want School Vouchers

DUMBING-DOWN OF AMERICA

Test scores for high school students have hit a new, 40-year low, says Pat Buchanan, a founding editor of American Conservative magazine.

A National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) test of 12th-grade achievement was given to what the New York Times called a "representative sample of 21,000 high school seniors attending 900 public and private schools from January to March 2005."

What did the tests reveal?

* Since 1990, the share of students lacking even basic reading skills has risen by a third, from 20 percent to 27 percent.
* Only 35 percent of high school seniors have reached a "proficient" level in reading, down from 40 percent.
* Only 16 percent of black and 20 percent of Hispanic students had reached a proficient level in reading.
* Among high school seniors, only 29 percent of whites, 10 percent of Hispanic students and 6 percent of black students were proficient in math.

Factor the dropouts back in, and the NAEP test suggests:

* Of black kids starting in first grade, about one in eight will be able to read at the level of a high school senior after 12 years, and one in 33 will be able to do the math.
* Among Hispanic kids, one in 10 will be able to read at a high-school senior level, but only one in 20 will be able to do high-school math.

Under George W. Bush, U.S. Department of Education funding has risen 92 percent in six years, from $35.5 billion in 2001 to $68 billion in 2007. Sinking test scores are what we have to show for it. Taxpayers are being lied to and swindled by the education industry, which has failed them, failed America and flunked its assignment -- and should be expelled for cheating, says Buchanan.

Source: Patrick J. Buchanan, "Dumbing-Down of America," Townhall.com, March 6, 2007.

I will bet the the number of ritalin scrips written have gone up exponentially.

Time for a new approach. Time for School Vouchers and competition. Time to pay the good teachers what they are worth. And time to send the poor performing teachers to packing.

Blue State Kids Want School Choice

I think that we can all agree that Communist countries produced some inferior cars. They made inferior cars and other products because there was no incentive to produce better cars. The engineers, designers, line workers, etc. made the same amount of money regardless of the quality of the car. And there was no other car company producing better cars. Lack of competition leads to complacency.

Result - Yugo not very far.




Well many schools in the US are graduating inferior students especially our inner city schools.

Citing data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), political scientist Abigail Thernstrom and her historian husband, Stephan Thernstrom, have written about how African-Americans, by the 12th grade, "are typically four years behind white and Asian students," with Hispanics "doing only a tad better than black students." Translated, this means that black and Hispanic students are finishing high school, on average, "with a junior high education."

Part of the problem is poor parenting. This will always be the biggest factor. But there are many caring and supportive parents whose children struggle in these inner city schools because the environment is so detrimental to learning. There are no incentives for the teachers, principals, superintendents to produce better kids in these schools (The jury is still out on "no child left behind".) And without a school voucher program there's no competition. Sounds like a YUGO factory to me.

Result: You go no where.

Liberals (and I include Bush) continue to throw money at the problem and the problem is not going away. It is time to try a new approach, it is time for school choice and vouchers. It is time for competition.

According to the research, the voucher program is particularly promising for African American students. And polls show that 70+% of African Americans want it.

So who's keeping this from happening. The ACLU under the guise of separation of church and state. The Rev. Jesse Jackass of course opposes it so he can keep his loyal base ignorant to his profiteering ignorance. The Democrats oppose it because, well, the Republicans favor it.

School vouchers are gaining momentum. The Arizona Supreme Court refused to hear ACLU opposition to vouchers this week. There will soon be more conservative kids in blue state cities.