Print'The war people are trying to take money from our school'
A kindergartener explains.
This is a video of a six year old boy explaining what was told to him by his teacher. After being asked the same questions several times, his answers remain consistent.
Following a school wide PA announcement of a "special visitor," the boy's teacher sat the children down in a circle, and explained to them that "the war people are trying to take money from the school".
That a professional educator would use a kindergarten classroom to express emotionally driven political views is repugnant. What's worse, is the complete lack of facts, logic, and reason in such statements.
There are approximately 20 powers enumerated to the Congress by the Constitution. These include the powers to tax, spend, raise an army, and declare war. All spending bills originate in the House of Representatives (Article I).
The word "education" appears in the Constitution exactly zero times. Constitutionally, education is not (nor should it be) a function of the federal government. Further, the overwhelming majority of funding for public schools comes from local and state taxes. The federal defense budget, no matter how bloated, has no impact on education whatsoever. Every college graduate should be able to easily explain this.
Overall, the U.S. has quadrupled (adjusted for inflation) spending on education in the last 50 years, and has nothing to show for it whatsoever. The problem is not money -- it is educational philosophy. Instead of teaching multiculturalism, environmentalism, and globalism, public schools should be emphasizing individual achievement in reading, writing, arithmetic, sciences and the arts. The questionable, unproven theories of Lev Vygotsky and John Dewey (which are in use in my school district) must be permanently discarded.
Unfortunately, such nonsense is systemic throughout our public schools, and not just in the big cities.
Jason McNew can be reached at jasond@mcnew.org.
