Posted on 09/05/2011 6:20:34 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
CNN’s Political Ticker isolates this element of Rep. Michele Bachmann’s reliably conservative responses at Sen. Jim DeMint’s political forum in South Carolina today, making it both a headline and lead paragraph:
Painting herself as a “constitutional conservative” Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann told Sen. Jim DeMint’s forum Monday that if elected president she would look to get rid of the Department of Education, among other things.
“Because the Constitution does not specifically enumerate nor does it give to the federal government the role and duty to superintend over education that historically has been held by the parents and by local communities and by state governments,” she said, responding to a question by DeMint, a popular figure among the tea party movement.
The not-so-subtle implication of PT’s prominent placement of this Bachmann statement is that it’s obviously extreme. You know those crazy “constitutional conservatives”! But is it? Abolishing the Department of Education might sound like an ultra-conservative pipe dream — and anything but advisable in the Information Age, when education is key to global competitiveness — but, perhaps, just perhaps, Bachmann has a point.
In the first place, she’s right about the Constitution. But, in the second, does the federal government actually do a better job of educating our children than would state or local governments? Naturally, questions of right and equity enter in. It is, after all, commonly accepted that children have the right to an equal education (although even that could be debated). But as regards efficacy, it’s pretty clear flexibility and freedom to address the needs of individual children enhances education.
Please don’t interpret this as an endorsement of Bachmann’s view; I’m still forming my opinions on education policy. It is, rather, a defense of the debate. The purpose and prowess of the Ed Department ought to be analyzed. And the agency, no less than any other budget-straining bit of the bureaucracy, ought to be held accountable.
This all brings me back to why I love Bachmann as a presidential candidate (if not necessarily as the GOP nominee or actual president): She says what needs to be said to move the public dialogue in a productive direction. Sometimes, she does that by simply speaking truth. Sometimes, as now, she does it by offering up views that can then be debated, discussed, shaped and molded into a more palatable — yet-ever-so-slightly-more-conservative — position in the immediate term — while leaving the possibility of her so-called “extreme” solutions open in the long term.
She’s right...we don’t need the Dept of Education.
Reagan promised to abolish this Carter-era monstrosity and failed too.
To aid in the money laundering through unions to the DNC.
It’s all about money. We give the Feds money. Some will come back to us for Education. Of course states are getting ripped off...but that’s the way it works....just another Federal kitty.
Education, Energy, and EPA are the three agencies I want to see abolished first.
Or a Department of Energy.
Wow...she is going to now fight for and carry the mandate in the general election (if she wins the nomination for GOP) for abolishing the Education Department? Good luck to her.
If anyone, Perry can pull something like that off given his proven “states rights” approach and strong 10th amendment credentials. Bachmmann? Reall?
Hoo boy, all the entrenched interests that would need to be unearthed and cast aside for this to happen.
Not that there would be anything WRONG with that....
we don’t
Anyone who can say what they do with all that money and all those people wins the prize!
I ask the same question. Especially when you consider that the public schools were a heck of a lot better before the Dept. of Education than they are now. The Dept. of Education is a joke and our kids’ education is suffering because of it. It’s time to get rid of it and get back to “old school”.
Will Congress follow along, is the question. She can’t zap the agency on her lonesome. As much as it deserves zapping.
Dept. of Education HURTS students.
Responsibility must be at the lowest level of Gov’t - the community, and parents. With the Feds greater and greater role, everyone kicks responsibility further up the chain, while looking farther and farther to DC for money.
The DOE seems to wish the worst of all academic worlds down upon the states.
My 6th grade son asked asked me why we needed to do away with the Dept. of Education.
I told him that the farther away from the classroom the decision-makers are, the worse it gets for the students.
Follow da money.........
RE: Anyone who can say what they do with all that money and all those people wins the prize!
They take the money from the states via Federal Tax dollars, and REDISTRIBUTE them via grants back to the states based on where they see there is the most need.
Do I win the prize?
RE: Dept. of Education HURTS students.
Can anyone tell me how America’s educational system as a whole fared BEFORE and AFTER the Dept. of Education was formed?
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