Mississippi Education Fiasco & other News & Comment
Buchanan warns : Bush to set to expand war
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If the Clinton administration had fired a Navy chaplin for praying in Jesus' Name, the leadership of the Christian Right would have been in an uproar. But when Lt. Klingenschmitt is left " homeless, jobless, and without the pension " he earned, hardly a peep is heard.
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MISSISSIPPI'S EDUCATION FIASCO & MONEY PIT
Meanwhile, here in Mississippi, the State Superintendant of Education, the education lobby, and our legislature show just how out-of-touch with reality we have become. Consider some of the following statistics :
The performance of Mississippi's government schools & students are at the bottom or near the bottom in every category. The high school dropout rate is near 40%. Skill levels and preparedness of graduates is terrible. This doesn't even include problems with safety and morality. AND Mississippi -- in the buckle of the Bible belt -- has had numerous cases of sexual abuse of students by teachers. A number of districts are bankrupt or worse so mismanaged & out-of-control that they have had to be taken over by the state.
What is the response of Mississippi Superintendant of Education Hank Bounds -- besides asking for more money? In true politician fashon, he is trying to deflect attention from himself. Mr. Bounds has mentioned on several occasions that they want to more closely scrutinize homeschoolers. With meager resources, without the near worshipful support that Pharoh's schools receive, and oftentimes in the face of oppostion -- homeschoolers far out perform Mr. Bounds' students on every front.
He says he doesn't want to go after good homeschoolers, but those parents who are just using homeschooling as a cover and who are not really educating their kids at all. Let's leave aside that these neglected, abused homeschool straw men are rarely -- if ever -- produced; Mr. Bounds has tens of thousands of undereducated, illiterate, abused, mistreated, and morally corrupted children directly under his controll -- as well as hundreds of incometent teachers and administrators.
Perhaps if he would make some headway on fixing that and stop pretending like he's in a postion to scrutinize and criticize those that he should be praising and trying to catch up with .
Oh, and by the way, while Mississippi ranks last or nearly last in school performance, guess who the highest paid State Superintendant in the nation is : none other than our own Mr. Bounds.
What Mississippi's education lobby & teacher's union seeks in the face of this mess is, once again, more money. And our legislature is more than happy to comply. The buzzword right now is to "fully fund" education. What spin. What a farce. I cannot think of any words that are not off color to describe this. It is both outrageous and laughable.
Consider the following:
* Ten years ago, the last time we "fully funded education" the average daily attendance in Mississippi's government schools was just well over 505,000. The budget they asked for was around $ 868 million. Now in the 2006/ 2007 school year, student numbers have dropped to just slightly over 493,000. What does this year's budget call for ? Try $ 2.2 BILLION.
* Where is all this money going beyond Mr. Bounds's bloated salary ? If you consider that Lousiana has 4.8 millon people and 68 school districts while Mississippi with 2.8 million people has 152 school districts you can begin to see where some of this money is going.
Lowdes County has 4500 students and a superintendant that earns $110,000 while the tiny community of Bentonia has its own district and a grand total of 311 students -- the superinedant of this district makes $91,000.
* While Demanding more & more money, the education lobby & their supporters in the legislature seem oblivious to the fact that 63% of every tax dollar already goes to education . . .
(In the real world, if you are doing a poor job, you get fired or otherwise reprimanded. Educrats, however, get to blame the taxpayers & demand more money)
All this foolishness has finally got a few people in the legislature & media saying :
"ENOUGH IS ENOUGH !" And calling for accoutability.
However, very few are "laying the ax to the root". Even most Conservatives tout themselves as defenders of government education & favor pouring more money into it, they just seek efficiency & results.
The fact is that education is not the job of governement.
God gave the duty of training children to parents & the local church. A family also has the right to use their own money ( or voluntary charity) to hire tutors/ private schools/ etc to instruct their children.
Marx belived that governement should teach children & undermine the family/ church.
Rushdoony correctly told us that : "All ideas are inherently religious". And Thomas Jefferson stated : "To require a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he himself disbelieves is sinful and tyrannical."
Government education -- therefore violates the First Ammendment on at least two fronts.
Beyond this, if we examine the history of "public" eduation in America, we will see that it was a brainchild & great hope of early socialists & humanists with the goal of undermining the family, Christianity, and preparing people to accept socialism.
Politically, it is long past time that government schools have their funds CUT not increased; we should be working towards the elemination of public schools and their replacement with home, Christian, & private education.
( I highly recommend a visit to The Separation of School and State's excellent web site )
In the meantime, if you are a parent, please consider removing your children from government schools and home schooling them or putting them in a good Christian school. If you are not, or have a burden for this, please consider helping someone who lacks the ability or funds do the same.
See Exodus Mandate for more information
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Finally, as we transition this site from just my personal blog to a news & commentary site, we will be open to submissions from other like-minded folks. Please e-mail lesriley@bellsouth.net if you have stories, events, commentary or other stuff for consideration.
As always, comments are welcome here or over on our much more in-depth Discussion Board.
Many more in depth articles -- as well as a little more about who we are & what we're about is avaialble at the main site - LesRiley.net
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MORE TO COME
