CNN’s Political Ticker isolates this element of Rep. Michele Bachmann’s reliably conservative responses at Sen. Jim DeMint’s political forum in South Carolina today, making it both a headline and lead paragraph:
Painting herself as a “constitutional conservative” Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann told Sen. Jim DeMint’s forum Monday that if elected president she would look to get rid of the Department of Education, among other things.
“Because the Constitution does not specifically enumerate nor does it give to the federal government the role and duty to superintend over education that historically has been held by the parents and by local communities and by state governments,” she said, responding to a question by DeMint, a popular figure among the tea party movement.
The not-so-subtle implication of PT’s prominent placement of this Bachmann statement is that it’s obviously extreme. You know those crazy “constitutional conservatives”! But is it? Abolishing the Department of Education might sound like an ultra-conservative pipe dream — and anything but advisable in the Information Age, when education is key to global competitiveness — but, perhaps, just perhaps, Bachmann has a point.
In the first place, she’s right about the Constitution. But, in the second, does the federal government actually do a better job of educating our children than would state or local governments? Naturally, questions of right and equity enter in. It is, after all, commonly accepted that children have the right to an equal education (although even that could be debated). But as regards efficacy, it’s pretty clear flexibility and freedom to address the needs of individual children enhances education.
How about keeping all of those federal tax dollars back in the states. The states know what levels and types of educations are needed to best serve their populations. In many states, industry moves into communities who put together educational programs to meet their basic needs.
Get rid of all of the employees in the Department of Education and let those funds stay in the states.
Get rid of the Department of Education after all the years of building a liberal indoctrination system throughout all 57 states, are you nuts. How will we maintain a guaranteed amount of Leftist pablum and propaganda to all the students. Without proper indoctrination, young minds begin to think on their own and there is often deviation from Leftist goals in education. Let’s be serious, the Left has conspired for decades to put this system in place; they do no intend to have it swept away by common sense and an intellectually honest approach to education.
After all, with brilliant scholars like the unrepentant domestic terrorist Bill Ayers writing text books for our children, what are we afraid of, you must be daft not to trust a personal friend of the president.