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Rep. Hoekstra says Bush education law a massive failure

A Michigan congressman says Republicans "sold out" on their principles and "sold out" parents and students when they helped President Bush pass the No Child Left Behind Act in 2001.



Congress is getting set to take up reauthorization of President Bush's signature education law. One of the law's most vocal critics in Congress, Representative Pete Hoekstra (R - Michigan), says No Child Left Behind (NCLB) has made schools, school boards, and school administrators "beggars to Washington, DC."

He warns of fallout from perpetuation of NCLB. "If it doesn't happen with this iteration of No Child Left Behind, it will happen with the next one," says Hoekstra. "There will be more testing, there will more mandates, there will be more money; there will be less freedom [and] less flexibility -- and the end result is [that the nation will be] on the doorstep of having a national federal curriculum."

Hoekstra is introducing alternative legislation in the House that will allow states to make the declaration that they will assume the primary responsibility for educating the students in their state.

Well I am mixed on the NCLB.  I can agree that in the long run it will push things to a more federal level for standards.  Although I think the ideas behind it are great I do not necessarily agree with the execution. 

I believe hard that our educational standards have slipped over the years.  As well as our standards for educators.  And the bar does need to be raised.  But I also feel that it needs to be done on a more local level.  If Alabama wants to stay as the dumbest state in the nation...then so be it.  The people have spoken and if it is "We ain't ignerant" then so be it.

I agree with you completely. Putting education at the federal level makes way for socialism to take hold a whole lot quicker than it already is. We do not need an educational system like that of Germany.

I really don't know what to say about the various educational systems over the years. My wife has been a school teacher in Oklahoma since 1976, and we've heard all kinds of plans a promises that turned out to be little more than smoke, mirrors, and magic acts. We don't know where the money goes, but it doesn't appear to be getting down to the classroom level.

As an example, the book budget per teacher for several years here has been $100 per year. This is at the elementary grade levels, and I don't know about other levels. If you've bought any books recently, you should know that $100 doesn't buy much. The facts are that teachers buy much of what they need out of their own pockets or they go without what the children really need. If anyone thinks that the money has gone to large teacher salaries, they would be completely wrong. We'd like to know where all of the money goes. We are quite aware of many very silly circles of paperwork that probably fill bureaucrat's offices, but this really has little or nothing to do with educating children.  The working end of education appears to be much less important than the bureaucrats with all of the fancy titles. I will do more than guess that the bureaucrats are also spending money that the teachers really need for basic tools in the classroom. Bluntly, the teachers are not getting what they need. One should easily recognize that the bureaucrats are not the ones charged with the responsibility of educating the children, but they appear to be getting the money.

So what are some of the answers? (1) One answer would be a mandate by the taxpayers that a certain percentage of their tax dollars can only be spent at the classroom level. (2) A full accounting to the public for every dollar would also be very interesting. Tons of folks want to know where the current funds are going and who is benefiting from them. (3) Either send many of the bureaucrats home or give them a real job of some type. (4) Legislate all of the lawyers and special interest groups OUT THE DOOR. This would have to include massive tort reform and a complete end to silly lawsuits by the ACLU, Planned Parenthood, atheists, and other groups who are lining their pockets with taxpayer dollars and wasting the time of people with much more important things to do. Just kick them all out the door, end all of the games, and make it plain that anyone who doesn't like public education is welcome to make other arrangements for their children. In other words, make it plain that 5 to 7 percent of the population will no longer dictate anything done in public schools - period - end of story! (5) Take the Federal Government completely out of public education. The Constitution does not make the Federal Government the master over the states in the area of public education - just the opposite.

SOAP BOX MODE OFF.   ;D

I don't know where all the money is going to either. I do know that there has been a big to do with the salaries of the upper management of the schools in this area. The Principles here are all making well over $150,000.00 per year and are now up for another raise. They are wanting to raise property taxes again to cover it. Property taxes in this city are already the highest in the area and really shouldn't be raised again. The high school here not only has a principle but has three Assistant Principles and two Deans. The middle schools and elementary schools also have two Assistant Principles. There are two middle schools and four elementaries.

Pastor Roger,

Brother, there are many more levels of bureaucracy that are further removed from the children at the local, county, state, and national levels. They have buildings full of people, and nobody really knows what they do.

I'll give you one funny example in my city that I know is true. They actually had a full-time person employed to go check thermostats and make sure the individual schools weren't cheating on the required temperature settings. True story!   ;D

Here's another one. One think tank bought some very expensive software for Windows type computers. Another think tank bought Apple computers that wouldn't use the software that was bought by the other think tank.   ;D  For the size of our school system, we would be talking about up in the hundreds of thousands of dollars just wasted that nobody benefited from.

I knew about those upper levels of bureaucracy and in fact have had to deal with them in the past. I was just not aware of the amount of money that is used in that aspect. If the Principles get that much then I am sure that the others higher up would get at least that much if not more. As for the software we had something similar happen here. Brand new computers, TV monitors and DVD players that never get used and won't be due to some malfunction with them.

There was also a scandal about a wiring job that was supposed to be for tying all the computers together in one school. Instead of going to a reputable wiring company at the lowest bid the job first went to a friend of a board member that messed it up and then went to another company to fix it all. It cost the school district twice the amount it should have.

I am sure that there is a lot more that doesn't reach the media that no one knows anything about.