President Bush wants to create
70,000 more math and science teachers. Yet nearly 1/3 of the programs targeted for elimination in his budget proposal are education programs. His budget also provides large cuts in programs for technical education and education technology. Can you say 2 + 2 equals 3?
Additionally, the
President's budget once again shortchanges the program he likes to talk about so much - the No Child Left Behind Act. Providing only $13.4 billion - of the $22.75 billion promised. Perhaps it's time to rename it the "Some ... Quite A Few ... Heck, Nearly 50% of the Children Left Behind Act"
Meanwhile, frustration over the way this administration treats science is causing many experts with science educations to leave government. What's the point when political appointees in charge of government programs consider "loyalty to Bush" more important than doing your job properly.
The recent revelations about George Deutsch is a case in point. Deutsch attended Texas A&M and majored in journalism - though he apparently never bothered to graduate. He DID work, though, for the Bush election campaign team. So, despite the fact he had no experience in science or technology, Deutsch was given a job as a NASA Public Affairs Officer.
Once ensconced in his job at NASA, Deutsch began using his expertise (writing about video games for the school newspaper)to start telling career scientists what they could and could not say to the public; censoring scientific information on global warming and the big bang that conflicted with the Bush administration's policies. That will encourage you to study science. Not!
And let's not forget that 5 of the top 8 administrators at FEMA were political appointees with ZERO background in disaster preparedness. It was no accident that the federal government reacted so poorly to hurricane Katrina. The only qualifications the people running the show had were Bush campaign stickers and buttons.
Senator Bill Frist making a medical diagnosis from a video tape, Jack Abramoff buying up every congressman he could get his hands on, Tom DeLay laundering money through more shady organizations than you can count, Karl Rove and Scooter Libby outing a covert CIA agent. An Attorney General flat-out lying to congress ....
When I was in school they used to talk about teaching the three Rs - Reading, 'Riting, and 'Rithmetic. I understand it's a new era. The good old days were never as good as we remember them anyhow. But it seems to me what this administration is trying to teach us are the three Cs; Cronyism, Corruption, and inCompetence.
As for the 70,000 math and science teachers. I'll believe it when I see it.