If we feel education needs reform, let's start at the top. The Republicans keep hanging on to the "trickle down" model in economic policy. If there is anything to it, then we need to be careful about what trickles down from the Department of Education and its eminently stupid capo, Rod Paige. Take a look at this report from the New York Times from February 25, 2004:

Rod Paige, the education secretary, made a staggeringly stupid comment this week, comparing the nation's largest teachers' union to a "terrorist organization" because it opposes many elements of the two-year-old No Child Left Behind Act. This is the latest in a series of missteps by Mr. Paige.

Given the fact that it's Paige about whom we are talking, that's not so amazing.
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Don’t let the media reports of “economic recovery” lull you into thinking everything is going to be Ok.

Bob Herbert’s article in the NY Times states some amazing facts:

“Parts of South Carolina are economic wastelands. The jobless rate in some counties is approaching 20 percent. The median income for blacks, statewide, is less than $15,000, and for whites, less than $30,000.” This describes a “third world” country—an undeveloped economy. How can we promise billions of dollars of tax cuts to millionaires and tens of billions of dollars to reconstructing Iraq when this sort of economic weakness exists in our own country? We are a temporary “economic juggernaut” only on money borrowed (stolen? misappropriated?) from our children and grandchildren.

I could appear, briefly, to be a millionaire if I took advantage of every source of credit available to me. I could travel the world, drive very expensive cars, purchase pricey appliances and luxury items. But it would all go to the repo-man at some point in the future. Perhaps you’ve seen those cynical bumper stickers on expensive cars “Spending the Kids’ Inheritance!” Very funny. We are doing that on a scale unimaginable. We are not just saying to our children, “Take care of yourselves,” but “Try to take care of yourselves while you pay off our debts; YOU can pay for our irresponsibility!”

Here’s a pathetic and current taste of what we’re doing reported by Herbert:

“The anxiety over the absence of work is pervasive, and in some cases heartbreaking. At a forum attended by all of the Democratic presidential candidates except Joseph Lieberman, a woman named Elaine Johnson told Senator John Edwards about her son, Darius. She said she gave Darius three choices: go to college, get a job or join the military. He tried college, but that didn't work out. "He wasn't ready for college," his mother said. He couldn't find a job. So he joined the Army and was killed in Iraq.”

Herbert goes on, “Most Americans are unaware of the extent of the suffering that has fallen on the bottom 20 percent or so of the population. Many low-income Americans are leading lives of grim and sometimes painful determination, struggling to survive from one day to the next. The contrast between the real lives of families sinking beneath the weight of economic distress and the headlines that continue to insist that the economy is doing famously is extraordinary.”

“…and the headlines that continue to insist that the economy is doing famously is extraordinary.” That’s amazing!

If the NYT link to Herbert's article breaks, try this: http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/020304E.shtml

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