Three Reasons Obama's Education Vision Fails

Nick Gillespie of the Reason Foundation provides 3 reasons why Obama's education vision fails:

President Barack Obama is making his bid to be "the education president." At the start of NBC's recent Education Nation summit in New York, Obama appeared on the Today Show and touted what he claimed were a wide-ranging set of reforms to improve America's K-12 schools.

Yet Obama's education vision deserves an F for at least three reasons:

1. Money Talks. Obama says that the educational system needs new ideas and more money. Despite a doubling in inflation-adjusted per-pupil spending since the early 1970s, student achievement is flat at best. But Obama is placing most of his bets on the money part. While he brags constantly about his Race to the Top initiative, in which states competed for $4 billion to fund innovative programs, he's spent more than $80 billion in no-strings-attached stimulus funds to maintain the educational status quo.

2. Choice Cuts. Candidate Obama said that he'd try any reform idea regardless of ideology. Yet one of his first education-related moves after taking office was to aid his Senate mentor, Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), in killing a successful and popular D.C. voucher program that let low-income residents exercise the same choice Obama did in sending his daughters to private school.

3. The Unions Forever. The two largest teachers unions, The American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association, overwhelmingly supported Obama with their votes and their contributions. Some 95 percent of the groups' campaign contributions go to Democratic candidates and the NEA, spends more money on elections that Microsoft, ExxonMobil, Walmart, and the AFL-CIO combined. No wonder Obama's big talking point is that he wants to add 10,000 more teachers to public payrolls despite the fact that there are already more teachers per student than ever.

Reforming education may not be politically easy, but the solution is pretty simple: Give parents and students more ability to choose - and exit - schools. This works for every other sort of business and it works for higher education, too. There's no reason to think it wouldn't work for K-12 education.

Priest to Catholic Voters: Stop Being Stupid!

Hat Tip to Matt Abbott


A Message from Father Richard Perozich, a priest of the Diocese of San Diego

Elections are coming up November 2, 2010. Catholics must engage in the political process to form a nation that reflects the values held by Christ's followers. Learn who you are and act like a Christian. 1 Peter 2.9 But you are "a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of his own, so that you may announce the praises" of Him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.

Your job is to announce to the whole world that Jesus is the anointed King of God's everlasting reign — and to offer all men His salvation given by grace and received by faith. One forum in which you do this is politics. Politics comes from the words pole and polarity. Poles are opposite ends of an idea, of a temporal structure, or of a force.

Catholics, even though we live in a country and are citizens of that country, have a higher calling and responsibility to God and to our neighbor to promote God's truth even when others hate it, reject it, and hate us for proclaiming it. We are citizens in an earthly realm, but more importantly we are citizens of the new kingdom of heaven with Jesus as the Lord, His laws as our prime way of life, and called to live them and to promote them even to unbelievers.

We live in a society where many people with power, possessions, and prestige are promoting ideas that are not founded in Christ. In order to promote their ideas over ours, they tell us we must stay in our churches, keep our religion to ourselves, and that their idea of separation of the church from the state (which does not exist in our American Constitution as they say it does) trumps any ideas we might have, so we have to shut up.

And Catholics sheepishly keep quiet and vote for men and women who promote evil.

In chapter 3 of Galatians, St. Paul, frustrated with the Galatians allowing non-believers to silence the truth even to the point of the Galatians returning to pagan or evil ways chastises them saying, "O stupid Galatians. Who has bewitched you?"

It can be said of us in America in the year 2010, "O stupid Catholics, who has bewitched you?" We easily go over to pagan ideas, putting aside our faith, our truth, in order to accommodate the evil of people who will not accommodate us! To promote their ideas they attack us personally calling us the far right, ultra-conservative, bigoted, homophobic, hate mongers, holy rollers, and other epithets. This silences many Catholics. It only emboldens me, and it should embolden you also to promote your faith.

In the fights in politics, all sides cannot win. It is either going to be the way of evil or the way of truth. You must engage it as an ambassador for Christ and not as an agent of the devil. God is life. Jesus is King. Christians are citizens of the kingdom sharing in life, the mission of God to promote it constantly in every forum.

People are most concerned with their economic power to purchase, to live, to save. Their greatest fear is losing this, evident in how they voted in 2006 and 2008. For Christians our greatest concern should be with life, and we vote for those who promote it. You have heard the mantra, "I'm a fiscal conservative, but a social liberal." Nonsense. The societal responsibilities come first, and from a sound society built on biblical principles flow the economic concerns.

In a healthy economy there will be rich people. I who earn $20,000 a year do not envy their wealth, their homes, their power to shape the economy. The people Americans put into office in 2006 and 2008 do envy, and are using the economy to tear apart the entire social fabric of society to promote abortion here in our country and abroad; to kill new life in embryos; to kill the elderly and sick; to destroy the nature of gender and marriage; to allow sexually-immature people to be predators of others to try to satisfy their lack of psychological development.

For us Catholics, the basic issues are: Life from conception to natural death, that is, protection of the unborn, those with life, and those who are sick; protection of new life in its most nascent form, the embryo; protection from cloning to farm body parts; protection from sexual deviance in the form of pederasty, homosexuality, adultery, fornication, prostitution.

An elite class has assumed power in the United States, transcending political parties. They claim to know more than the people the elites represent. They do not. Their interest is keeping their positions in which they earn upwards of $200,000 with a health plan that is not part of the new one passed for the rest of us. They plan the destruction of the military, the silence of the churches and free voices, the destruction of children, embryos. They simply cannot stay in power. I have voted for some of them despite their mixed policies.

But enough! I refuse to cast a vote for anyone who supports abortion, sexual confusion to be forced in the military, marriage, school curricula, or any other societal aspect, cloning, embryonic stem cell research, or euthanasia. I am a Catholic. I am a citizen of the kingdom of God and will promote that kingdom in all parts of my life.

To you politicians who promote non-Catholic values, I will not vote for you just so your opponent will not get into office. If you do not represent me, you do not have my vote. I don't want your government money. I don't want your ideas of equality, fairness, and justice. I don't want your health care. I am not a prostitute who sells my vote for temporal benefits.

I am checking your voting records through various organizations which monitor your voting. If you do not promote life from the moment of conception to natural death, chastity and sexual distinctions, traditional marriage, respect for embryos in science, then you will not get my vote. You do not belong in political office. Teachers who sheepishly follow their corrupt unions do not belong in the classrooms. Clergy who follow non- Christian teaching do not belong in the pulpit.

My hope rests in Jesus Christ and His salvation exactly from the very things these politicians are promoting. Change is repentance from sin, conversion to God, and reparation of the damage by following the Commandments without relativizing them.

Hope and change did not come in 2008. I'm going to do my part to see that it does in 2010.

'All Creatures of Our God and King'

Saint Francis of Assisi, wrote the words of this hymn in approximately 1225 (Can­ti­co di frat­re so­le, Song of Bro­ther Sun), shortly be­fore his death, but it was not pub­lished for al­most 400 years. Trans­lat­ed to Eng­lish by Wil­liam H. Drap­er for a child­ren’s Whit­sun­tide fes­ti­val in Leeds, Eng­land, it first ap­peared in the Pub­lic School Hymn Book in 1919.

All creatures of our God and King
Lift up your voice and with us sing,
Alleluia! Alleluia!
Thou burning sun with golden beam,
Thou silver moon with softer gleam!

Refrain

O praise Him! O praise Him!
Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!

Thou rushing wind that art so strong
Ye clouds that sail in Heaven along,
O praise Him! Alleluia!
Thou rising moon, in praise rejoice,
Ye lights of evening, find a voice!

Refrain

Thou flowing water, pure and clear,
Make music for thy Lord to hear,
O praise Him! Alleluia!
Thou fire so masterful and bright,
That givest man both warmth and light.

Refrain

Dear mother earth, who day by day
Unfoldest blessings on our way,
O praise Him! Alleluia!
The flowers and fruits that in thee grow,
Let them His glory also show.

Refrain

And all ye men of tender heart,
Forgiving others, take your part,
O sing ye! Alleluia!
Ye who long pain and sorrow bear,
Praise God and on Him cast your care!

Refrain

And thou most kind and gentle Death,
Waiting to hush our latest breath,
O praise Him! Alleluia!
Thou leadest home the child of God,
And Christ our Lord the way hath trod.

Refrain

Let all things their Creator bless,
And worship Him in humbleness,
O praise Him! Alleluia!
Praise, praise the Father, praise the Son,
And praise the Spirit, Three in One!

Refrain

A Homily by Father Jay Scott Newman - 'A Sign of Contradiction'

Pier Francesco Sacchi (c. 1485-1528), "Saint Paul Writing" (1520s).
The National Gallery, Trafalgar Square, London.

Homily of Reverend Jay Scott Newman

Pastor

St. Mary's Catholic Church

Greenville, South Carolina

October 3, 2010

If Schools Were Like 'American Idol'...

Unless we measure success by how children perform, we'll have higher standards for pop stars than public schools.

From The Wall Street Journal
By Rupert Murdoch

Over the past few years, I have often complained about a hidebound culture that prevents many newspapers from responding to the challenges of new technology. There is, however, another hidebound American institution that is also finding it difficult to respond to new challenges: our big-city schools.

Today, for example, the United States is home to more than 2,000 dysfunctional high schools. They represent less than 15% of American high schools yet account for about half of our dropouts. When you break this down, you find that these institutions produce 81% of all Native American dropouts, 73% of all African-American dropouts, and 66% of all Hispanic dropouts.

At our grade schools, two-thirds of all eighth-graders score below proficient in math and reading. The average African-American or Latino 9-year-old is three grades behind in these subjects. Behind the grim statistics is the real story: lost opportunities, crushed dreams, and shattered lives. In plain English, we trap the children who need an education most in failure factories.

Last August, Education Secretary Arne Duncan said that our students have "stagnated educationally." The College Board recently put this into global perspective when it reported that we've dropped from 1st to 12th place in the percentage of people between the ages of 25 to 34 who have a college degree. America is now in danger of producing a new generation that will be less educated than their parents.

Clearly it's not for any lack of money. Over the past three decades, we've nearly doubled spending on K-12 education in real terms. So President Obama was absolutely right to declare the other day that "we can't spend our way out of this problem." Which begs the question: How can we spend so much with so little to show for it?

The answer is that while the system is failing our children, it works very well for some adults. These adults include the leaders of the teachers unions. They include the politicians whom the unions reward with their cash and political support. They include the vast education bureaucracies. In business terms, we have a system that rewards the providers and punishes the customers.

Davis Guggenheim won an Academy Award for producing Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth." So you might think that the two of us don't have much in common. But his latest film on our public schools, "Waiting for 'Superman,'" brings home the way the status quo betrays our highest ideals and results in an almost criminal waste of human potential. On this issue, there is no light between us.

So how do we fix it? Clearly a big part of the answer is giving parents more choices for their kids. For choices to mean anything, however, parents also need transparency so they can make real comparisons.

The Los Angeles Times just gave us an excellent example of this kind of transparency when it published a database of about 6,000 third- through fifth-grade teachers ranked by their effectiveness in raising student test scores. If you are a mom with a son or daughter in one of these classrooms, you know this information is vital. Unfortunately, it's the kind of information that seldom sees the light of day.

The reason is that the adults who are doing well by this system don't want it out there. The local teachers union, for example, blasted the Times for what it called "the height of journalistic irresponsibility" for bringing this material to the public. My view is that American schoolchildren need more such irresponsibility.

Occasionally we hear the leaders of the teachers unions say they too support reform. But Michelle Rhee, the chancellor fighting to reform D.C. public schools, made a telling point recently during a televised exchange with the head of the American Federation of Teachers, Randi Weingarten. Ms. Rhee was talking about the union's decision to slap her with a class-action grievance after she dismissed more than 200 bad teachers. "The bottom line," said Ms. Rhee, "is that if these people are ineffective, and if, as President Weingarten says, nobody wants ineffective teachers in the classroom, then you can't fight us every step of the way when we're moving in that direction."

We all know that good schools begin with good teachers. We also know there are many heroic teachers. Unfortunately, our system is set up to protect bad teachers rather than reward good teachers.

In the existing system, we have incentives for almost everything unrelated to performance (seniority, tenure, etc.) and zero incentive for adapting new technologies that could help learning inside and outside the classroom. On top of it all, we have chancellors, superintendents and principals who can't hire and fire based on performance.

We have tougher standards on "American Idol." And so long as we refuse to measure success by what our children are learning, we're going to have higher performance standards for pop stars than for public schools.

We all know the economic returns on a good education. That's true for societies as well as individuals. According to one study by McKinsey, if we had closed the gap in educational performance between ourselves and nations such as Finland and Korea, our GDP would have been as much as 16% higher in 2008. Imagine that kind of gain compounded over time, and you begin to appreciate why other nations are putting such a premium on their school systems.

The flip side is that there are also huge economic downsides for a society that consigns millions of its population to the margins of prosperity. When we allow the children of other people to fail or leave school without an education, they do not disappear. They become adults who cannot provide for themselves. And guess what? The costs will be borne by our children.

Many years ago, the great teacher and union leader Albert Shanker put it this way. "As long as there are no consequences if kids or adults don't perform, as long as the discussion is not about education and student outcomes, then we're playing a game as to who has the power."

It's time we stop playing power games—and begin ensuring that every boy and girl who enters a public school leaves with the same shot at the American Dream we insist on for our own sons and daughters.


Mr. Murdoch is chairman and CEO of News Corporation, which owns The Wall Street Journal. This article is adapted from his remarks this week to the Media Institute in Washington, D.C.

State Snatches Baby from Oath Keeper Patriot

Of all the grassroots, freedom-loving organizations that have emerged in response to threats from statist, fascistic socialists, perhaps no group is more in keeping with the intent of America's founding fathers than Oath Keepers.

Oath Keepers is a national network of currently serving military, reserves, National Guard, veterans, Peace Officers, Fire Fighters, and their supporters who promise that they will honor the oaths they have taken, and will not obey any unconstitutional order "to disarm the American people," conduct warrantless searches, "detain American citizens as 'unlawful enemy combatants,'" work to impose martial law, invade or subjugate any state, blockade American cities, put Americans in detention camps or "make war against our own people."

The following story about the state of New Hampshire snatching a new born baby because the father is a member of Oath Keepers underscores the need for the organization and makes clear that American rights and liberties are under siege.

This outrage reminds us that the hour is late if America is to be saved from the ruling elite transforming it into something that would be repugnant to our founders. Indeed, we have the Second Amendment because our founders understood that the day might come when Americans would have to defend their liberties against oppressive government. Among many such quotes from the founding fathers, Thomas Jefferson said that "Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God," and George Washington believed "a free people ought to be armed." Richard Henry Lee, a Senator in the First Congress advised that "To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of people always possess arms..."

Americans are rising in defense of liberty and our priceless national patrimony. The totalitarian statists are losing, but as the following story and so many others in our news today make clear, it is their desperation that makes them most dangerous.

State snatches baby when dad accused of being 'Oath Keeper'

'You could be on 'the list' and then child protective services might come'

From WorldNetDaily
By Bob Unruh

A 16-hour-old newborn was snatched from her parents by authorities in Concord, N.H., after social services workers alleged the father is a member of Oath Keepers.

The organization collects affirmations from soldiers and peace officers that they would refuse orders that violate the U.S. Constitution, in light of what they perceive as the advance of socialism in the U.S.

The father, Johnathon Irish, told WND that the affidavit signed by Child Protective Service worker Dana Bicford seeking government custody of newborn Cheyenne said the agency "became aware and confirmed that Mr. Irish associated with a militia known as the 'Oath Keepers.'"

Irish, in an interview with WND, said officers and other social services workers ordered him to stand with his hands behind his back, frisked him and then took his daughter from him and his fiancé at Concord Hospital where the baby had been born.

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