Victory For The Middle Class

Paint By Numbers
Teachers unions, however, have painted themselves into a corner by insisting that spending is the best predictor of educational performance — increase financial inputs and cognitive outputs will rise. In the past 50 years, real per pupil spending nationwide has tripled and the number of pupils per teacher has declined by a third, yet educational attainments have fallen. Abundant data demonstrate that the vast majority of differences in schools’ performances can be explained by qualities of the families from which the children come to school: the amount of homework done at home, the quantity and quality of reading material in the home, the amount of television watched in the home and, the most important variable, the number of parents in the home. In Chicago, 84 percent of African American children and 57 percent of Hispanic children are born to unmarried women. (George Will, Washington Post, 7/4/2012)


A(nother) stunning indictment of Teachers unions and, quite frankly, the Liberal mindset. Such mindset which always insists that their solutions would work if only we would "double-down" on them. Poverty...more welfare. Economic malaise...more stimulus. Failing schools...more money to teachers. 


And also a reminder of what happens when traditional family values (you remember, the things that have sustained civilization for thousands of years) are eroded.


Set Them Free
In just five months, the Obama administration has freed schools in more than half the nation from central provisions of the No Child Left Behind education law, raising the question of whether the decade-old federal program has been essentially nullified. (NYT, 7/6/2012)


Recall who was a primary sponsor of No Child Left Behind? Why it was "the Lion of the Senate." None other than Ted Kennedy! A fact that the New York Times conveniently ignores.


Waived
The waivers appear to follow an increasingly deliberate pattern by the administration to circumvent lawmakers, as it did last month when it granted hundreds of thousands of young illegal immigrants a reprieve from deportation. The administration has also unveiled policies to prevent drug shortages, raise fuel economy standards and cut refinancing fees for federally insured mortgages. (NYT, 7/6/2012)


Are Liberals outraged at Obama's power grabs? No, likely not, as long as they advance their objectives.