Part IV: Campaign Finance, Education

NUMBER SIX PRIORITY -CAMPAIGN FINANCE

When my group of conservatives was prioritizing our Top Ten List, Campaign Finance was a very important subject to debate. We were just hearing about the illegal Asian donations being funneled into the DNC and the Labor Union leaders financing the terrible advertisements on TV and in the newspapers. It was understood that banning "soft money" corrects the problem.

During the Congressional hearings last week everything changed. Now my group is saying that our freedom of speech would be curtailed if soft money were banned. I can only leave it at that! The purpose of the Top Ten Wish List, which was sent to just about every political group, was to bring to everyone's attention the necessity of debating the list and in what order. It seems to be working even if it didn't turn out as we had planned.

My hard drive crashed at this time anyway, so I went off and sulked! Everything is back to normal so let's talk about Priority Number Seven - Education.

NUMBER SEVEN PRIORITY -EDUCATION

It seems that we are going about educating our young people bass-ackwards. Parents and educators should be checking the requirements of the work force. If a college degree is in the future for our kids, let's take a look at the entrance requirements. Not all kids will want to extend their schooling beyond high school, but if they find the need to, our high schools should prepare each child for at least a two-year junior college or a trade school that would prepare them to support themselves.

We should be talking of the "essentials." Our children should be able to read, understand the power of the numbers, and know the history of our country and why it was necessary to break away from the homelands of our ancestors. If we all understand what brought us to America, how to read and write about our superior form of government and how to do accounting procedures, our kids will be prepared to do anything they want.

So what's the problem? It seems that our kids aren't civilized enough to sit in a classroom with other kids. They don't have the attention span to learn their daily lessons. Many children can't take disciplining or structure in a classroom environment. Many don't have the vocabulary to debate a class subject and they may have to resort to using their fists. The schools can either set the rules and have the parents and teachers agree to these rules, or let the system dissolve into the chaotic mess where nobody learns anything but bad language and rudeness. The end result is twelve years of education lost.

Many home schools are being established and we are finding that the level of reading, history, math as well as discipline is working better than anyone expected. Many home schools are grouping together to improve the socialization of many kids that may not be related to mix with others of different ethic backgrounds and religious concepts. This is a perfect solution to the overcrowded classrooms of too many schools whose administration and teachers are inadequate for the job of teaching our over-stimulated, television-video game-addicted kids, i.e., uncivilized brats! The biggest advantage the home-taught kids have is that the Federal Government has no jurisdiction over the curriculum! As long as these students are learning the basics under a disciplined and structured system, everyone wins! To keep math alive, one 5th grade teacher brought in a racing form and showed the kids how to read the odds and figure out what the winning horse paid on a $2 bet.

Vouchers

Years ago I worked getting signatures on an initiative in California to put vouchers on the ballot. This system of allowing many poor kids to attend smaller schools sounded very good to me until I started listening to the parents who wanted no changes in their school system. California at that time was nearly at the bottom of the US as far as our kid's tests were concerned. California will always be grateful to Arkansas and Mississippi for keeping us from hitting rock bottom. One mother looked at me, when I handed her the petition, threw it back at me and said, "Ain't nothing more for them ta learn!" Vouchers lost in the election and little changes were discussed for the future of our California kids.

We are developing another solution to our problematic classrooms. Many churches are starting up reading classes after school. This has been so successful in the village of Cambria, just south of the Hearst Castle, that that the church board has requested a building permit to put up a school on the property owned by the Presbyterian Church. The reading classes after school are packed and there is a waiting list. The classes are being taught by volunteers using the wonderful senior citizens who live in the pines. My guess is that these students will be well prepared for whatever training they will need for their futures. Nearly half of the students are the children of migrant workers and their new language (English) is successfully being taught and in record speed.

I do not believe the liberals in Washington DC will ever allow a voucher program or even a series of charter schools to be developed successfully in this country as long as the Department of Education still exists. We all know that they will never allow funding to be given to the school districts without miles of red tape and attached strings. They will take up precious time and money using our kids in a testing program that will prove nothing!

Violence in our schools is now the responsibility of the Federal Government? Apparently the White House thinks so. Pull up www.gdbinc.com/mosaic2000.htm and read what Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms have designed. They want to profile our children from 1st through 12th grades using this computer program "to check on the violent tendencies."

My advice is to run, don't walk, to your government schools and put your kids elsewhere. Who will interpret the printouts and what action would be taken? What we would have would be another bureaucracy run by unqualified government employees just to put more labels on our kids AND PARENTS! Who would pay for this? Guess who? I read several newspapers each day and the ads and "letters to the editor" are pouring in to vote for more bond issues to build more multi-million dollar schools. There are also articles written by the college English Department heads complaining that many freshmen can't read. The private schools don't have a problem raising money for new classrooms, and they don't have bombings and shootings to worry about.

The best thing the Federal government could do for our children is nothing! We all should send a message loud and clear to "stay out and take your computer profiling programs with you!"

Published in the November 1, 1999 issue of Ether Zone. Copyright © 1999 Ether Zone Online. Reposting permitted with this message intact.