Politics and Education

[Chris_Wendt]

I am having difficulty figuring out where Romney-Ryan stand on public K-12 education. Yeah, sure, every president wants to be thought of as being "The 'Education' President". In recent years I think George W. Bush actually had the biggest impact on public K-12 education with NCLB (regardless of how any of us feel about NCLB, or what NCLB has done to our school taxes). Prior to GWB, JFK certainly inspired attention to math and science in our classrooms, which ultimately put American space crews on the Moon, and LBJ signed into law the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 which ended segregation in public schools, among other things.

I guess we may have to wait for the Republican convention to hear the Romney-Ryan platform plank about K-12 education. We should anticipate learning about this.

Writing this, I also find myself at a loss for being able to articulate President Obama's stand, position, contributions and successes in K-12 Education. If I had to say anything (which I feel compelled to do), it would be that Obama has carried forth George W. Bush's NCLB legacy, for better or worse.

What do you think?

Chris Wendt

[ducky]

Obama doesn't have a position, he's not a Leader. Remember he voted "present" most of the time in Ill. and Senate.

[Chris_Wendt]

My brother, Phil (Wantagh '67) sent me this link on point:

Education Week, Rick Hess 'Straight up' Blog. It is a short, interesting read on this particular topic.

Of course, the article is dealing with the federal macro view of education, and initiatives like "Race to the Top", which for Wantagh may have done more harm than good (APPR, for example). Wantagh's relative affluence (read: lack of poverty and fewer students at-risk from the effects of poverty, English language proficiency, etc.) means that Wantagh does not have a lot of direct federal aid at risk if Ryan's plan were to become implemented. However, Wantagh as part of New York, would be at risk if the Ryan Plan were to curtail federal block grants and direct aids to the Big Five Cities and other federal poverty and needs-based educational programs, like Head Start.

If big chunks of federal money were to be removed from New York's revenue budget, then I would bet "wealthy" Long Island school districts (meaning Wantagh and almost all other LI school districts with a Combined Wealth Ratio—‘CWR’—greater than 1.0) could see state aid cuts or reductions in promised increases from Albany in order to supplant federal money cut from poverty and needs-based state programs (educational or otherwise).

But then there is the ideological perspective on federal involvement in education. I do not know whether or not Ryan or Romney embrace the Newt Gingrich "Contract With America" (1994) platform plank that called for the dismantling of the U.S. Department of Education. From a constitutional point of view, I did and still do agree with that as being a worthy objective. We either have state (and local) responsibility for the success of our schools, or we have federal schools without local or state accountability; the current hodgepodge of federal puppeteers pulling the strings on 50 state education departments is as ridiculous as it is ineffective.

I personally regard U.S. Department of Education as having as its main goal the redistribution of so-called education money (money disbursed in the name of or under the pretext of "education") essentially for social engineering, and not just since President Obama came into office, but from the very beginning when the U.S. Department of Education was created and elevated to cabinet level status in 1979 by Jimmy Carter.

What do you think?

Chris Wendt