I was talking to a teacher friend of mine from Texas this morning. She said that a news story she heard yesterday indicated that the legislature is ready to throw in the towel on school finance after both bills were shot down.
This, my friends is a travesty, the State Legislature of one of the largest states in the union can not agree upon a spending bill for their school system. My gut reaction is that this will happen, an emergency spending bill will passed that does nothing to solve any problems and all session the representatives will spend time talking about how important it is that they straighten this out for the children. But, they will not pass a meaningful bill to fund the school districts, but I’m sure they will pass a bill that will save some endangered frog from human encroachment, or indicate that we must only buy free trade coffee for use in state run facilities. PUHLEASE, as if that is going to result in any meaningful advancement on state/public work, when what we really need are legislators in all 50 states and at the federal level to be willing to take a chance and push for a Bill that will help us as Americans.
In the case of Texas school funding the NEA will be no help, they will spend another legislative session crying about voucher programs and making resolutions to make their conferences fragrance free and boycotting Wal-Mart.
It is sad the state of affairs in American Politics. Its all talk and no action on any real issues. Terrorism linked to ineffective Immigration policies is our biggest concern in the country…but do we overhaul to immigration process? No we open our borders more by making it impossible to search potential terrorist on flights and by not allowing our Border Patrols to actually arrest illegals. Hell, we have City governments in this country telling their Police Agencies that they will not in any circumstances question the immigration status of anyone. Hello, People, the 19 men that flew planes into the World Trade Center and Pentagon were not tourists…they were here after emigrating illegally!
It’s truly sad…to cry almost certainly means accepting defeat at the ineffectiveness of the American Political System, but to laugh at the absurdity of it means we recognize it for the circus it is, and the laughter only serves to spur the clowns onto greater and dumber acts.