Congress and our policy makers have their priorities wrong.
Nothing new, but now the impact is even greater because it hits everyone where it really hurts -- our teachers -- again. It isn't as though policy makers are ignorant that the key to better education is the teacher. Having a good teacher can make a huge difference for kids.
Knowing that, they still have cut funding to some of the most important educational support programs for teachers in the nation: the National Writing Project that supports thousands of classroom teachers in the teaching of writing; the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards that recognizes outstanding teachers; and Teach for America program that brings in new teachers from America's top universities.
Are we prioritizing education in this nation or not? Looks like NOT. We are prioritizing defense. Check their budget proposal -- $553 billion in core funding, and an additional $117.8 billion to directly fund the country's war effort.
The administration is worried about our failing schools; many parents in 'failing schools' are desperately looking for alternatives for their kids. We are all worried about our national crisis in education and look what we are doing -- cutting funding.
Cutting the funding for the National Writing Project puts in grave jeopardy a nationwide network of 70,000 teachers who, through 200 university-based Writing Project sites, provide local leadership for innovation and deliver localized, high-quality professional development to other educators across the country in all states, across subjects and grades. In the last year alone, these leaders provided services to over 3,000 school districts and 135,000 educators to raise student achievement in writing.
Rigorous research studies consistently demonstrate that gains in writing performance among students whose teachers participate in NWP programs outpace those of students in comparable classrooms. Here is a YouTube video that shows its impact on students.
This is what you can do--
Write to your Congressman, call him on the phone, complain!!! Don't just sit there and be depressed. We need to let Congress know that it is not OK to save money by jeopardizing the well being of our most precious asset -- our children.
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No. Let us instead free the National Writing Project from the constraints of yet another federal bureaucratic maze of funding and let the states handle it.
Better yet. Get rid of the Department of Education altogether and return the $s back to states.
Look at the scores and the dropout rate versus the increase in personnel and expenditures in our public schools, and let me know how that's been working for our kids.
True. So give up tenure so we can let the bad ones go and hire more good ones. In the mean time, share the consequences.
That may be because national defense is a Constitutionally enumerated power of the federal government and education is, well, not. It is a matter for the states.
The problem is expectations. The fact is everyone doesn't need to go to college to get an education. Telling "everyone" that is "the only route" is old "wisdom". Online is good, and there is a lot of free information online.
Defense is the most important. Just watch the thousands of children walk across the bridge from Jaurez to El Paso everyday to access free education and health care. Closing our borders is our biggest problem. Don't think so? Ask an American Indian how it turns out?
Education and Healthcare are all the pet projects that have drained the country dry and we are now officially in the red (more money is spent that is generated).
Another part of the problem is that 47% of all americans pay NO taxes. There are no good solutions. The best is to eliminate the federal personal income tax and switch to a consumption tax that everyone pays based on purchases. Easy to collect, everyone pays, no exceptions. Yes, the 47% that pay nothing now will scream, but this solution can provide revenue that will not be warped by campaign contributions.
If we do not drastically reduce the expenditures and broaden our collection base, the problem will continue to grow until we are insolvent.
http://wiki.dickinson.edu/index.php/Tobacco_Subsidies_in_the_US_Fa_08
And some of us even accept the 'tyranny' of sidewalks, the most concrete evidence of creeping socialism we know.
I'd rather see money go to rebuilding or repairing all the ailing school properties in urban areas like Detroit. Hard to imagine attending a school in such shambles.