The Choice Channel

The American future is going to be very different from its past. Our children and grandchildren will live in a world in which originality, creativity, and meticulous workmanship are prized. Thoughtless assembly-line tasks will be done by robots. People who adapt to new circumstances and tools will thrive. People who choose not to change may find life is more challenging.

We all want a bright, happy life for future generations. How can we best help our children?

To give our children and grandchildren the shining future of that sunlit city on the hill, we must give them the most effective education that we can. We must give them an education that prepares them for the American future.

First, No Child Left Behind should be repealed.

The No Child Left Behind Act damages your child’s education. It forces schools to focus on a few basic skills. It ignores others that are just as important. Yes, reading, math, and science are important. Writing, history, foreign languages, and computer use are just as important. They are just as important, except in the eyes of the George Bush No Child Left Behind Act, which reduces writing, history, and foreign languages to second-class academic citizenship.

The No Child Left Behind Act damages national security. America’s strength through the centuries has been our ability to improvise and create: When a problem shows up, if one person doesn’t have an answer, someone else does. No Child Left Behind forces our children into an educational cookie-cutter mould, every child being pushed into the same mould. Under No Child Left Behind, what one child doesn’t know, others won’t, either.

In the words of former Vermont Governor (and current Democratic Party National Chair) Howard Dean, speaking to the National Coalition for Essential Schools in 2002:

“In the 21st Century, when all politics is personal, we shouldn’t be offering so-called solutions that do little except drive up property taxes in every state in the nation. We should set high educational standards; however, we need to take the Vermont approach rather than the Washington approach. The President’s bill is aimed at the small percentage of schools which continue to fail, and thus it over-regulates, under-funds, and ultimately harms communities and their children who want to succeed…”

Second, we should seek better education for every child.

How do we actually find better education for each child? We encourage new ideas. We encourage variety. We encourage quality. We encourage students to work hard. We pay attention to what works. I need go no farther than my own state, where public schools are now adding an engineering requirement at multiple grade levels. That’s a novel idea, the sort of innovation that No Child Left Behind endangers.

The Founding Fathers wisely recognized that when one level of government tries to do everything, it will do everything badly. That’s why they gave us the Tenth Amendment of the Bill of Rights. They tried to discourage the Congress from unwise meddling in tasks better left to the people or to state and local government.

The No Child Left Behind Act is just the opposite of the Tenth Amendment. It’s the ultimate act of Congressional financial irresponsibility, an unfunded mandate. The Act mandates that school districts do things, but does not pay their expenses.

By the way, Congress already has its own school district. Washington, D.C. Congress can delegate power, but under our Constitution Congress runs the District of Columbia. If your Congressman says he is using Federal Law to “improve” your school district, ask him about his record on improving Washington, D.C. schools. The D.C. School District is one of the most expensive in the country. It’s also among the worst. Tell your Congressman to go fix his schools, not make trouble for everyone else.

I’m George Phillies, running for the Libertarian Presidential nomination, and I’ve just given you a part one of my plan to better every child’s education.