New Guidelines for No Child Left Behind

The government is again trying to make No Child Left Behind a success and Obama is now promising that by the year 2020 every child will be college and carreer ready. George F. Will, once being in the education arena as a former professor of political philosophy at Michigan State University, has written this insightful editorial on why this theory has never worked and will never work and can identify with the frustration felt by educators, parents, and students as it pertains to guidelines that constantly change in order to make the numbers look good. Since federal education policies began in 1965 there has never been a graduation rate that exceeded 77.1%, and that was in the year 1969! The governments intervention into the educational system has proven to not be effective even with the monetary incentives rewarded to those schools who show increases in proficiency while at the same time lowering the definition of what proficiency is. I agree with Will when he states that 'Washington should set national standards and measurements and leave states free to choose how to meet them'. I have known many wonderfully enthusiastic teachers who were constantly worried about meeting some standard and felt it took away from the joy of their chosen profession. Will could have expanded on thoughts of why federal education standards have been failures and graduation rates have never been high, but he did not, so I will put in my two cents. My first thought focuses on the areas of our country where education might be of lesser importance than learning the family business or the need to work to help support family. Secondly, just because a person does not graduate from high school does not automatically make them prone to failure. There are many people who did not find interest in mainstream education, focused on what did interest them, and have made a success of their lives.

A Nation Ungovernable?

Here we go again. A commentary on what has gone wrong during the first year of a presidency.Yes, we have had presidents that seem to have had the political wand to make everything smooth, but I feel it is too early to judge the political saavy of a man who has his heart in the right place in wanting to fix the crumbling mess of years past. Yes, his cap-and-trade and health care reform may be in ruins, but thankfully, he is not one to back down. I do agree with the author, Charles Krauthammer ( who happens to be an American Pulitzer Prize winning columnist and political commentator), when he conveys "the Democrats failed because they tried to impose a left-wing agenda on a center-right country". It was not the complex bureaucratic structure of our government that failed to accept the initiatives put before them but Americans that are shaking in their boots by the economic changes and are in fear of expanding debt, either their own in the way of taxes, or nationally. For the ones who want to blame the system for Obama's struggle this first year, the author does a great job in explaining that the president needs to win over the people, as other presidents have done, as a way to ensure acceptance of his initiatives.

Another Reason for Health Care Reform

The article "Calif. insurer's rate increases draw attention of federal government", washingtonpost.com, is another example of an insurance company whose greed knows no bounds. Anthem Blue Cross justifies the rate increase of 39% for individual policyholders by saying the company is paying more than it should on care even though the parent company has seen their profits rise in the billions. President Obama's secretary of health and human services, Kathleen Sebelius, has written a letter to Anthem, sort of like calling them on the carpet. Sebelius has requested Anthem to make a full disclosure, to all policyholders, on how the premiums are divided among profits, overhead, and administration costs. This article is interesting because it drives home the fact that reform is desperately needed. Any business is in business to make a profit but to have something that is a necessity to many, then to squeeze the blood out of them to pay for that necessity, should be a crime.