Appeasement is Not the Answer

For those desperate enough to continue to cling to the failed lie of No Child Left Behind, even a quick scan of the neo-con proposed Budget should convince anyone of the misguided and counterproductive nature of that support. Of the 141 programs on the elimination wish list this coming year, 42 of them are at ED.

Here are a few other facts to weigh, while re-considering, perhaps, the continued support of this cynical manipulation called No Child Left Behind:

• A reduction in spending for Title 1 in 29 states and flat funding for the rest. The exception is a new $200 million to smooth the transition of watch-listed schools toward privatization models noted here by the Times: "The single biggest item in the Education Department's budget, Title I grants to high-poverty schools, would increase by $200 million, but that money would go exclusively for school restructuring under No Child Left Behind. For the remaining schools, the money would remain flat, and 29 states would see their Title I allotments decline."

• For those students who don't wish to go to college or who are not academically fit for the AP track, vocational education has been eliminated to the tune of $1 billion

• Almost half that, $412 million, will go to the fraudulent ACI (American Competiveness Initiative), with $125 million planned for more AP classes (a 280% increase)

• Almost a billion and a half ($1.475) for mandating NCLB testing in the high schools so that, they, too can be demonstrated as failures
  

• $100 million for private and church school vouchers (America's Opportunity Scholarships for Kids). Remember the lie, "this is a one-time deal," when almost a half-trillion went to the Gulf Coast in vouchers after Katrina? From the Post: "Woven through the budget are several initiatives favored by social conservatives. For instance, the Education Department budget, while proposing to eliminate 42 programs, revives an effort to create vouchers that would subsidize tuition for private or parochial schools. Bush broached the idea in 2001, but it was defeated when Congress passed the major No Child Left Behind legislation that year. The new version would be voluntary and would pay for private tutoring, as well as tuition."

Not mentioned here are all the other cuts aimed at services for those people who need them the most, from America's farmers who think that gay marriage is more important than losing their crop subsidies to Connecticut's NAACP who see the chain gang schools planned by neo-cons for black children as the only alternative to the status quo.

In the meantime, the pressure is on from K Street to the White House to keep intact forever all the tax cuts for those rich folks who never needed them in the first place.