The No Child Left Behind Act comes up for reconsideration by Congress in 2007. It seems to me that the biggest complaint is that the law is underfunded by the federal government, which the federal government is prone to do, leaving it to the States and local governments to come up with money to enforce the law. The president of the National Education Association pointed out, "Most states and school districts are facing unfunded mandates, real cuts in resources and no federal funds to help turn around low-performing schools."
Assuming that Congress provides funding for schools so that school systems can purchase new books and modern equipment and learning devices, like the one President Bush's brother sells to schools, getting federal funds in the process, the schools will have a bunch of old books and stuff.
The Republican candidate for Oklahoma state superintendent of education, Bill Crozier, wants to recycle old textbooks. The school children will be trained to use the old books as shields against AK-47's and other weapons when school shootings take place.
If he doesn't get elected, he could always promote the military use of old books for body armor in Iraq. I bet the President's brother would help him get his foot in the door.
I remember seeing a report a few years back that in the US quite a few teachers in poorer districts were buying school supplies out of their own saleries.
If they use old books won't they have to tear out some of the pages in order to keep their political correctness up to date?
Posted by: Anji at October 24, 2006 05:36 AMI actually saw on the news last night the clip about using the books as shields and, being in Oklahoma I thought I sure hope national news doesn't pick that up...guess my wish was not granted.
I thought they'd use the books as shields against accurate Science teaching, given that Oklahoma borders on Kansas.
Posted by: Joel at October 24, 2006 04:14 PMHey, why didn't officials think of such creative uses for old textbooks when I was in school - we could have added them to our duck and cover drills for whenever we were gonna be nuked by the Reds.
Posted by: Cowtown Pattie at October 24, 2006 10:38 PM