"Clown Prince" Weekly Blather; September 24th (Very Late!!)

A Patriotic Response To The "Clown Prince;" 09/24/2011
barackingham Palace,
District of Corruption
September 24, 2011
Over the last few weeks, I’ve been making the case that we need to act now on the American Jobs Act, so we can put folks back to work and start building an economy that lasts into the future.  Education is an essential part of this economic agenda. It is an undeniable fact that countries who out-educate us today will out-compete us tomorrow. Businesses will hire wherever the highly-skilled, highly-trained workers are located.   But today, our students are sliding against their peers around the globe. Today, our kids trail too many other countries in math, science, and reading. As many as a quarter of our students aren’t even finishing high school. And we’ve fallen to 16th in the proportion of our young people with a college degree, even though we know that sixty percent of new jobs in the coming decade will require more than a high school diploma.  What this means is that if we’re serious about building an economy that lasts – an economy in which hard work pays off with the opportunity for solid middle class jobs – we had better be serious about education. We have to pick up our game and raise our standards.  As a nation, we have an obligation to make sure that all children have the resources they need to learn – quality schools, good teachers, the latest textbooks and the right technology.
[What I'm not telling you:  What I've actually doing--totally illegally; totally at taxpayer expense--is giving campaign blusterful blathers, thinly disguised as blather opportunities to promote the "Clown Prince ZERO-bama, The Narcissist's" American Jobs Act; as opposed to Louie Gohmert's thoroughly workable American Jobs Act.   
    The graduation rates directly correlate with the fascist philosophy I've advocated and practiced since I was graduated from Harvard Law School.  An under-educated--preferably an uneducated--serf class is far easier to control; far easier to persuade that everything they need, or want, or desire can and will be provided by the government, if they will just wait.  If we are truly to get serious about education, I'm NOT your guy!!  I'm the guy that forced Arne Duncan on the Department of Education; I'm the guy that continues to bloat the administrative side of education while foresaking the instructional staff.  It's been said for years:  education is best served at the lowest level possible, i.e., at the county or district level.  Absolutely, NOT at the federal level.  Education in the United States would be best served with the dissolution of the Department of Education!!  Their ever-growing budget would certainly be better administered at the level of the thousands of counties; at the level of the tens-of-thousands of school districts in the United States.
    Raising the quality of the instructional is paramount to raising the graduation rates.  Lowering--if not eliminating--the influence of the teachers' unions is paramount to raising the quality of the instructional staff.  The millions-upon-millions of dollars siphoned off by the uber-greedy of the unions' hierarchies is no more benefit to the whole scheme of things than was my wife's no-show, $374,000 job at the University of Chicago Medical Center, was a benefit to medicine in general; to the University of Chicago in particular!!]
That’s why the jobs bill I sent to Congress would put tens of thousands of teachers back to work across the country, and modernize at least 35,000 schools. And Congress should pass that bill right now.  But money alone won’t solve our education problems. We also need reform. We need to make sure that every classroom is a place of high expectations and high performance.  That’s been our vision since taking office. And that’s why instead of just pouring money into a system that’s not working, we launched a competition called Race to the Top. To all fifty states, we said, “If you show us the most innovative plans to improve teacher quality and student achievement, we’ll show you the money.”  For less than one percent of what we spend on education each year, Race to the Top has led states across the country to raise their standards for teaching and learning. These standards were developed, not by Washington, but by Republican and Democratic governors throughout the country. And since then, we have seen what’s possible when reform isn’t just a top-down mandate, but the work of local teachers and principals; school boards and communities.  That’s why in my State of the Union address this year, I said that Congress should reform the No Child Left Behind law based on the same principles that have guided Race to the Top.  While the goals behind No Child Left Behind were admirable, experience has taught us that the law has some serious flaws that are hurting our children instead of helping them. Teachers are being forced to teach to a test, while subjects like history and science are being squeezed out. And in order to avoid having their schools labeled as failures, some states lowered their standards in a race to the bottom.
[What I'm not telling you:  Actually, the Jobs bill I sent to congress cannot even muster one owe-bamacRATic representative to sponsor the bill on the Floor of the House!  Sadly, this presents the true measure of the bill's benefit to the nation's unemployed.  There is NO BENEFIT, it's merely a tax-increase on the nation's evil rich, white guys.   If passed--which is highly unlikely--this bill will stifle jobs creation for decades to come.  
    Every cleaverly named education bill--for the past several decades--has been flawed from it's very outset. That evil President George W. Bush plan, "No Child Left Behind" did exactly that; while my "Race to the Top" was neither a 'race,' nor was anyone to reach the 'top.'  The greatest outcome of the "Race to the Top" were more and more cleaver assessment and statistical schemes to insure no school was labelled a failure.  Mine was a thinly disguised plan to reward the teachers' unions, bloat the local payrolls, compensate those in the union hierarchies that contributed to my campaign and those who actively supported me.
    While I carried the District of Corruption overwhelmingly during my 'selection-for-election,'  I didn't receive the financial backing I felt should have been forthcoming.  To that end I had the 111th Congress vote to cut-off funding for the District's education vouchers.  You remember the 111th Congress, right?  They're the ones--headed by Nancy PORKlosi and 'pinky' reid--who squashed America's rights, economy and employment "like so many bugs!!"  I--being as concerned with education as I am--took the stance of depriving some of America's poorest, most dis-enfranchised students of a better-quality education.  Now, these students I claim  to care so deeply about, are forced to suffer some of the poorest schools on the planet, staffed with some of least-qualified UNION teaching staff 'known-to-man!!']
These problems have been obvious to parents and educators all over this country for years. But for years, Congress has failed to fix them. So now, I will. Our kids only get one shot at a decent education. And they can’t afford to wait any longer.  Yesterday, I announced that we’ll be giving states more flexibility to meet high standards for teaching and learning. It’s time for us to let states, schools and teachers come up with innovative ways to give our children the skills they need to compete for the jobs of the future.  This will make a huge difference in the lives of students all across the country. Yesterday, I was with Ricky Hall, the principal of a school in Worcester, Massachusetts. Every single student who graduated from Ricci’s school in the last three years went on to college. But because they didn’t meet the standards of No Child Left Behind, Ricci’s school was labeled as failing last year.  That will change because of what we did yesterday. From now on, we’ll be able to encourage the progress at schools like Ricci’s. From now on, people like John Becker, who teaches at one of the highest-performing middle schools in D.C., will be able to focus on teaching his 4th graders math in a way that improves their performance instead of just teaching to a test. Superintendents like David Estrop from Ohio will be able to focus on improving teaching and learning in his district instead of spending all his time on bureaucratic mandates from Washington that don’t get results.  This isn’t just the right thing to do for our kids – it’s the right thing to do for our country, and our future. It is time to put our teachers back on the job. It is time to rebuild and modernize our schools. And it is time to raise our standards, up our game, and do everything it takes to prepare our children succeed in the global economy. Now is the time to once again make our education system the envy of the world.
[What I'm not telling you:  The Congress that did the least for the children and the students of America was that Nancy PORKlosi/pinky reid led 111th Congress!  We all know how effective those two were: he campaigned for pork to support cowboy poetry; she said "unemployment checks are the fastest way to create jobs!?!"   Of course.... what would a blather opportunity be, without parading out all the union teachers-some who even support me.]