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My personal musings about anything that gets on my radar screen--heavily dominated by politics.

2005-04-07

And That Would Be Bad Because . . . ?

The State House yesterday made several changes to the education budget, including adding a $200,000 program to increase teaching about the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the Declaration of Independence. About the new mandate:

During heated debate over the Republican call for more education on the Constitution, one Democratic lawmaker suggested that the proposal was purely political.

"I am hopeful that this is not a political game, and that it is not a setup to show who votes against the Constitution," said Rep. Nancy Todd, D-Aurora. "I hope we are above that, as legislators."

Why, Ms Todd, would anybody vote against the Constitution? Is the Constitution not already a part of the State Curriculum? And, if not, why in the world isn't it? And why would anybody not want it to be a major part of the curriculum?

Of course, depending on which judge or California school district get a hold of it, that whole Declaration of Independence thing might be tricky. . .

In other news, funding for charter school construction got cut in half by the House yesterday. Last year, state funding for charter schools capital construction was $5 million; this year, $2.5 million:

On charter schools, they said that the proposed cuts come as more than 20,000 students sit on charter school waiting lists.

"We can't be cutting the funding to the one particular area of our public school system that is showing overwhelming demand," said Rep. Matt Knoedler, R-Lakewood.


The money was earmarked for preschool programs. Charter Schools, preschool, charter schools, preschool. . . one of those choices that show priorities. And, by the way, where in the State Constitution is the mandate to operate effective preschools, as opposed the operating public schools?
Posted by: Michael / 4/07/2005 07:44:00 AM

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