Education

---

Education isn't properly a federal issue, as the Constitution doesn't grant the federal government authority in this area.

I think somebody with a clear idea of what the federal government ought to be doing in this field should propose an amendment and we can go from there. Maybe leave off several days of mandatory testing every year, Congressionally mandated classroom subjects, and a massive bureaucracy.

And as long as I'm on this subject, how is it we spend somewhere between $150,000 and $200,000 a year per classroom and yet have students who can't read their diplomas? Is there someone in charge we need to talk to about this?

addendum:
1/15/08- OK, so assuming the requisite Constitutional authority, which of course you can't but say you could, what should be the role of the federal government in education? Griff and I were discussing this today and we both agreed that someone shouldn't be kept from getting a college degree for lack of money, though I'm personally of a mind that if you want a degree bad enough then you should be willing to take on some debt to get it, which is what I did. But apart from money, I don't really see what the federal government has to contribute to education. It may be an oversimplification, but it seems to me that education is for the most part about students, teachers, and buildings, none of which particularly require centralized national planning and control. And this might be an oversimplification as well, but if a state can't even educate its children without outside help then maybe it just needs to be taken over entirely.