More failed federal aid to education?

And that's exactly what we have. In fact, judging from international competitions, America has the worst elementary and secondary (K-12) education system in the civilized world.

In the Third International Exam in Math for high-schoolers, American students scored 19th out of 21 nations, beating out only Cyprus and South Africa. Only one in 5 American high-school seniors have studied trigonometry, physics or geography, subjects routinely taught in other advanced nations. Nor do American youngsters know their own history. The majority of high-school seniors have never heard of Thomas Paine, Patrick Henry or the Marshall Plan. Nor can they find Southeast Asia or the Mediterranean Sea on an unmarked map.

On the NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress) exams, 38 percent of fourth-graders demonstrated that they cannot read properly.

The solution to our educational dilemma? To Washington, it is always more federal aid to education. The vehicle? Naturally, the Department of Education, which does not educate a single child, but whose budget continues to soar.

In 2000, under President Clinton -- himself a big spender on education -- the Department's budget was $38.5 billion.

Republicans have traditionally been skeptical and have even advocated abolishing the Department of Education. But that skepticism has apparently vanished as President Bush made education his No. 1 priority. The party eventually realized that just mouthing the word "education" was worth millions of votes.

The result has been an enormous increase in federal spending on education. In 2001, the Department's cost rose to $43.5 billion. This year it will reach $53.5 billion, an increase of some 23 percent. The total federal aid to education, from all agencies, is now an astronomical $112 billion a year.

The core of Bush's expansion is the new legislation, HR 1, euphemistically called the "Leave No Child Behind" Act -- which he is expected to sign into law this week. Within that bill is a centerpiece program called Title 1, which dates back to 1965 and is designed to help disadvantaged, mainly minority, schoolchildren catch up with others. A noble effort. The cost of Title 1 also continues to soar, now reaching some $11 billion a year, or many scores of billions since it began 35 years ago.

Has the money been well-spent? Has it worked? Not at all. Title 1, like most other federal aid to education programs (except school lunches run by Agriculture) has been a colossal failure.

"Has the money been well-spent? Has it worked? Not at all. Title 1, like most other federal aid to education programs (except school lunches run by Agriculture) has been a colossal failure."

"Who says so? The Department of Education says so."
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Guys, More funding to deliberately dumb down America. What passes for education today is EVIL!!! Peace and love, George.

I submit that this has been a success. Minority children have now caught up with others by bringing the others down rather than raising the minority children up. I think this was the plan all along.

Politically, America is divided between red (Bush) and blue (algore dems) sectors. Most of the blue areas are large highly populated urban centers, commonly seats of power. It is in these areas unions flourish, gov't spending (social programs) are the greatest, crime is the greatest......it is also within these areas that education performance is the worst.

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