[Cincinatus' Wife]

To solve students' math problems, educators go to school - Boosting teacher skills seen as key*** The report also recommends that colleges and universities boost their math requirements for education majors. Many schools require no more than a single math course for future teachers.***

[alloysteel]

There is a ratchet effect at work here. Bureaucracies, once established, are among one of the most persistent life forms on this planet. While some of the fat can be trimmed at the edges, the constituencies that created the official institutional agencies in the first place maintain a death grip on their means of sustenance, no matter how shrunken or shriveled they may become. Only when the last member of a privileged class has expired, does the function of the established service office finally disappear, and without continuing and renewed scrutiny, the level of funding proceeds forever.

[Ed_in_NJ]

This could be titled "defining conservatism down."

It is in this respect that Bush offends 'true' conservatives -- those that believe the Constitution limits federal reach (and not that "general welfare" means that most of the people are on welfare).

We should distinguish Bush Republicans (those that like big government) from conservatives (those that don't).

[WhiteGuy]

"conservatives may have lost the battle against big governmen"

This is a giant understatement.

[from occupied ga]

Conservatives also buy big government

Typical Urinal/Constipation editorial. It starts with a lie and goes from there. NO, CONSERVATIVES are not into more government. Republicans are. Republicans are not conservatives. Wooten deliberately uses the word conservative to describe leftist republicans thus denying the existence of true conservatives - something that the dedicated Marxists on the editorial board of the U/C would like to see totally go away. In the "minds" of the editorial board of the Atlanta fish wrapper there can never be too many laws, taxes on the hard working can never be too high, there can never be too many restrictions on the 2nd through 10th amendments, and government can never be too big.

[RJCogburn]

The president has shown no discomfort with big government or increasing federal spending.

But he looks so good in a flight suit.

This is a lame, limp, weak attempt to somehow describe Bush as conservative, no more convincing than the flight suit argument.

[Consort]

The bigger that government gets, the more important it is to keep the Democrats out of control.

If Bush, who is a moderate, lost the popular vote in 2000, then a Conservative would have lost in a landslide.

There is no such thing as a True Conservative.

[GB]

Wooten is a liberal? Dig up the archives of his columns and I doubt anyone could say that with a straight face. I doubt anyone could call him a moderate with a straight face. He was the editorial page editor of the Atlanta Journal, the old afternoon paper in Atlanta, before it folded, and the Journal's editorial page was quite to the right. Cox Newspapers covered both sides in Atlanta in those days, the Journal was conservative and the Constitution, just as now, is quite liberal.

Is he a Freeper-like true conservative? Probably not, but neither is most of the U.S. Confidentially, just in case it hasn't dawned on everyone here, people who believe like us are in the minority in this country. And that's remained true in every year in which "conservatism" has won victories ... 1980, 84, 94, 00, 02.

It's won those victories and nothing has really changed, and we get all hot and bothered and rant and rave, when IMHO the simple fact is that there is no great desire among the American electorate ... even those who voted with "us" ... to totally undo the New Deal and Great Society and go completely back to "true conservatism" or "rugged individualism" or whatever you want to call it.

I've mentioned my father here many times, rest his soul. He voted Republican/conservative for the last quarter century of his life (and he didn't die as an old man, was 61) and he utterly REVERED Ronald Reagan ... but at the same time he cast those votes he was an unrepentant New Dealer who wanted every bit of federal largesse that was coming his way, a union man to his very core and he rejoiced in every federal court decision designed to make things fair for "the little man."

And I daresay that disconnect between how people vote and what they believe is not uncommon in this country. Or we can delude ourselves and think that everybody in those Dem strongholds that voted for Reagan in '84 was doing it because they wanted to take the country back to true conservatism. No, it was a personal victory for Reagan without a thing to do with philosophy ... and I fear Bush will be re-elected for the same reason next year and there'll be a whole bunch more people here disappointed with him.

So what do we do, give up and move to the hills? No, we have two choices ... (a.) take this country back to true conservatism through armed revolt and revolution or (b.) keep plugging away and try to educate people and sell them on why true conservatism is best and right, even if it takes 500 years.

I rather prefer option B.

[headsonpikes]

Socialism - it's not just for Reds and furriners any more!