Why more should worry about Obama's education program.

[Jakes Progress]

Read Madfloridian's post on this site to see more about how bad our president's secretary of education is. It seems that too many in the party are sitting on their hands (and their principles) when it comes to education. They figure they will just let it slide so that they don't have to call out the president on his horrible position regarding schools, tests, privatization, and unions.

However, even if they are willing to write off the kids, they should worry.

First is that the "race to the top" is just a doubling down on nclb which is the bush fulfillment of bill bennet's dreams. It should worry people that the president is cheering a plan that grover norquist pushed under ronald reagan. Is our administration made up of all reagan democrats?

That would be bad enough. But you have to worry about the quality of thought and the level of intelligence that would lead someone to back a neo-con education plan. Sure there are problems with schools. And just as surely there are serious people who have spent their lives dealing with those problems. This administration ignores and even derides the serious thinkers in favor of opportunistic shills for corporate education. Hacks like duncan and rhee are intellectual lightweights that don't begin to understand what schools need. They just tout simplistic bandwagons and provide bad guys (like teachers) for a lazy press to castigate. Shouldn't we worry that our president is showing just this level of shallow thought on the subject of education? Shouldn't we worry that he might display just as shallow a mind on subjects like the economy and security and immigration?

Sure I know that mccain would have put out a horrible education plan. We won't go into the fact that had a republican tried to foist race to the top on us, the Democratic party would have stopped it decisively. If mccain and palin went out calling teachers monsters and tried to use public money for corporate takeovers, our party would have bashed that plan back to oblivion.

If Democrats don't make their elected officials act like Democrats, we will continue our ever-increasing metamorphosis into the republican party.

[woo me with science]

1. A good post from DU3 on this:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002967097

[Jakes Progress]

4. Kozol is one of the ones

I meant by serious thinkers. I really miss Gerald Bracey. Google his stuff from ED WEEK to see the real figures about education in America.

I posted mine here because I thought we still need to fight for real Democrats even when one isn't running for President. I voted for him, Campaigned heavily for him. Donated plenty. I started thinking about how sloppy his thinking is with this economic appointees. But I'm no economist, so I sat on the fence. When arne started his push to enact grover norquist's manifesto for education, and my president not only didn't slap him silly, but backed him, I knew we had a light thinker in there. I may not know about some of the other things he's done that seem out of sync with Democratic values, but I do about education. I know a lot. And I know who to find out more from. And the president is dead wrong on this. And we could never have gotten this far with the neocon agenda for schools without a Democratic president pushing it.

I'm sure that people who really do know about economics, security, immigration, and a dozen other things are wondering too. If we don't stop our own people from moving right, we can't expect them to move left because of the media and the republicans.

[No Elephants]

2. Nice to c u here. Thanks to Madfloridian and others, we know how bad he Arne is.

I am more and more interested these days in what to do about the Arnes of the nation.

[Enthusiast]

3. I hate Republicans.

I hate Democrats that act like Republicans even more.