Education Reform, And The Lying Liars That Tell Them!

Representative John Boehner declared recently that he “is in” for the new wave of educational reform in this country, which is being spearheaded by the “National School Choice Week” campaign. In a promotional spot for the campaign last month, Mr. Boehner boldly declared, “Hello, I’m John Boehner.”

I sat down with Boehner at his Ohio home to discuss this radical declaration and his sponsorship of “National School Choice Week.”

“We’re not dumb,” Mr. Boehner stated with strict eloquence while we sat for tea and conversation. “It’s the schools that are dumb. We need to put kids in schools that are not dumb.”

Mr. Boehner stood by his notion of increased parental involvement in our brief encounter, pointing out the long, ubiquitous tradition of parental involvement in the kinds of neighborhoods in which parents arrive home from low-wage jobs at 7:30 p.m. after a 16-hour shift and clearly can’t wait to wash up and make it out to the PTA meeting. You know… The bad neighborhoods.

“We simply need to get rid of the schools that are failing and put our kids in schools that aren’t failing. It’s like when you have a bunch of kids smoking pot in your basement. You can’t just take away the pot. You need to privatize the market and push for government to subsidize the small business owners, (ie. your local dealer), while cutting taxes and limiting government as an incentive to stimulate job creation!”

During my visit with Representative Boehner, it became clear that schools in the U.S. are running rampant with good teachers, excellent administrators, and decent budgets. The problem is clearly, and exclusively, the bad schools. The “National School Choice Week” campaign is advocating the idea that the choice of which school a student should attend in the hands of the parents, a prospect which has been thought possible by giving government subsidies. As such, if we take our students out of bad schools, we’ll do away with the only problem in the educational system, right? Still, I couldn’t understand why schools are so tirelessly nefarious, working day after day on ruining our otherwise excellent system.

I sat down with Governor Rick Scott (R- Fl) to discuss the issue of bad schools. Gov. Scott made headlines with his recent proposal of giving students of low socioeconomic standing “school vouchers” to pay for the different options that would allow parents to make a choice as to what school their child can go to.

“The problem, Ronald, is this notion that we should allow our children to be trapped in bad schools. Those schools are evil and they should be banished for all time to an existence best described as an empty shell of their former selves,” the governor told me during our brief interview.

Gov. Scott’s “educational savings account” idea proposes a fiscal product that would allow eligible parents to obtain “up to 85 percent of the state’s per-pupil funding figure.” When asked about whether federal and state representatives who advocate this plan – (largely conservatives and tea baggers, no affiliation) – planned to enact this change before or after they went through with their promise of cutting all the budgets, education included, Gov. Scott excused himself and proceeded to lock himself in the bathroom for several hours — refusing to come out until I left the premises.

So, logically speaking, what is wrong with the idea of reforming our educational system by keeping the actual system in place and just herding our students off to better schools? Is there nothing to lose with shepherding students through the thoroughfares of a fundamentally flawed system until they’re eventually deposited in the slightly more productive tentacles of a larger, low scoring educational beast which consumes academic integrity like a mystical dark mist shrouding a once small, benevolent, defenseless village?

Admittedly, taking children out of bad schools and putting them in good schools is somewhat productive. Giving parents options in choosing their child’s school is honestly a great idea, as proven by the scholarship program instituted in Washington, D.C. Still, by far the best idea I feel anyone has had is simply the thought that education reform strictly involves getting rid of bad schools, as opposed to fixing a fundamentally flawed system at its core: the bad schools we’re trying to get rid of. So while giving options to parents to choose their own child’s education is honestly a great way to further the cause, the biggest step forward in this move to reform the American educational system has been simply identifying the nemesis.

Now we may enact change because we know that evil schools are the only crumbling part of our money hemorrhaging, low scoring, overcrowded, ill-effective, teacher disdaining, savagely under budgeted, horrifically-administrated and often severely corrupted public education; and that change that will allow us to gracefully herd our kids to the better sites of that same system which has clearly worked for so many in the past.

Republican Fatigue

Democrats recently reported from the partisan trenches of the Senate that they will not have the votes needed to pass the DREAM Act, a piece of legislation that would allow young immigrants a path to citizenship via a college education or military service, amongst many other criteria. Critics against the bill (which passed in the House) are quick to blame Republicans.

“Son el diablo esos marditos senadores. Lo que me gustaria es meterle la cabeza por el culo, sabes? Darle verdadero sentido a la metaphora,” said Geraldo Cosme, a local Boston gardener, when asked about the Senate’s role in the DREAM Act getting shelved. Formally, the lack of Republican support for the bill stems from Republican promises to not “prioritize any matters above the critical issues of funding the government and preventing a job-killing tax hike,” or so said the formal letter recently issued and signed by the 42 members of the GOP caucus.

In reality, the matters were of a quite different concern. I sat with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConell (R- KY) Saturday at his house in Louisville to discuss the issue.

The day was frigid as a scorned woman, or a light-hearted conversation with Dick Cheney. Like Obama exiting a bipartisan conference, I could see my hot breath clearly in the icy air approaching Senator McConnel’s front door. There he stood, dressed in a traditional Kentucky “Turtle Shell,” the celebratory garb of many a Kentucky man whom a turtle he eerily doth resemble. Much to my surprise, the Minority Leader was bent on having his outside Saturday lemonade, a tradition in the McConnell household involving lemons, water, sugar, a couple pint glasses, and a 17-year-old Hispanic immigrant on all fours being paid what McConnell called “A handsome hourly wage for any table, none the less one without papers.

“The concerns of the ludicrous right…” he said, pausing quickly for a lemonade induced cough. “I mean, the Republican party, has a lot to do with making sure the tax cuts are passed. But if I can keep it real, we’re just kind of tired,” McConnell concluded.

We went on to discuss how much “crap” the Republicans had to deal with the last two years. Though it was difficult at first to keep away the radical idea that McConnell was suggesting laziness as the catalyst for the recent Republican legislative mannerisms, the conversation quickly became reasonable as McConnell made it simple.

“Have you ever had to filibuster like a million things? It’s totally labor intensive,” he said, describing the arduous task of herding often elderly, scared, and confused conservative Senators like John McCain (R-AZ) towards a podium where they must, often incoherently, give somber and illogical reasons why any legislation proposed by their blue-dog counterparts should be quickly destroyed.

“It’s not easy. We need a break from all this overcoming the Democratic agenda. It’s not a personal thing, I mean, we love immigrants at heart! And who doesn’t love and appreciate 9/11 responders suffering from health complications attributed to their heroic actions on that day! It’s just that the Democrats keep proposing and proposing and proposing and…” said the Kentucky Senator as he went into an incoherent rant about Democrats and their chronic need to pass legislation in response to the dire straits of our country. “It’s like it’s all they think about. Give it a well deserved break!” he concluded.

Senator McConnell finally came clean about the real reason for the dismissal of important legislation like the 9/11 Health Care Bill, the DREAM Act, the repealing of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, and the highly contested ASSS Bill, (Annual Senatorial Secret Santa Bill), which would place a cap of $20 on all gifts purchased for the ASSS. And I for one was not the least bit shaken. The fact is, Republicans are people too. They need a little R&R, and it’s well deserved after so much work done halting the plethora of progressive legislation put forth by Democrats that would have translated into months or years of work, regulation, and general attentiveness to the plights of Americans across the country. “I just don’t have it in me, Ronald,” said the over-worked McConnell. Placing his drink down onto the back of his table-person, Senator McConnell kneeled in humility and pleaded, “Please. Don’t make me do stuff!!”

I left the McConnell home with a new outlook on Republican strategy in Congress. My sweater was still wet with Kentucky Senator tears as I headed to the house of an old friend, House Majority Leader John Boehner. My intention to fill the void set by questions of why House Republicans were compelled to pass the DREAM Act, despite their sweat shop working conditions, was adequately met within the first minutes of our conversation in the living room of his Ohio home. “It’s simple,” said the Republican powerhouse. “We had a brunch scheduled with the elect House newbies for earlier that day at this new tapas bar down K Street, you know, near the 7-11 and that weird scrotum-shaped culdesac. So it got pretty wild because a lot of the Tea Party newbs had never had sangria,” said the Majority Leader as we sat watching the Scarface Widescreen Two-Disk Anniversary Edition. “By the time we had sobered up enough to realize what we had just voted on, there was no turning back.”

It all made perfect sense. House Repubs never had an intention to get stuff done! It was all just a simple misunderstanding. I mean, why in turn would they pass the DREAM Act, arguably the most difficult of the bills shelved by congress to put into action. It first requires that you locate immigrants in the U.S. who are under 16 years of age and were brought here by their immigrant parents. Then they’d have to earn a high school diploma/GED, demonstrate “good moral character,” attend two years of college or serve two years of military service, and pass criminal background checks only to receive a six-year conditional status, time in which they must meet other conditions to complete their path to citizenship! Holy cow! Talk about doing stuff! Passing this legislation would put in motion many wheels of government. “Wheels we’re going to need to knock down another two years of progressive and tactful ideas proposed by Democrats,” said Mr. Boehner when asked about the seeming infinite steps immigrants would have to be put through under the DREAM Act. “Who do you think would have to fill out the paperwork while they do all that stuff? The government! And we don’t even get anything out of it! We’re already citizens!”

The sad tale of Republican fatigue is not what rings through the halls of the Hill, nor is it what is being reported by the mass media. These poor Republicans are pleading with the American people, in earnest and dire fashion, for a chance to catch their breath. And though it may seem that Republican legislators are courting the Bush Tax Cuts above any other piece of legislation that would serve the other 98 percent of individuals, their tax cut arguments don’t defend in order to keep their fellow fabulously wealthy folk floating on, it’s important that we keep in mind that it only SEEMS that way.

The matter here has nothing to do with anything other than Republican fatigue drawn from their ‘Get-R-Undone’ mentality. So defend your tired and often cranky Republican leaders, America! For as Mr. Boehner concluded at the end of our interview: “We’re doing the best we can think of. We just hope Americans can actually get a clue and give us a couple of days off soon.”