Analyzing Obama's Speech to the KIds

In a word, it's brilliant. To be fair, I pointed out that I didn't want to reflexively criticize and my problems weren't with the speech itself. Rather, it was some of the questions that were in the lesson plan attached to it.



Still, this speech will simply be inspiring and any student that hears this will be better for it. I could literally pick any parts of the speech at random but first here's some of my favorite parts.

I know that for many of you, today is the first day of school. And for those of you in kindergarten, or starting middle or high school, it's your first day in a new school, so it's understandable if you're a little nervous. I imagine there are some seniors out there who are feeling pretty good right now, with just one more year to go. And no matter what grade you're in, some of you are probably wishing it were still summer, and you could've stayed in bed just a little longer this morning.

I know that feeling. When I was young, my family lived in Indonesia for a few years, and my mother didn't have the money to send me where all the American kids went to school. So she decided to teach me extra lessons herself, Monday through Friday - at 4:30 in the morning. Now I wasn't too happy about getting up that early. A lot of times, I'd fall asleep right there at the kitchen table. But whenever I'd complain, my mother would just give me one of those looks and say, "This is no picnic for me either, buster."



...

Young people like Jazmin Perez, from Roma, Texas. Jazmin didn't speak English when she first started school. Hardly anyone in her hometown went to college, and neither of her parents had gone either. But she worked hard, earned goodgrades, got a scholarship to Brown University, and is now in graduate school, studying public health, on her way to being Dr. Jazmin Perez.

Whatever you resolve to do, I want you to commit to it. I want you to really work at it.

I know that sometimes, you get the sense from TV that you can be rich andsuccessful without any hard work -- that your ticket to success is through rapping or basketballor being a reality TV star, when chances are, you're not going to be any of those things.

But the truth is, being successful is hard. You won't love every subject you study. You won't click with every teacher. Not every homework assignment will seem completely relevant to your life right this minute. And you won't necessarily succeed at everything the first time you try.

That's OK. Some of the most successful people in the world are the ones who've had the most failures. JK Rowling's first Harry Potter book was rejected twelve times before it was finally published. Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team, and he lost hundreds of games and missed thousands of shots during his career. But he once said, "I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."

No one's born being good at things, you become good at things through hard work. You're not a varsity athlete the first time you play a new sport. You don't hit every note the first time you sing a song. You've got to practice. It's the same with your schoolwork. You might have to do a math problem a few times before you get it right, or read something a few times before you understand it, or do a few drafts of a paper before it's good enough to hand in.

Don't be afraid to ask questions. Don't be afraid to ask for help when you need it. I do that every day. Asking for help isn't a sign of weakness, it's a sign of strength. It shows you have the courage to admit when you don't know something, and to learn something new. So find an adult you trust - a parent, grandparent or teacher; a coach or counselor - and ask them to help you stay on track to meet your goals.

So today, I want to ask you, what's your contribution going to be? What problems are you going to solve? What discoveries will you make? What will a president who comes here in twenty or fifty or one hundred years say about what all of you did for this country? Your families, your teachers, and I are doing everything we can to make sure you have the education you need to answer these questions. I'm working hard to fix up your classrooms and get you the books, equipment and computers you need to learn. But you've got to do your part too.

So I expect you to get serious this year. I expect you to put your best effort into everything you do. I expect great things from each of you. So don't let us down - don't let your family or your country or yourself down. Make us all proud. I know you can do it.

It's simply red meat for Obama the orator. The speech sounded lyrical when I read it to myself. I can only imagine what Obama will be able to do with it. It does a great job of seeing school success as a duty to your country. There's a lot of great stories like JK Rowlings to Jazmeen that the kids can relate to. It gives them a sense of purpose for the year. He asks the kids to make goals, commitments, and hold themselves to those commitments. These are all very positive and healthy messages to any kids.

At this point, I can't see how any one could have any problem with the speech itself. I believe the White House has resolved the issues surrounding the lesson plan questions. If that's so, I have no problem. That said, I'm not a parent nor could I tell other parents what to do in raising their kids.

The White House should itself acknowledge that the lesson plan was done poorly originally, rather than any criticism being silly. Then, we can all move forward. We can all hope that President Obama can continue to inspire the students to do better in school.

Some Thoughts On Obama's School Speech

There are several reasons why I haven't been nearly as outraged by Obama's speech to school kids on Tuesday as many in the blogosphere on the right. First, I've long been on record as supporting more of Obama's education policy than I oppose. Second, I think everyone should agree that the president can and should be a role model to many children. That's not merely because he's the president. He's overcome a lot in his life. There's plenty of life lessons to be learned from his life story. He overcame a childhood full of chaos. He overcame a period of drug use and irresponsibility and he largely made his success on his own. Bill O'Reilly said as much in what should have been a very non controversial article in parade last month. Finally, and most importantly, I wanted to make sure that I didn't reflexively oppose everything that Obama did simply because it was an Obama proposal. I know that four the better part of eight years there were plenty on the other side that gave that treatment to Bush. I don't believe that everything is wrong simply because Obama proposes it.

I certainly don't think that a president addressing kids is a bad thing per se. Nor is it unprecedented. If the speech focuses working hard, setting goals, and overcoming, that's exactly the message we should all applaud from the president. So, anyone that opposes the speech on principle is simply being a partisan. The president can be a role model for kids, and he should be.

That said, there is plenty surrounding the speech that should concern folks. The major cause of concern were some of the questions that were attached to the speech. The most troubling was a question that asked kids how they could help President Obama. Another was a question that asked kids what was most inspiring about Obama's speech. In sales, we call this an assumptive close. By this, I mean that the planners assume that the kids are on board and supportive. As such, they ask questions that are framed in support of the president. That's not only presumptive but it also lacks any critical thinking. Kids shouldn't be manipulated into following along. Instead, they should think critically. It's exactly the wrong thing to teach kids. We should teach kids to support the office of the presidency reflexively but not the president occupying the office. Kids should be taught that dissent, as long as its honest, is good and healthy. Rather than assuming that kids will love the speech, the proper way to have done it is to ask more balanced questions. Much better would have been what is the best and worst part of the speech.

Of course, after the furor, the White House augmented the curriculum and it's now largely acceptable to all. This brings me to the last part of the analysis. The White House has called much of the outrage "silly". This outrage isn't merely coming from pundits with an axe to grind. It's also coming from parents. I saw one on television show in which a parent was offended that all of her complaints were being dismissed. This is not the first time that the administration has downplayed complaints of the voters. This is a stunning pattern. The White House not only dismisses the complaints of opponents but of the voters themselves. That's not only full of arrogance but totally destructive.

Hubris and Naivete Are Bring the President Down

I don't know the president and so I want to be careful in making character observations. That usually requires reading some one's mind. Instead, I want to analyze his actions which I believe speak for themselves. Right now, health care reform is on life support. If that doesn't pass, it will also spell doom for cap and trade. Without either initiative passing, the president will face mid term elections in which we'll have near double digit unemployment, near two trillion dollars in deficits, and no major legislative accomplishments. That will create a bloodbath for any Democrat running in November of 2010.



It's nothing short of remarkable that only six months ago President Obama had near 80% approval ratings. Now, he is about to be so politically damaged that he may never recover. How did this happen? In my opinion, it's a combination of hubris and naivete. The president exhibited his first fatal sign of hubris in only his second day in office. That's when he signed an executive order to close GITMO a year from that day. It's now clear that he had no plan to close it and the plans he had for it's closure were terribly naive. It's ironic and scary that GITMO hasn't yet affected him politically. That won't happen until early next year. That's when he will either force terrorists on towns and cities that don't want them or he will go back on his publicized promise.



Either way, proclaiming that he would close GITMO in a year with no plan to close it showed not merely arrogance but fatal hubris. It's exactly that sort of a public promise that comes back to haunt presidents. Yet, the president made it confidently in only his second day on the job.



When the stimulus was being debated, President Obama famously, in an exchange with Eric Cantor, proclaimed "I won so I trump you on that". The stimulus passed with only three Republicans voting for it in either chamber. By doing so, he took total ownership of all its effects. Had President Obama tried to incorporate some Republican ideas he would have split the Republicans. He would have gotten about half the Republican chamber to sign on. By doing so, they would have shared in its effects. Now, he owns its effects. As such between the ballooning deficit, the growing unemployment, and the stagnating economy, the President alone is being held responsible. Had he tried to include Republicans their ideas would have been included and they would have shared responsibility for its effects. That he didn't is another sign of both political hubris and naivete.



The president also totally misread the political landscape. The president was elected on a moderated message. His most famous line was "I do what works". He was supposed to be post partisan, post racial, and pragmatic. Yet, he's governed as a liberal if not far left. Did he really think his mandate was to move the country this far left? Did he not understand the theme of his message? The president furiously denied the National Journal's poll that rated him the most liberal Senator in 2007. He fought hard to present an image of moderation. Yet, his entire agenda has been liberal to far left. How did he think this was going to work? That's both full of hubris and naivete.



Then, there's the price tag on all of this. Brit Hume made an excellent point about this. By passing the massive stimulus, he made it harder to pass any other big spending item. He moved forward with a $787 billion stimulus even though he had a trillion dollar health care bill and a three and a half trillion dollar budget he still wanted to pass. Did he really think that he could pass all this spending all at once?



Because the stimulus was so expensive, the president made a promise not to allow health care reform to add to the deficit. As such, in order to sell health care reform he must raise taxes on someone. A marginal tax increase on soda, cigarettes, or beer won't be enough. He'll have to raise some one's margins on their tax rate. That's rarely popular and just as rarely that becomes law. Walter Mondale ran on a platform of raising taxes. He lost 49 of 50 states. Did President Obama really think he'd be different? Such an assertion is both full of hubris and naivete.



Then, he let the Congress write the details of the bill. He merely set out broad parameters. Congressional leaders are entirely made up of far left liberals. So, what kind of a bill did he think would come out? Did he really think the public at large would like a bill framed by the likes of Henry Waxman, Nancy Pelosi, and Ed Markey? Does the president really not realize that despite his election the country is still center right not far left? So, when far left folks are the major players in crafting legislation is he really surprised the country is rejecting the legislation?



Did he really not understand the make up of the legislature? Between the Congressional Black Caucus, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, the liberals, and the Blue Dogs, the Democrats are a very loose combination of parts. Trying to craft legislation that will appease enough of them to get a majority. Yet, despite this fact, the president not only made health care reform, the most complicated piece of legislation in decades, his first major priority, but he had the liberal wing write it. Did he really think that the moderate Blue Dogs would just roll over when presented with a big government takeover of the health care system? The legislative mess we are seeing now is entirely due to the complete lack of planning done in March, April and May. Where were the Blue Dogs in negotiations when this bill was just being crafted? Because they weren't included in that, they public opposed it when it was released. Was the president really surprised by how this played? If he was, it's another sign of both fatal hubris and naivete.



Going forward, the president will either learn his lesson or continue to exhibit both hubris and naivete. It's very simple. His liberal agenda is done, it's over. It has no chance of passing and if it does it will be roundly rejected by the public.

The president has a chance to right the ship. It should be clear to him that his liberal agenda isn't going to work. He can allign himself with the Blue Dogs and the Republicans and pass energy reform, health care reform, and education reform with that alliance. It won't look anything like what he wants currently, but if he's truly for "what works" then he has a path to get things done. If not, he will continue to exhibity fatal hubris and naivete that will ultimately doom his presidency.

The Obama Presidency and Liberalism

I think it's fair to say that the Obama presidency could be viewed as a controlled experiment on the worthiness of liberalism. With a very liberal president and overwhelming Democratic majorities, America is going to get a heavy dose of liberalism until at least 2010. (unless that is the President has a moderate epiphany as I suggested) Yet, if the president continues on his current path, he will also lead an imprint for history to judge liberalism in America.

So far, that judgment is incomplete but it's also near an incomplete failure. We first started with the stimulus. On the economy, the president famously said, "only government has the resources to jolt our economy back into life". He went on to say, "Tax cuts alone can't solve all of our economic problems" and so totally rejecting the conservative fiscal solution to an economic recession. Nothing could be more liberal than seeing the government as the driver of economic growth. So, he passed his $787 billion stimulus. Its results so far have been well documented. Our unemployment rate is inching toward ten percent. Our deficit is nearing two trillion dollars and we've only spent one tenth of it. Meanwhile, the president took over several banks, two auto companies, and an insurance company. One way or another, the outcome of all this government intervention will also be a historical judgment on liberalism as well.

In fact, though, the greatest judgment against liberalism so far has been the president's total inability to move his agenda going forward. In fact, despite overwhelming popularity, he barely got the stimulus through. Since then, he's been totally impotent. Things don't look to get any better. Cap and trade barely passed the House and the Senate has no plans to take it up anytime soon. Health care reform is in even worse shape. What sort of a judgment on liberalism is it if the liberal party has veto proof majorities in both chambers and still can't pass a liberal agenda? One might ask if liberalism can't pass now when will it pass.

Even lesser known policies like his $75 billion loan modification plan have been colossal failures. It's important to point out again that this judgment is still incomplete. The economy could have a stunning turnaround and by this time next year our unemployment might be in the 6's. GM and Chrysler might both be profitable by 2012 and the government will have sold its shares by then. In light of all of this, the president will then be able to pass sweeping health care, energy, and education reform. In 2012, we'll be a liberal nation and history's judgment on liberalism in America will be a glowing success. It's still early and so the judgment is incomplete.

There will also be those liberals that will claim that the Bush presidency was a failing referendum on conservatism. That is a popular and totally inaccurate argument. There are some liberals that claim the tax cuts caused the recession we are in now. That's just ludicrous. The tax cuts were enacted in 2001-2003. The recession didn't occur for five years. The two have nothing to do with each other. Others proclaim that deregulation caused the meltdown. Of course, it wasn't a lack of regulation but a lack of enforcement that lead to the crisis. It isn't a conservative policy to look the other way on mass fraud, but a bad policy. In fact, most of Bush's biggest problems came from embracing liberal ideas, big budget deficits, bloated government programs and bailouts. In fact, history's judgment on conservatism should already be written with the wildly successful Reagan presidency. Yet, those with an agenda attempt to cloud the issue. Our economy came out of a recession because government shrank, regulations were slashed, and taxes were cut. Yet, some cloud the issue and leave that debate open still.

Make no mistake, by November 2010, and certainly November 2012, history will be ready to judge liberalism as well. While its currently incomplete, the judgment so far is a total failure.

The President at Georgetown: A Skilled Politician With Fuzzy Math

I just finished listening to President Obama speak at Georgetown, and I couldn't help but marvel at his political acumen. He is well aware of each and every criticism and he takes them on directly. On the budget, on his priorities, on deficit spending, he acknowledges the criticism and then challenges each and every one of them. He also was able to sum up how we got here rather simply succinctly and impressively considering that he summed up seven years in five minutes.

You also can't help but marvel at the president if the president were a venture capitalist. He sees a vision of a green economy. In his vision, he sees wind turbines, solar panels, and hybrid cars. If he were presenting this vision in the context of a new company, I would most certainly want to invest. Except, he doesn't present this vision as a venture capitalist but as president. As such, his vision is not inspiring but scary. He will attempt to will the economy to create green jobs and industries whether the market wants them or not. He will NOT spend his own money to do it, but ours.

The president also continues his ever more annoying habit of creating a straw man. He justifies his massive spending increases by saying that everyone agrees that at times like these the government needs to spend more. After all, if families are spending less, someone needs to fill the vacuum. This is ridiculously disingenuous. Hundreds of economists disagree. It is in no way a settled matter that government must increase spending during times of economic downturn. In fact, travel back to history and you will find an example of a government that cut not increased spending to help the economy. Warren Harding cut spending and taxes and maneuvered the economy out of a recession in 1920.

The president also again continues to engage in economic fantasy. He thinks that if we only have more green jobs, affordable health care, better education, and more regulations that somehow the rules of economic cycles will cease to exist. He laid out a vision in which there was no more speculation, speculative markets, and boom bust economies. I hate to break it to the president but those are unfortunate but all too real parts of economic cycles: affordable health care or not.

The most troubling part of the president's speech was his consistent use of fuzzy math. He again repeated the canard that he has identified $2 trillion in savings. This has long ago been exposed as including ending the war in Iraq, which would have ended regardless, and includes tax increases. He used these numbers as the basis of deficit reform that is supposed to present his budget as fiscally responsible. He even claimed that his budget proposal will soon reduce the percentage of the budget that government spending will be. All of this is of course nonsense. He can't have it all. He can't force green economy on a market, health care for all, more education spending, and also cut the budget. At some point, he will have to reconcile all of this and the numbers won't add up.

Obama's Voucher Decision Troubling

This Washington Post piece lays out Secretary Education Arne Duncan's decision to end the Washington D.C. voucher program.

EDUCATION SECRETARY Arne Duncan has decided not to admit any new students
to the D.C. voucher program, which allows low-income children to attend private schools. The abrupt decision -- made a week after 200 families had been told that their children were being awarded scholarships for the coming fall -- comes despite a new study showing some initial good results for students in the program and before the Senate has had a chance to hold promised hearings. For all the talk about putting children first, it's clear that the special interests that have long opposed vouchers are getting their way.

Officials who manage the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program sent letters this week to parents notifying them that the scholarships of up to $7,500, were being
rescinded because of the decision by the Education Department. Citing the political uncertainty surrounding vouchers, a spokesperson for Mr. Duncan told us that it is not in the best interest of students and their parents to enroll them in a program that may end a year from now. Congress conditioned funding beyond the 2009-10 school year on reauthorization by Congress and approval by the D.C. Council. By presuming the program dead -- and make no mistake, that's the insidious effect of his bar on new enrollment -- Mr. Duncan makes it even more difficult for the program to get the fair hearing it deserves.

The decision is troubling for several reasons. First, as the article cites, there is evidence that the voucher program was improving education. This should surprise no one. Any program that expands school choice and increases competition leads directly to better education. The voucher program allows low income families vouchers to allow their kids to attend private schools. Giving them these vouchers allows parents access to more schools. Furthermore, the extra layer of competition forces public schools to increase their own performance in a way that their monopoly does NOT.

Of course, private schools employ teachers not in the teacher's unions, and so this is one of the many school choice programs opposed by the teacher's union. As I have pointed out, Arne Duncan has a history of taking on the teacher's union when CEO of the Chicago Public Schools. So, this action which is a clear lay down to the unions is more than troubling.

President Obama has an aggressive and sweeping education policy and there is much of it that I like. If it is to be successful, the administration would have to take on the teacher's union directly on several issues including merit pay, and the expansion of charter schools. There is a lot in President Obama's educational agenda that the teacher's union doesn't like. In order for him to succeed, he will soon enough have to take them on directly. If the administration laid down so weakly on the relatively unimportant issue of D.C. school vouchers, it doesn't bode well for the rest of his agenda.

President Obama Makes Broad Educational Strokes

Today, President Obama laid out his educational platform.

After weeks of pleasing Democrats by overturning policies set by the previous administration, President Barack Obama Tuesday for the first time confronted a powerful constituency in his own party: teachers’ unions.

Obama proposed spending additional money on effective teachers in up to 150 additional school districts, fulfilling a campaign promise that once earned him boos from members of the National Education Association.

“Good teachers will be rewarded with more money for improved student achievement, and asked to accept more responsibilities for lifting up their schools,” he said in a wide-ranging education speech before a meeting of the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce in Washington.

Obama’s embrace of merit pay won’t go over well among a group that often provides key funding and foot soldiers for Democratic campaigns.

Obama has laid out a lot of broad strokes and many of them I agree with. I am in great favor of merit pay. To me though, merit pay suffers from what Yogi Berra once referred to

in theory there's no difference between theory and practice, but in practice there is

I agree with merit pay in theory. In practice though, I am weary of its application. How do we ensure that merit pay is applied in something that resembles fairness? How will merit pay be applied when comparing a teacher teaching in the inner city compared to one teaching in a posh suburb? So far, President Obama has not given any such specifics.

President Obama also made his intention to back the increase of charter schools. This is another policy that I support. That said, I believe that we shouldn't favor one alternative school over another. I would be much more in favor of expanding the D.C. voucher program to the entire nation than simply expanding charter schools. Vouchers give parents a choice, whatever they want. Expanding charter schools merely expands one alternative.

On the other hand, President Obama has also announced a major expansion of federal spending on education. This is a very dangerous endeavor. So far, it is unclear how all of this will be spent. Will it be spent to build more classrooms and increase salaries for teachers, or will it be spent to increase bureaucracy? Once again, President Obama has not been specific about how it will be spent.

Make no mistake, in this speech President Obama absolutely laid down a marker. He is ready to take on the teacher's union. All those that cynically claim that President Obama never bucks his party much acknowledge that he plans on taking on a major constituency on this issue. True, it's only one speech, but in his Education Secretary, Arne Duncan, he has an individual with scars of taking on the teacher's union.

So far, President Obama has my support on his education policy, however he's going to need to fill in the blanks soon, or he will have a lot of good ideas with no practical way of implementing them.

Social Engineering Doesn't Equal Stimulus

Let's call a spade a spade. The stimulus is not supposed to stimulate. It is no spending bill. Rather, this stimulus, along with much of the President's early domestic agenda, is social engineering.

concept in political science that refers to efforts to influence popular attitudes and social behavior on a large scale, whether by governments or private groups. In the political arena the counterpart of social engineering is political engineering.

The President wants to transform our society. He wants to provide health care to all, turn our country into one that moves away from our dependence to oil, and provide quality education to all American children. He wants to do this through spending, regulation and tax policy. That is standard social engineering.

President Obama has nearly doubled the budget of the Department of Energy and he is about to impose cap and trade. All of this is supposed to force our country away from oil and other eco unfriendly energy sources and move us toward eco friendly sources.

President Obama also nearly doubled the budget of the Department of Education. He firmly believes that our lack of education comes from a lack of funding. As such, he will increase funding dramatically for education. With this increase in funding, he will also create a centralization of control in the hands of the federal government.

On health care, he has already put down a $634 billion down payment on universal health care. The size of the HHS has also increased dramatically. This is all done so that our system of health care changes dramatically in his term.

Of course, all of this is done by dramatically increasing taxes on the wealthiest. Not only will their income tax rate go up, but so will certain deductions go down. Furthermore, the capital gains tax will go up. Furthermore, certain taxes will go up on corporations. At the same time, things like food stamps, welfare, unemployment insurance will be increased. This is of course all part of a concept of income redistribution.

These are all laudable goals. Everyone wants all our children to get quality education. All of us want access to quality health care for as many people as possible. All of us want to reduce our dependence to oil. Laudable goals are not enough. All Presidents are in office with the best of intentions. It is certainly a matter of serious debate whether or not the federal government is the best place to solve all of these issues. What cannot be debated is that achieving social goals has nothing to do with economic stimulus.

The problem is that social engineering along with income redistribution have nothing to do with stimulus. Moving money from one group and giving it to another doesn't stimulate. Moving money from one priority and moving to another is not stimulating to the economy. President Obama is heading the biggest social experiment in our nation's history. Unfortunately, this experiment has absolutely nothing to do with stimulating the economy.

President Obama Needs A Big Helping of Humble Pie

If you really think about it, President Obama's rhetoric doesn't match his actions. The President proclaims that this current economic crisis is one of the worst of all time. On the other hand, this stimulus is not merely a stimulus. It is also a vehicle for the President to accomplish many of his ideological goals. Now, if it's me, if the crisis is really this bad, I would just focus on stimulating the economy. Yet, President Obama sees this stimulus as not only an opportunity to accomplish many other ideological goals. Believing that one can do all of this simultaneously is a sign of an individual that is arrogant to the point of hubris. It is a very dangerous place to be for someone with this much power. Now, let's look at some of the ideological goals trying to be accomplished in this stimulus.

1) move toward universal health care

Here are some of the health care expenditures

a) assistance to states for Medicare $86.6 billion
b) Subisidize COBRA $24.7 billion
c) modernize IT in health care $19 billion
d) NIH research $10 billion
e) prevention/wellness programs $1 billion

The first two expand government run health care. The third expands government involvement in health care. The last is the most dangerous. This may seem like an innoucuous sounding program but in fact this so called wellness program is one of the pillars of Tom Daschle's plan to revolutionize health care into universal health care.

What it does is put in place a National Coordinator of Health Information Technology that will “monitor treatments to make sure your doctor is doing what the federal government deems appropriate and cost effective.” Your medical treatments will be tracked electronically by the government to decide whether you're "too sick" to receive health care treatment. They will decide for you what scope of treatments should be made available to deal with your current ailment.

So, what we have is a stimulus that, on health care, also provides money to expand government subsidized health care, government research on health care, and even a plan for the government to decide what treatments are cost effective. This part of the stimulus has a very sharp and clear ideological goal.

2) The Democrats have long agreed with the principle of No Child Left Behind, central control of education, but they also believe it was underfunded.

a) Aid to school districts to prevent cuts $44.5 billion
b) special education and NCLB $25.2 billion
c) Pell Grants $15.6 billion
d) Head Start $2 billion

Let's put this in perspective. In 2001, the entire budget for the Dept. of Education was about $31 billion. This stimulus, alone, puts nearly $70 billion into the hands of new Dept. of Education Secretary Arne Duncan. This is a massive power grab of Federal education Dollars. The money intended for NCLB alone is nearly that of the entire 2001 Dept. of Education budget. As such, what we have on this portion is a clear mandate that the federal government will play a much more significant role in funding not only NCLB but education in general. What is very unclear is just how many jobs such an expansion will create.

3) Transform our economy into an alternative energy economy and take on the issue of climate change head on.

a) smart energy grid $11 billion
b) energy grants $6.3 billion
c) subsidize loans for renewable energy $6 billion
d) weather low income housing $ 5 billion
e) improve efficiency in federal buildings $ 4.5 billion
f) electric vehicle battery grants $ 2 billion
g) biofuels research $ 1.6 billion
h) renewable energy incentive $ 20 billion

In fact, President Obama makes no bones about his goal of using this stimulus to transform our energy and our society.

President Barack Obama’s plans to lead America out of the recession rest in part on a task bigger than a moon shot and the Manhattan Project put together; as complicated as any feat of economic engineering in the nation’s history.

His goal, which past presidents have spent more than $100 billion chasing with limited success, is to replace imported oil and other fossil fuels with a “clean-energy economy” powered by the wind, the sun and biofuels.

The stakes are high. If Obama succeeds, he could spark a domestic jobs boom and lead an international fight against climate change. If he fails, he could cripple existing industries and squeeze cash-strapped Americans with higher energy prices.

“We essentially need a second Industrial Revolution that can generate lots of energy cleanly, cheaply, sustainably,” Energy Secretary Steven Chu, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist, said in an interview last week. “We have a lot of necessity,” he added, and the administration and Energy Department “have to start inventing right, left and center.”

So, it's clear, on this portion, the stimulus is NOT merely a job creating vehicle but rather a vehicle to transform our society from one that relies on oil and coal into one that is independent of anything that can cause climate change. That such a transformation could stunt economic growth significantly is of little consequence to the President.

Let's make no mistake. Never, during times of economic slow down, have we had a President who's goals have been so sweeping. President Reagan didn't want our economy, infrastructure, and society transformed when he enacted his tax cuts. Even FDR didn't see such sweeping changes to our society. He focused on infrastructure in part because its decrepid nature allowed for many tailor made projects. The last time any President made such a sweeping attempt to transform our society was LBJ and his Great Society. Not only was the economy not in dire straits at the time, but the effectiveness was limited at best. Never has a leaders seen such dual roles for an economic recovery.

This is happening, I believe, because President Obama really does believe he can accomplish everything at once. It isn't enough for him to merely bring the country out of a recession. Instead, he needs to make sure that there is enough central control in education, everyone has health care, and our energy needs are revolutionized into clean burning energy sources. That he thinks all of this can be accomplished at once without actually leading to disaster is a sign of arrogance bordering on hubris. Such a character flaw is in dire need of a serious beat down because what the President really needs is a large helping of humble pie. He needs to be brought down to earth so that he realizes the limits of his own abilities. This stimulus is just that helping. Yet, our country and our economy will pay for his much needed lesson.

Crony Appointed New CEO of Chicago Public Schools

Now that Arne Duncan has been appointed as the Secretary of Education, there is an opening as the CEO of the Chicago Public Schools. (Duncan's former position) At the end of last month, Mayor Daley made his appointment.

Mayor Richard M. Daley today named Ron Huberman as Chief Executive Officer of the Chicago Public Schools. Huberman, who has served as President of the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) since May 2007, replaces Arne Duncan who now serves as Secretary of the United States Department of Education.

"Ron shares my commitment to offer our city's children the best education in the nation. He understands that in a changing world a world-class education system is critical to our city's long term economic future," said Mayor Daley during a press conference held at City Hall.

Who is Ron Huberman? His most recent position is the Chief of Staff for Mayor Richard M. Daley. Before that, he was head of the City Transit Authority. Before that, he spent nine years in the Chicago Police Department.

Huberman's stint at the CTA was marked by a fare hike and several high profile projects running over budget and time. Then again, one might ask how a police officer gets the job as the head man for the city's public transportation apparatus. The answer is just like everyone that gets a cushy job. He knows the right people.

Mayor Daley thinks so highly of the city's main public transportation apparatus that he appointed a crony to be its head. This was a crony that at the time was 33 years old and he had been a cop for nine years prior. That was his qualifications to take over the CTA. After a couple years marred by rate increases and overbudgeted projects, this same crony became Daley's Chief of Staff. Now, a couple years after this, this same crony is now in charge of the city's entire school system.

This isn't merely a reflection on the seriousness, or lack thereof, that Mayor Daley views the city's education. This is also a microcosm of who rises through the city's political apparatus, and by extension who doesn't. Huberman was obscenely unqualified to be CTA chief. He was even less qualified to be the Mayor's Chief of Staff. Now, he is even less qualified to run the city's school system. Yet, the more high profile city jobs he gets the more qualified he looks. Soon, people will forget that he began his high profile career after spending nine years as a cop. Huberman defines the saying "it's not what you know but who you know". Clearly, Huberman knows all the right people.

In Chicago, it is folks like Huberman that get ahead. Being qualified for a position is unimportant, unless that qualification means that you know all the right people. That qualification Huberman has down pat, and our city is worse for it.

An Endorsement of Sorts for Arne Duncan

In the Sun Times today, there is this article by Deborah Lynch excoriating Obama's pick for Education Secretary, Arne Duncan. So, how is this an endorsement? Well, Lynch is the former President of Chicago's Teacher's Union. If the teacher's union is against Duncan, then those are exactly the sort of enemies that make him endearing to me. Of course, it isn't merely the source but rather the substance of her opposition.

How can Mr. Duncan be so rewarded for a strategy of giving up on low-performing schools serving primarily low-income children? It is ironic that Duncan is now moving to the Cabinet post when he essentially has admitted that he does not know how to manage low-performing schools. His entire approach has been to close underperforming schools and turn their management over to outside organizations, many with no track records of school reform. Yet during his tenure, the Chicago Public Schools graduation rate remained stubbornly at barely 50 percent.

...

This philosophy of viewing the problem as bad teachers, and their union contract as an obstacle to reform, resulted in the Renaissance 2010 model, unveiled in 2004. Since then, Duncan has closed dozens of schools and created a private district-within-a-district of 80,000 former CPS students, all funded by public education dollars.

These schools have no union staff members and no local school councils and, for the most part, no accountability. Charter and contract schools do have to take state-required tests. CPS claims that many of these schools do better than our neglected neighborhood schools, yet reputable, independent, national studies of charter schools yield inconclusive results.

Duncan's latest twist on closing underperforming schools is called the school "turnaround." About two dozen school closures and turnarounds are about to be announced this month. Parents, staff and students pleading for a reprieve year after year became an embarrassment to Duncan and Mayor Daley. Now they just fire all the staff in designated schools.

Frankly, even though Duncan is from Chicago, I hadn't heard much about him until he was selected. I just assume that Chicago's Public Schools are in perpetual decline. That said, I had heard that Duncan implemented a policy in which failing schools were closed down. Only now that I read how the Teacher's Union feels about the policy do I see just how effective it was. Duncan is also in favor of alternative school choices like charter schools as well as merit pay. All of this is opposed by the Teacher's Union.

Yet, it is one thing to be for some policy. It is quite another to actually implement in a way that matters. That will earn you friends and enemies. Duncan's support for merit pay, charter schools, and closing failing schools had to be effective for that's the only way he could have made such an enemy of the Teacher's Union. Any enemy of the Teacher's Union is immediately a political ally of mine.

Obviously, it is one thing to implement policy in the City of Chicago and quite another in the whole U.S. Yet, earning the ire of the Teacher's Union means he must have been quite effective here, and that bodes well for his effectiveness nationally.

With less than a week before taking over, it appears that Obama's education policy will be the one that I most endeared to. While I believe he will rely far too much on government spending, he is also serious about merit pay, school choice and closing schools that fail. All of those are policies that the Teacher's Union virulently opposes and all not coincidentally that I am strongly in favor of.

Some Context on Taxes, Entitlements, and Infrastructure

When Barack Obama sat down with Bill O'Reilly he talked about taxes in this segment.





In the segment, Barack Obama and Bill O'Reilly discussed, among other things, Obama's plan to suspend the cap on payroll taxes and begin to tax folks making over $250,000 yearly on payroll as well. Obama justified this increase in taxes by proclaiming that our country has a lot of needs: education, infrastructure, roads, energy independence, etc.



Since the beginning of the Republic, politicians justified tax hikes by proclaiming that the country is in need of major help in such things as infrastructure, education, roads, etc. Each and everytime, this explanation is not only a misnomer but a total distortion.

The country was founded by individual fearful of taxes and the corrosive effect they would have. The Founding Fathers also knew that without taxes then such things as infrastructure, roads, and education couldn't be founded. That's why they imposed a limited amount of taxes and they appropriated that this limited amount of taxes be collected to go to a limited number of functions like infrastructure and roads. The income tax wasn't created until the early 1900's. Yet, for more than 125 years the country grew, the infrastructure functioned, and nothing much decayed.

I am not naive enough to believe that the costs of roads and other infrastructure isn't exponentially more than it was in the beginning of the Republic. Still, we have way more people and we pay exponentially more in taxes. It is not only a misnomer to present tax increases as a necessary step to shore up infrastructure, but it is a statement that lacks in political courage whatsoever.

Somehow our country continued to thrive with full infrastructure in tact without the benefit of income taxes, capital gains taxes, dividend taxes, and inheritance taxes for almost a century and a half. Yet, politicians today will tell you that they only way to accomplish these necessary goals is to increase taxes. That is total nonsense. The reality is that most of these politicians don't have the necessary political courage to confront their constituency and the rank and file in their own caucus to cut the massive waste that actually has created all of these new taxes.

Our government could have plenty of money to build roads, schools, and other infrastructure and not raise taxes at all if only they could learn to stop wasting valuable tax Dollars on all sorts of unnecessary projects. Barack Obama proclaims that tax increases are necessary to build roads, but in the entire campaign, he couldn't name one program that he could cut. He's spent four years in the Senate and in the entire government apparatus he couldn't find even one program that he thought was wasteful. In fact, he sees after school programs as so vital that he doesn't believe they could be cut even in an economic panic.

We have $18 billion in frivilous and unnecessary earmarks that are spent each and every year. These earmarks go either to 1) appease a politician for voting on some legislation or 2) appease some constituency that helped some politician. None of these projects are necessary at all. How much infrastructure would we build if we simply used the money now going to earmarks?

The idea that tax increases are necessary in order to accomplish vital infrastructure needs implies something grossly corrupt. Taxes are supposed to be first and foremost to fund vital infrastructure. If all of the taxes currently collected aren't enough to fund infrastructure, where are the taxes collected now going? Back when our government understood the role of taxes, not only were taxes low but vital infrastructure was funded just fine. That's because that's all that was funded with taxes. Now, the government uses the idea of "vital infrastructure" in order to raise taxes frivilously and continue the long road of the expansion of government.

Make Health Care a "Right": The First Step Towards Socialism

In my previous post, I compared Barack Obama's policies with that of Socialists. Where the two converge most is on the issue of health care which they both see as a right. Previously, I also pointed out that once health care is termed a "right", there will be no end to the rights. I also pointed out that creating rights is standard boiler plate for Communists and Socialists.

In fact, the very same Socialist Party sees all sorts of rights.

1) Jobs.

The La Riva/Puryear campaign believes that everyone is entitled to a job. A job should be a constitutional right. Youth training and hiring programs, along with apprenticeship programs and job placement for adults of all ages can fill the employment for the projects above and more

2) Education

While Democratic and Republican candidates pay lip service to education reform, the quality of education for working-class students will continue to deteriorate as long as we live under a system that prioritizes profits over people. The La Riva/Puryear PSL presidential campaign calls for free, high quality education for all from pre-school through college.

3) Health care

The La Riva/Puryear PSL presidential campaign believes that quality health care must be free and available to all people. Capitalist insurance companies and providers must be dismantled and replaced with publicly-owned entities that provide health care for all.

4) Housing

The real root of the housing crisis lies in the capitalist system—an economic
and social system that produces for profits alone, not to meet people’s needs.
The La Riva/Puryear PSL presidential campaign believes that housing is a basic
human need and right. The foreclosures and evictions must end now.

5) A living wage

In the $12 trillion U.S. economy, working class people should be guaranteed, as a legal right, an income that assures that they will not spend the last years of their life in poverty.

6)Citizenship regardless of where you were born or how you got here.

All undocumented immigrants and residents in the United States should have full rights and equality now. That means equal wages, benefits, union rights, voting rights, and access to free, quality education, housing and health care. The government’s war on immigrants must end. Racist home and job raids must be stopped and concentration camp-style detention centers must be dismantled. The
border wall must be dismantled.

Now, think about it this way. If you believe that health care is a right, then why should it stop there? Isn't education, a living wage, housing, and citizenship just as important as health care?

The term "slippery slope"

In debate or rhetoric, the slippery slope is one of the classical informal fallacies. It suggests that an action will initiate a chain of events culminating in an undesirable event later without establishing or quantifying the relevant contingencies. The argument is sometimes referred to as the thin end of the wedge or the camel's nose. In broader, especially recent, pragmatic usage, the term slippery slope argument alternately refers to a non-fallacious argument that such undesirable events are rendered more probable. The fallacious sense of "slippery slope" is often used synonymous with continuum fallacy, in that it assumes there is no gray area and there must be a definite transition at a certain point from category A to category B.
While the general form of the argument involving a slippery slope is not valid, the conclusion it leads to is not necessarily wrong.

is in my opinion overused. Yet, here it is quite appropriate. Once health care is determined to be a basic right, then are all sorts of human needs that also fall under the umbrella of human rights. The Socialists make no bones about their view of the world. People have the "right" to free health care, education, housing, a living wage, and citizenship regardless of status. Socialists believe in a compassionate world, and they see the government as the instrument to provide that compassion. That's why to them health care is a RIGHT. It is not compassionate to let someone go without health care, and so the government must ensure that everyone is taken care of. Barack Obama sees the world the same way and so he also believes that health care is a right.

Of course, the unabashed Socialists take that world view to its logical conclusion. They don't stop at health care. They see all sorts of human needs and believe they are all rights. Barack Obama says that in a wealthy country like ours health care should be a right. Well, replace health care and one could make the same argument about all sorts of basic human needs. Yet, unlike the unabashed Socialists, he seems to stop, for now, at health care. Of course, this makes no sense. If health care is a right, and in a wealthy country like ours, everyone should get health care, why end there? Our wealthy nation should be able to provide living wages, good retirement, housing, jobs, education, and citizenship to all. After all, in a wealthy nation like ours all those basic needs should be available to all, if you believe that health care is a right, then all the things I mentioned are also rights. Of course, since they are "rights", it is the government's responsibility to provide them.

That's what makes his assertion that health care is a right so dangerous. It isn't a small leap from health care to everything. Just look at the platform of the Socialists and you can see our not too distant future if we truly do make health care a right.

The LGBT School Experiment: Innovation or Misguided Social Engineering

Anyone who follows such things knows there is a serious crisis in the Chicago Public School system. At the beginning of the school year, State Senator James Meeks staged a walk out in order to protest the the discrepancy in funding between the inner city public schools and the wealthy schools of the North Shore suburbs like Winnetka. Because Illinois funds their public schools through property taxes, it is just a fact that wealthier areas get more funds than poorer. Either way, many Chicago Public Schools are woefully underfunded.

That's why I found it peculiar to read that the same Chicago Public School system struggling for funding is now in the final stages of opening up a special school for lesbian, gay, bi sexual, transvestite and questioning students.

An LGBTQA Chicago Public Schools ( CPS ) high school has been proposed and, if given the green light, the school would join the likes of New York's Harvey Milk High School in becoming a national model in providing a welcoming, safe education for queer and questioning youth and their allies.

The Greater Lawndale Little Village School for Social Justice submitted the proposal to the CPS Office of New Schools for a Social Justice High School-Pride Campus. This project has been in the works since spring of this year. If approved, Pride Campus, a voluntary public high school that would implement a college prep curriculum in all subject areas, would open in 2010. It would serve LGBTQA ( lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, questioning and allied ) students from all over the city.

So, it appears that the same school system that struggles to find funding for most of its schools will now open up a school that will isolate gay students. I am first troubled by the same system that can't produce funds for some schools finding funds for an idea that has almost never been tried before.

Of course, what is most troubling is the social experiment that this school will attempt to create. First, I am very sympathetic to the difficulties that a gay student would face in the typical high school. Being bullied and being an outcast in the school system are two things I am unfortunately all too familiar with. I was an immigrant from the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War when I went through most of my schooling. If you think it is tough being a gay kid in school, try being referred to as a "Russian Pisspot" for several years. That said, there are plenty of children that have it difficult in school, short people, funny looking people, foreigners, and religious minorities. I won't get into a grievance war, however where will it stop? After we are done isolating gay kids among their own kind, maybe we should move onto short people, Hispanics, etc.

Furthermore, after these gay kids are done living in a bubble in which everyone is exactly like them, they will at some point have to move into the real world in which things will be very different. How exactly will this school prepare them for the world?

That's not to say that I am against schools that isolate students. Many of my friends in college went to a Catholic high school. Their experience in high school was far superior to mine. A Catholic high school, though, is privately funded. That is the sort of place for this type of school. I have no problem with an all gay high school as long as private funds are used to fund it. I have no problem with any innovative idea for schooling as long as it isn't tax money used to fund it. The public school system is not the place for social engineering. Those sorts of ideas are meant for private funds. That's where they should stay.

Barack Obama's Unconventional Education Policy

If ever Barack Obama's campaign theme that he rises above politics has a resting place it is his educational policy. Whatever one says about his educational policy, one thing you can't do is place it into any ideological box. In unveiling his education policy, Barack Obama offered a little bit for just about everyone. In a direct challenge to the teacher's union, Obama once again backed the concept of merit pay.

Merit pay is a term describing performance-related pay, most frequently in the context of educational reform. It provides bonuses for workers who perform their jobs better, according to measurable criteria. In the United States, policy makers are divided on whether merit pay should be offered to public school teachers, as is commonly the case in the United Kingdom

Merit pay is a concept that I support as well as long as the standards critieria to measure merit is clearly defined and it can be fairly applied to teachers of varying school districts and student profiles. While that is an easy concept to talk about, it is one that is much more difficult to apply in the real world. The key to this portion of the policy is Obama's ability to define fairly the measure by which merit pay will be done.

For liberal fans, Barack Obama offered up promises of increased federal government spending. From funding to alternative schools to teacher's salaries, Barack Obama clearly sees a larger federal role in education. In fact, Barack Obama's main criticism of No Child Left Behind.

No Child Left Behind is a Bush administration law that set out new standards for public schools, although critics say it is inadequately funded and causes some schools to concentrate on test scores instead of learning.

Obama touched only on funding in his criticism of the law. He also said he favors parents having more choice of schools within the public system, but not the use of vouchers for private schools.

Here, I move away from Obama's philosophy. I believe that education should be primarily a local and state issue. The less that bureaucrats in Washington D.C. direct teachers in Boise, Idaho in the way in which they should direct their classrooms the better, in my opinion. Barack Obama has identified a series of issues in education: teacher's pay and quality, school choice, funding, and he believes that it is the role of the federal government to fix all of these issues.

Finally, Barack Obama addressed the issue of choice as well by promising to double federal funding for charter schools.

Charter schools are elementary or secondary schools in the United States that receive public money but have been freed from some of the rules, regulations, and statutes that apply to other public schools in exchange for some type of accountability for producing certain results, which are set forth in each school's charter.[1]

Charter schools do not charge tuition and frequently have lottery based admissions. They therefore provide an alternative to public schools. Some charter schools provide a curriculum that specializes in a certain field-- e.g. arts, mathematics, etc. Others simply seek to provide a better and more efficient general education than nearby public schools.Some charter schools are founded by teachers, parents, or activists who feel restricted by traditional public schools.[2] State-run charters (schools not affiliated with local school districts) are often established by non-profit groups, universities, and some government entities.[3] Additionally, school districts sometimes permit corporations to open chains of for-profit charter schools.

For full disclosure, I am a huge fan of charter schools primarily because I have volunteered at one for several years and have been impressed by the manner in which it operates. That said, I am in favor of school choice rather than the government favoring one concept of schooling over another. While I believe that helping the growth of charter schools will have a positive impact on education, I am not so comfortable with the federal government isolating one type of school and favoring it. Beyond that, an added $200 million dollars works out to $4 million dollars per state, if it is distributed equally. That sort of funding would add maybe one extra charter school per state. To me, this added funding is nothing more than a trojan horse and much more a campaign slogan than a policy that will actually do anything substantive to increase school choice.

While I find plenty to criticize in Obama's educational policy, it is on this policy that I see in Obama a politician that is really trying to live up to the idea that he will do what works. Unlike much of his other policy positions, on education he really is examining each issue in a manner to formulate the right policy. While he continues to stick to his liberal orthodoxy that the federal government is always the best source of change, he also recognizes the real life problems of education (like incompetent teachers on tenure). I think that on the issue of education Barack Obama has a real chance to contribute in a positive manner, whether as President or otherwise.

Barack Obama's Ironic Politics

If you want to know just how confused the Obama campaign is about what to do in light of Sarah Palin's speech, just listen to the criticism from the campaign today. After the obligatory congratulations for giving a good speech, the Obama campaign immediately launches into an attack about how the speech lacked specifics about what the McCain campaign would do for the "middle class" as far as health care, education, jobs, gas prices, etc. Talk about chutzpah, the Obama campaign spent about a year and half talking about hope and change. Then, his acceptance speech spent twenty minutes getting into specific policies, and suddenly he is criticizing the other side for not offering enough specifics. Of course the Obama campaign knows full well that it is the Presidential candidate that gets into the most specifics. Furthermore, the rest of the speakers talked plenty about the differences in philosophy between the Republicans and the Democrats. Still, if Barack Obama wants someone to formulate the differences between the two campaigns on the major differences on the issues, well, I will be more than happy to oblige.

1) Taxes and the Economy

Barack Obama wants to combine tax cuts for the middle class with tax increases for the wealthy, capital gains, and some estates through the inheritence tax. He will combine these targeted tax cuts with increased government spending.

John McCain wants to cut the corporate tax because ours is one of the highest in the world. This makes our country uncompetitive and drives business elsewhere. McCain wants to make all the Bush tax cuts permanent not merely those for the middle class. Furthermore, McCain will place a focus back on spending where he believes the Republicans failed most.

2) Healthcare

Barack Obama wants to create a system of universal health care in which private health care is combined with government run health care.

John McCain wants to move from a third party cost health care system to a sytem in which everyone gets their own insurance. He will do this by offering tax credits if employees get their own health care as opposed to health care through their employer. Also, he wants to create legislation that allows for consumers to cross state lines to get health care.

3) The Mortgage Crisis

Barack Obama: He wants to bailout as many people as possible and then create as much regulation, punitive and otherwise, on mortgage professionals, bankers, and securitizers.

John McCain pretends he doesn't want to bail out as many people as possible though he does as well as Obama. He has said nothing (thankfully) about any new regulations

4) Education

Barack Obama wants to spend a lot more money to give bigger salaries to teachers, more equipment, textbooks, classrooms etc. He will place special financial emphasis on early childhood education and care.

John McCain

John McCain believes that education can be improved by offering as much choice as possible. That's why he supports school vouchers so that parents can send their children to charter schools, private schools, and other alternatives to public schools. He also believes in tougher accountability for failing schools and tougher sanctions for said schools.

5)Iraq

Barack Obama wants to end the war "responsibly". That means that as soon as he gets into office he will change the mission to one that involves a timetable for withdrawal. He hopes to have all troops out of Iraq in eighteen months

John McCain has backed the surge since the beginning. He thinks that General David Petraeus knows exactly what he is doing and any tactical decision will be made only after significant consultation with General Petraeus.

6) GWOT

Barack Obama thinks that the key to victory in the GWOT is victory in Afghanistan. He will provide at least two more brigades in Afghanistan. He believes that most of the other terror sponsoring states including Iran, Syria, and North Koreacan be be dealt with through aggressive face to face diplomacy including potentially diplomacy between the President and their heads of state.

John McCain believes that the tenor of the Bush doctrine was correct. He believes that the best way to defeat terrorists is to attack terror sponsoring states and turn those states into Democracies. On the other hand, he believes that this strategy went haywire when the Bush administration went off track for four years with a poor strategy in Iraq. He believes we are facing the same sort of problem in Afghanistan and he plans on exploring a similar strategy in Afghanistan.

7)Energy

Obama is lukewarm on driling. He believes that an aggressive program of government spending of about $150 billion over ten years in a wide array of alternative energy sources will create energy independence in the same period of time.

McCain is for drilling, though not yet in ANWR, and he believes that this will help create the bridge until alternative energy sources. He believes in tax breaks and other incentives to motivate entrepeneurs to invest in alternative energy sources

GITMO, Warrantless Wiretapping, Habeus Corpus, torture and other such things

Barack Obama wants to close down GITMO, though he doesn't say where these folks will go. He wants to gut the Patriot Act and treat terrorists much like we treat criminals.

John McCain did want to close down GITMO though he has reversed himself. He is against torture, but on all other measures he wants to continue the Bush policies which he points out have kept the homeland from attack since 9/11.

There you go, Senator. That's how the two of you stack up in short hand on the major issues of the day.

Is Illinois Racist?

Reverend and State Senator James Meeks certainly thinks so. Why? At issue is the crumbling state educational system, and the inherent inequity in the system. In today's Sun Times, he accuses the state apparatus of racism.

I want the whole nation to look at Illinois," said a defiant Meeks, pastor of Salem Baptist Church and a state senator. "I want the whole nation to ask, 'Why is Illinois racist?' I want them to ask, 'Why is Illinois treating low-income students like that?' "

The issue boils down like this. The state of Illinois ranks second from the bottom in state funding for education. As such, most funding is left to localities. As a result, areas like Winnetka, Illinois have funding that far outweighs that of the South Side and South West side of Chicago. Because Winnetka, home of New Trier High School, is mostly white and affluent, while the South and South West side is mostly African American, Meeks throws out the racism charge.

To protest the inequity, Meeks has organized a boycott for September 2nd, in which thousands of inner city students will get on a bus and head over to New Trier where they will attempt to register for school. As far as political stunts go, this one is about as grandiose as they come. That said, the punditry mostly takes issue with the method not the message.

Keeping kids out of school the first crucial days is just wrong, no matter how you look at it. But it's a wrong the Rev. James Meeks seems ready to commit Tuesday when he leads, by his estimate, about 2,000 Chicago Public Schools students on a three day protest to call attention to the shameful inequities in school funding in Illinois. Meeks and the students intend to ride buses up to wealthy north suburban schools, where the kids will make a show of trying to enroll.

...

We can't support Meeks' tactics, but we share his frustration. He's right when he says the state's current method of funding education has led to appalling extremes of rich
schools and poor schools, and he's right when he says it's not enough anymore to make speeches and write letters to the editor. The Sun-Times has editorialized for decades in favor of school funding reform -- and gotten nowhere.

Personally, I am not so upset with his method. Most of these kids have never been outside the confines of their neighborhood. It could do them some good to see the North Shore of Chicagoland. The message I have a problem with. The punditry and Meeks fail to see the 800 pound gorilla that is staring me in the face. That is that the state government is obscenely corrupt. Just over a month ago, the Chicago Tribune offered a preview of what would happen if Meeks plan ever came to fruition and the state was more intimately involved in funding for education. In this piece, the investigative reporters at the Tribune meticulously tracked how $20 million in funding meant for after school programs wound up in the hands of former criminals. Other times, the funding wound up going to programs that didn't exist. Once they walked into the location of an after school program to find a building with no electricity. This is what awaits us if funding becomes primarily a function of the corrupt and incompetent state government.

What Meeks wants is a system in which inner city schools look more like New Trier. Instead, what we will get is a system in which New Trier will look more like all the inner city schools. Inequity in schools is a bad thing, but there are worse things. Worse than inequity is a system in which every school is equally incompetent, inefficient, and corrupt, and if our state government runs our schools that's exactly what we will have. If Reverend Meeks really wants to improve inner city education the first thing he needs to do is clean up the State government that he is intimately a part of. Until then, I want our state government nowhere near our school system.

Obama, Ayers, and Annenberg

In today's Sun Times, there is a terribly dishonest editorial making Obama's time on the Annenberg board with Bill Ayers nothing out of the ordinary. The first bit of dishonest and misleading is done as such.

The issue of Obama’s role arose when a blogger for National Review raised questions about his relationship with Ayers, a favorite election-year target of conservatives. The blogger felt quite sure that the pair were much closer than Obama intimated when he said he knew Ayers "from the neighborhood" where both live. The blogger hinted darkly that the pair were really ideological soul mates and that Obama was aligned "with Ayers’s radical views on education issues."

You'll notice the term "blogger" is used twice. Now, this so called blogger is of course Stanley Kurtz. Here is a brief bio of Kurtz.

Stanley Kurtz is an adjunct fellow of Hudson Institute and a fellow at the Hoover Institution with a special interest in America's "culture war." In addition to his regular contributions to National Review Online, Kurtz's writings on the family, feminism, homosexuality, affirmative action, and campus "political correctness" have appeared in Policy Review, The Wall Street Journal, and Commentary.

Before turning his attention to America's cultural battles, Kurtz was a social scientist specializing in family life and religion. He received his Ph.D. in social anthropology from Harvard University and later taught at Harvard, winning several teaching awards for his work in a "Great Books" program. Kurtz was also Dewey Prize Lecturer in Psychology at the University of Chicago.

So, of course, Kurtz is a lot more than merely a blogger. Yet, not only is he never mentioned by name, itself totally condescending, but his extensive writing, intellectual, and policy career is dismissed and never mentioned. This is of course no accident. Had Kurtz been presented as a syndicated columnist and member of a think tank as well as an editor with the National Review, he would have had much more credibility than simply being referred to as a "blogger". Now, when you attack the messenger in such a misleading way, I am weary of your own attack. Here is the substance of Lenz, herself a member of the education community in Chicago, defense of the Obama, Ayers and their time at Annenberg.

When the appointed hour arrived for release of the documents, reporters, camera operators and bloggers descended on the hapless university library staff to pore over hundreds of files of grant proposals, meeting minutes and reports — a "media frenzy," the Tribune called it.

And what did the muckrakers find? Horrors, Obama had attended meetings and retreats with the author of The Good Preschool Teacher and To Teach: The Journey of a Teacher. He had actually rubbed shoulders — can you believe it? — with a distinguished professor of education who holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in early childhood education and a doctorate in curriculum and instruction. He had probably even shared a cup of coffee, as only a co-conspirator would, with this professor, whose writings describe good schools as places that are "organized around and powered by a set of core values" and "effectively meet students where they are and find ways to nurture and challenge them to
learn."

...

Whatever one thinks of Ayers’ actions 40 years ago, there is nothing to condemn, and much to admire, about his leadership and commitment over the past 20 years in making schools better places to teach and learn. And there is nothing to condemn, and much to applaud, in Obama’s close association with those efforts.

So, the defense comes down to three points. First, Ayers and Obama participated in normal meetings and idea exchanges. I don't think anyone doubts this. The problem of folks like me is that it is perverse to interact in normal academic, business, political, or any settings with a former domestic terrorist. Our problem is that it was business as usual for Senator Obama when he interacted with a former terrorist, an unrepentent one at that.

Second, Ayers is a fine and mainstream member of Chicago's policy class. Again, this is true, and that just points out what a cesspool my hometown's political class is. This is no defense of Obama's relationship with Ayers. This should be a wake up call to all Chicagoans that something is really wrong here. Other pols are mentioned as interacting with Ayers, and Lenz says their relationship isn't scrutinized. Of course, it isn't. They aren't running for President. Unfortunately, in the Chicagoland area serving on a board with a former terrorist may in fact be a political plus, but that isn't the way the rest of the country sees it.

The final point is that Ayers is a leader in the education community not withstanding his terrorist past and has been for the last twenty years. Now, I could roll out a laundry list of statements made in the last twenty years where he recalls glowingly his unrepentent terrorist past. I can point out the plethora of anti American statements in the last twenty years. I can even show the magazine cover in which he stepped on an American flag. I won't. Ayers is a radical, and this idea that he left his radical belief system is absurd when it comes to education. The reality is that once you examine his "contribution" to education in the last twenty years you will find that he contributes a radical, leftist agenda. Here is an example of Ayers' "contribution" to education.

Sol Stern of the Manhattan Institute has done masterful work over the years commenting on the state of education in America. Two years ago, he wrote about Ayers in "The Ed Schools' Latest-and Worst-Humbug". The article is a revelation. Ayers may have given up on the bombs, but he has found our nation's classrooms an ideal way to promote his revolutionary and anti-American views. Stern returned to the subject of Ayers' influence this week.

While attending Columbia University Teachers College in 1984 he had an epiphany. He adopted the views of one of his professors, Maxine Greene-a leader in the "critical pedagogy" movement. What did he take away from the course? An ideology that he has promoted throughout his career -- and one that has very little to do with education but has a great deal to do with radicalism. Stern writes:

As Ayers wrote later, he took fire from Greene's lectures on how the "oppressive hegemony" of the capitalist social order "reproduces" itself through the traditional practice of public schooling-critical pedagogy's fancy way of saying that the evil corporations exercise thought control through the schools.

Greene told future teachers that they could help change this bleak landscape by developing a "transformative" vision of social justice and democracy in their classrooms. Her vision, though, was a far cry from the democratic optimism of the Founding Fathers, Abraham Lincoln, and Martin Luther King Jr., which most parents would endorse. Instead, critical pedagogy theorists nurse a rancorous view of an America in which it is always two minutes to midnight and a knock on the door by the thought police is imminent. The education professors feel themselves anointed to use the nation's K-12 classrooms to resist this oppressive system. Thus Maxine Greene urged teachers not to mince words with children about the evils of the existing social order.

They should portray "homelessness as a consequence of the private dealings of landlords, an arms buildup as a consequence of corporate decisions, racial exclusion as a consequence of a private property-holder's choice." In other words, they should turn the little ones into young socialists and critical theorists.

All music to Bill Ayers's ears. The ex-Weatherman glimpsed a new radical vocation. He dreamed of bringing the revolution from the streets to the schools. And that's exactly what he has managed to do.

Ayers has subsequently written a best seller used in ed-school courses which focuses on the moral imperative of teaching social justice to students in K-12 classrooms. He has been active in "teaching teachers" that capitalism is a curse and imperialism is an American obsession.

Here is how Sol Stern himself summarized it.

What he can be blamed for is not acknowledging that his neighbor has a political agenda that, if successful, would make it impossible to lift academic achievement for disadvantaged children. As I have shown elsewhere in City Journal, Ayers’s politics have hardly changed since his Weatherman days. He still boasts about working full-time to bring down American capitalism and imperialism. This time, however, he does it from his tenured perch as Distinguished Professor of Education at the University of Illinois, Chicago. Instead of planting bombs in public buildings, Ayers now works to indoctrinate America’s future teachers in the revolutionary cause, urging them to pass on the lessons to their public school students.

Indeed, the education department at the University of Illinois is a hotbed for the radical education professoriate. As Ayers puts it in one of his course descriptions, prospective K–12 teachers need to “be aware of the social and moral universe we inhabit and . . . be a teacher capable of hope and struggle, outrage and action, a teacher teaching for social justice and liberation.” Ayers’s texts on the imperative of social-justice teaching are among the most popular works in the syllabi of the nation’s ed schools and teacher-training institutes. One of Ayers’s major themes is that the American public school system is nothing but a reflection of capitalist hegemony. Thus, the mission of all progressive teachers is to take back the classrooms and turn
them into laboratories of revolutionary change.

Unfortunately, neither Obama nor his critics in the media seem to have a clue about Ayers’s current work and his widespread influence in the education schools. In his last debate with Hillary Clinton, Obama referred to Ayers as a “professor of English,” an error that the media then repeated. Would that Ayers were just another radical English professor. In that case, his poisonous anti-American teaching would be limited to a few hundred college students in the liberal arts. But through his indoctrination of future K–12 teachers, Ayers has been able to influence what happens in hundreds, perhaps thousands, of classrooms.

So, I will take Ms. Lenz at her word. Barack Obama didn't serve hand in hand on the Annenberg board with a former terrorist. No, instead he served on the Annenberg board witha teaching radical. He served with an individual that believes that America's education agenda should focus on teaching about anti American themes that condemn capitalism and encourage "social justice". He believes this is what we should strive for in K-12 education. This is what the theme of the Annenberg project was. This is what Barack Obama contributed to, and this is what we should expect his education policy to be.

McCain's Counter to Obama's Acceptance Speech

I'm not sure what to make of Obama's speech last night. In many ways, he did exactly what I asked for last night. He put some meat on his bones and yet kept the speech lively. The most ironic thing for me was that in analyzing the speech afterwards on Fox News, it was the two traditional conservatives, Bill Kristol and Charles Krauthammer, that defended the speech the most. It was the rest of the panel, Nina Easton and Juan Williams, that took the biggest shots at it. I am not sure what this means besides an interesting antedote to the claim that Fox News is some right wing extension.

That said, the speech left plenty of room for the McCain campaign to counter. First, while Obama did lay out an agenda, it was vague and often wishful thinking. For instance, he said that not only would everyone have health insurance, but even those currently with health care will have their costs reduced. How does he plan to do this? He didn't say and likely doesn't know. He said that he would cut costs by closing corporate loopholes. Well, the Alternative Minimum Tax was supposed to close a loophole and turned into a diaster. So, what are these loopholes? How will closing them wind up any better than the debacle of the Alternative Minimum Tax? He said that he wouldn't raise taxes on 95% of the American people, but he plans on raising taxes on capital gains. Half the people own stocks and would have taxes raised on gains on any of these stock transactions. He said that he would end tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas and create tax breaks for companies that keep their jobs here. How would he do this? What are these tax breaks and incentives? Isn't raising the corporate tax encouraging all corporations to take their business elsewhere? Barack Obama said it makes no sense to raise taxes on the middle class when the economy is weakening. If I am the McCain campaign, I forcefully counter that it is disastrous to raise taxes on anyone while the economy is weakening.

He said that he planned on paying for his massive spending increases by cutting non working government programs. He didn't name one, and so I'd like to know what programs those. It is boiler plate rhetoric for a liberal to reassure the voters that their massive bureaucracy increases will be met by cutting non performing programs, but we all know that government is much easier to grow than to shrink.

He said he would make sure teachers were paid well. Would he pay them himself? Does he mean that there will be more federal control of education? He said we would be energy independent in 10 years and then proposed to spend 150 billion dollars over the las ten years to get there. We've spent ten times that much in the last thirty years. How would his spending be any different?

Obama also said that everyone including Prime Minister Maliki and President Bush now support his timetable plan for withdrawal from Iraq. He didn't mention that a timetable sounds feasible because the surge has worked so overwhelmingly that even a timetable couldn't screw it up. He wants to end the war responsibly but the only way to end a war responsibly is VICTORY.

Second, he, with chutzpah, declared that if John McCain wanted to have a debate on foreign policy judgment and temperment that was a debate he was prepared to have. That's tough talk for a wuss. McCain offered to have multiple townhall debates throughout the summer. One of them would be in front of veterans on exactly these issues. Obama refused EACH AND EVERY TIME. His tough talk doesn't match his actions. If I were the McCain campaign, I would immediately propose a debate in front of one of the academies, VMI, or the VFW, for exactly this debate. Now that Obama has opened his mouth, it's time to put up or shut up.

Third, Obama proclaimed that when you have no record you attack your opponent. Obama has no record, and he spent the entire speech attacking President Bush, John McCain and D.C. politics. It appears that Senator Obama has told the country who they should vote for himself.

Teacher's Unions Vs. Charter Schools

Introduction: Because I volunteer at a charter school myself, I have a natural bias that must be disclosed.

There is one thing that everyone agrees on. Chicago Public Schools are failing the kids. What people can't agree on is how to solve the problem.

The Illinois Hunger Coalition (IHC) finds that the Chicago Public School’s participation in the School Breakfast Program is deficient. On Tuesday, August 7, IHC released the School Breakfast in America’s Big Cities survey conducted by the Food Research and Action Center (FRAC) that finds Chicago is in last place out of 23 of the nation’s largest cities. In the Chicago Public School system only 28.7% of low-income students that participated in the National School Lunch Program actually participated in school breakfast in the 2005-2006 school year.

Diane Doherty, Executive Director of the Illinois Hunger Coalition, stated that “Everyone agrees, school breakfast increases school attendance, student attentiveness and achievement, and lowers the risk for childhood obesity. By describing the successes of other large school districts, this report prescribes a positive plan that can be implemented here in Chicago which includes; free breakfast for all students, inclusion of breakfast into the regular school day served in the classroom and “grab and go” programs, along with widespread promotion of the program, collaboration with anti-hunger advocates, and strong support and leadership within the schools. We talk about hosting the Olympics—lets talk about producing kids who can be future Olympians!”

Joe Moore alderman of the 49th ward seconded Doherty’s remarks by commenting, “When I learned that children who eat school breakfast consume more fruits, drink more milk and eat less saturated fat than those who don’t eat breakfast or eat at home, I agreed to introduce a resolution in the City County for a universal school breakfast program in CPS. The time has come for Chicago to move from last to first place in providing breakfast to our kids.” Rick Munoz alderman of the 22nd Ward noted, “The Chicago City Council voted unanimously to direct the Chicago Board of Education to provide breakfast to all CPS students; this study illustrates precisely why we need breakfast for all children in the Chicago Public Schools.”

Everyone has an opinion about what to do.

Harvard is one of several public schools here to get a top-to-bottom housecleaning in recent years – including replacing the principal and most teachers – in a bid to lift student achievement out of the nation's academic basement. The drastic approach is known as "turnaround," and Chicago is embracing it more than any US city, though it's unproven and is controversial among teachers, many parents, and students.

"It's risky in that it's new and has an untested track record," says Andrew Calkins, senior vice president at Mass Insight, a nonprofit group focused on school reform, and coauthor of a report on turnaround schools. "It's logical in that the other choice is to keep on doing what's been tried before, and we know what the results of that will be. What you try to do if you're Chicago is to minimize the risk and maximize the possibility of a good outcome" by thinking through everything that's needed to improve the climate for learning at a school.

As Principal Cowling sees it, the risk paid off. Until Harvard Elementary went through turnaround, the school was like "Beirut," he says – 50 kids running through the halls at any time, holes in the floors and peeling paint on the walls, fights on or near campus, no order in the classrooms.

"Now, you can tell it's a school," Cowling says.

In fact, the entire state is ranked 49th out 50 according to A+ rankings. So, the state's educational system is in crisis and every idea is up for debate no matter how radical.

State Sen. James Meeks (D-Chicago) plans to sponsor such legislation in the Illinois General Assembly next week in a special session called by Gov. Rod Blagojevich to address education funding.

I don't expect either measure to pass.

Meeks believes abolishing the property tax is an idea that could gain significant support.In any event, the ideas are likely to spark a new round of newspaper editorials and public debate about school funding in Illinois, and that's really the senator's initial goal as he attempts to force his colleagues in the Legislature to actually address the unfair and inadequate school funding system in this state.

One of the few bright spots in the state's educational system, and frankly in the country entirely, is the proliferation of charter schools in Illinois. Charter schools are smaller, with less bureaucracy, and allow for more flexibility and innovation. For instance, in my voluntary role, I have students "shadow" me while I work and thus each year a group of high school students get first hand experience in the mortgage business. Yet, an Illinois law recently limited the number of charter schools in Illinois to 100.

Now, one of the biggest opponents of charter schools is the teacher's union.

So teacher unions support charter school laws, right? Not quite!

Both major teacher unions, the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers view the charter school movement as a direct challenge, perhaps the greatest from any source. Thus they have opposed laws authorizing the establishment of charter schools, weakening charter school laws as much as possible and limiting the number of such schools that are authorized.

Even after all of this has failed, they continue to try to sweep back the sea. In Ohio where charter schools are called community schools, the Ohio Federation of Teachers wants the authorizing legislation to be found unconstitutional. Why is this so?

Primarily because of one thing that wasn't mentioned in the preceding positives about the charter school movement. That one thing is that charter school teachers, in overwhelming numbers, do not vote to affiliate with the teacher unions, nor do they tend to join the unions as individuals.

More than anything else the charter school movement is illustrating that teacher union rhetoric about teacher autonomy, professionalism, and conducive working conditions are just thatrhetoric.

Because charter schools are by nature smaller, often times teachers at such schools are usually paid better than their counter parts at traditional public high schools. Furthermore, charter schools, as this piece points out, have no trouble attracting and keeping the best teaching talent.

Even where others start a school, it is common for far more teachers, including large numbers of public school teachers, to apply for jobs than there are teaching positions available. This has been a common, almost universal, experience, from Marblehead, Massachusetts where a new charter school had 500 teachers apply for seven positions, to Arizona, where 200 sought one of ten openings.

Once hired, teachers also frequently find a better teaching environment, such as a school in Boston where teachers have their own room, a computer, e-mail, telephone, and no more than two preparations, four classes or 80 students daily. This enhanced autonomy and improved educational climate for teachers are all things that teacher unions say they advocate.

The opposition to charter schools from the teacher's union is entirely about power and nothing to do with policy. Charter schools perform better. Furthermore, there is always a waiting list for students attempting to enter a charter school. (about 13000 in Illinois)

What this shows, more than ever, is that the bureaucracy and power structure within our educational system is not merely part of the problem, it is the problem. Charter schools succeed because they are small enough to limit the bureaucracy. Rather than some bureaucrat telling a teacher how teach math, science, etc. charter schools have a novel idea. They allow the teachers themselves the freedom to teach their own subjects. By being outside the sytem, and being successful doing it, they threaten the system. The system shows where their loyalties lie. It isn't in improving the system. No, it is in maintaining their own power.