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1. Mike
   Posted September 14, 2010 at 12:19 am | Permalink

   Oh, I can see it now. Federal licenses for teaching. National academies run by the same folks who gave you the professionalism and unbelievably high standards currently exhibited by those nice federally trained folks at airport security terminals shaking down 90 year old caucasian grandmothers, confiscating nail clippers from boy scouts and trying to seize the Congressional Medal of Honor from around the neck of Joe Foss, a genuine American hero who looks, at last check, not at all like a 20-something middle eastern jihadist.Can't you imagine the gargantuan increase in size of the Department of Education if this abomination is imposed? Imagine yet again the process of passing education bills in the congress with bills hung up by individual, anonymous holds, congressmen deciding which books can be read, which texts will be approved, pork riders stuck onto bills like gum on the bottoms of desks. And of course, you'd have to establish state and local branch DOE offices to give the congress sufficient oversight. All this, and imagine how much more when the pendulm inevitably swings the other way and Democrats take over again. Oh. But by that time, how would we tell the difference between them and Republicans? Virtually every educational wish they've ever dreamed would have been established by Republicans, and the NEA would become the most powerful political force in America.I agree with much of what has been said in opposition to this ill-considered pipe dream, but I urge every conservative to think carefully about “school choice” as it is currently understood and proposed. Vouchers (opportunity scholarships, bingo cash, or whatever else they're being called these days) would destroy public education as surely as an imperial DOE and would ultimately help no one. If schools are failing, the mechanisms are in place to fix them. More in a second…Conservatives should never do what they accuse liberals of doing–going hog wild for the latest unhinged change-the-face-of-education-in-one-fell-swoop scheme. Whatever problems exist in education in a given school district–and by the way, let's call people on it when they issue a blanket “American education is failing” rant–can be repaired by the time tested system already in place. The only problem is that doing it that way will take time and will require hard work on the local level. Oh yes. It will also require trusting the people. I thought conservatives used to do that. Don't conservatives still think that the most horrifying words in the English language are “I'm from the federal government, and I'm here to help?”