"Clown Prince" Weekly Blather; May 21st

A Patriotic Response To The "Clown Prince;" 05/21/3011
Saturday, May 21, 2011

barackingham Palace
District of Corruption
    This week, I went to Memphis, Tennessee, where I spoke to the graduating class of Booker T. Washington High School. Graduations are always happy occasions. But this commencement was especially hopeful – because of just how much the kids at Booker T. Washington High School had overcome.   This is a school in the middle of a tough neighborhood in South Memphis. There’s a lot of crime. There’s a lot of poverty. And just a few years ago, only about half of the students at the school graduated. Just a handful went off to college each year.   But folks came together to change all that. Under the leadership of a dynamic principal and devoted teachers, they started special academies for ninth graders – because they found that that’s when a lot of kids were lost. They made it possible for students to take AP classes or vocational courses. Most importantly, they didn’t just change the curriculum; they created a culture that prizes hard work and discipline, and that shows every student that they matter.
[What I'm not telling you:  Given Memphis' crime statistics, the students' accomplishments are even more wonderous!  The City of Memphis, Tn., is one of the most crime-ridden cities in Tennessee; one of the more crime-ridden cities in America, on a per-capita basis.  This is where my choices to piss-away the nation's tax receipts run up against what should be done for the benefit of communities; for the benefit of the nation, as a whole.  My regime (Read: George Soros and Valarie Jarrett) has chosen 'education' and 'green technology,' manufacturing and education as the primary recipients of funds-wasting .....er.... 'investing,' without regard to benefit-for-dollar-spent!  
   The US Department of Education (DOE) administers a 69.9 BILLION-DOLLAR budget. most of the funds are spent to administer and fund federal programs involving education and to enforce federal education laws involving privacy and civil rights.  The DOE allegedly benefits 133,000 public and private schools.  Were the DOE disbanded, each of those schools--at current budget levels--would recieve $525,563.90 annually!!  While there are more needy, less affluent schools in the country, the funds could easily be 'equalized' at the state or county level, with each state/county maintaining minimal requirements and minimal administration.  Scholars have long held that the best education is administered at the lowest level; i.e., the community or the school district.   At best, the DOE is not much more than a 'prop-up' for teachers unions at every level!  Not to minimalize the  accomplishments of Booker T. Washington High School, but how much better could the results have been had the school had another half-million to spend to benefit the students?!?]
    Today, four out five students at the school earn a diploma. 70 percent continue their education, many the first in their families to go to college. So Booker T. Washington High School is no longer a story about what’s gone wrong in education. It’s a story about how we can set it right.   We need to encourage this kind of change all across America. We need to reward the reforms that are driven not by Washington, but by principals and teachers and parents. That’s how we’ll make progress in education – not from the top down, but from the bottom up. And that’s the guiding principle of the Race to the Top competition my administration started two years ago. 
[What I'm not telling you: Although I blather about "....reforms that are not driven by Washington...."  both the SJo regime and the DOE promote those very same 'Washington-based' rewards and reforms!!  If not, why do we still have a DOE:  To administer grants?!?  To enforce civil rights laws?!?  To formulate and fulminate education policy?!?   Each of these areas is better served at the lowest level possible!  The SJo Regime owes a great debt to educators, to unions in general; teachers' unions in particular, as well as the SEIU's "Purple People Beaters" and the "New Black Panther Party;" both well-armed and adept at voter fraud thuggery.  If the objective of the SJo Regime is to make progress "....not from the top down, but from the bottom up...," I'm forced--again--to ask:  Why do we still have the DOE?!?]
    The idea is simple: if states show that they’re serious about reform, we’ll show them the money. And it’s already making a difference throughout the country. In Tennessee, where I met those students, they’ve launched an innovative residency program so that new teachers can be mentored by veteran educators. In Oregon, Michigan and elsewhere, grants are supporting the work of teachers who are lengthening the school day, offering more specialized classes, and making the changes necessary to improve struggling schools.   Our challenge now is to allow all fifty states to benefit from the success of Race to the Top. We need to promote reform that gets results while encouraging communities to figure out what’s best for their kids. That why it’s so important that Congress replace No Child Left Behind this year – so schools have that flexibility. Reform just can’t wait.   And if anyone doubts this, they ought to head to Booker T. Washington High. They ought to meet the inspiring young people who overcame so much, and worked so hard, to earn their diplomas – in a school that believed in their promise and gave them the opportunity to succeed. We need to give every child in America that chance. That’s why education reform matters.
[What I'm not telling you:  The '....money we show them....' obviously will not include that which funds the DOE itself; nor the funds 'invested' in the lawsuits we initiate in the areas of privacy and civil rights; nor the funds that 'mysteriously'  end up benefitting the teachers and their unions; and on-and-on-and-on!  No federal program--educational, or otherwise--is not without fault including 'No Child Left Behind' or SJo's own 'Race To The Top!'  The primary reason to replace 'NCLB' with 'RTTT' is that the former is a Bush-43 Era program. The professed 'flexibility' does not come without hidden 'strings;' strings we will reveal as they are violated!  The one truism in this weekly blather opportunity is:  'education reform matters.'  That education reform can--and will probably--only matter if it's taken out of the heavy hands of the federal government!  Education reform is so important to me--to the SJo Regime--that I single-handedly denied the District of Corruption students continuation of the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program; a program vilified by teachers' unions at every level; unions who--with Soros and Jarrett--are the reason you have a fascist president, today!!  Remember this truism:  "The fewer the cooks-the better the soup!!"]