Now, we’ve already seen the dangers of Democrats like Hillary Clinton refusing to do her job at the State Deparment. During her term, she focused on promoting abortion abroad and on promoting LGBT rights, and neglected religious liberty and national security, i.e. – Benghazi and her insecure e-mail server. But what happens when Democrats in the education system focus on pushing a Democrat agenda, and neglect the task of teaching children the basic skills they will need to get jobs?
For the first time in many years, national math and reading test scores have dropped for elementary-school kids. Who’s to blame? The better question is, who isn’t?
The biennial tests conducted by the National Assessment of Educational Progress measure reading and math comprehension among a sample of thousands of fourth- and eighth-graders.
Math scores dropped two points among fourth-graders and three points among those in the eighth grade. Fourth-grade reading scores were up a point, but reading scores in eighth grade dropped three.
Even the growth over the past two decades is unimpressive. The NAEP tests show that two-thirds of eighth-graders are less than proficient in math, and almost as many are below in reading. And proficiency levels in both subjects drop between fourth and eighth grades.
Educrats have offered lots of excuses for this year’s decline, but little explanation. It was the recession. It involved budget cuts. It’s a mystery.
But what the results show pretty clearly is that constant federal meddling and vast amounts of money have, if anything, impeded education progress, not spurred it on.
Per-pupil spending on elementary and secondary education has more than doubled since 1992, while math and reading scores eked out gains of less than 5%, on average.
Moreover, an endless series of Washington-based education changes have done little except cause disruption. In fact, Education Secretary Arne Duncan is now saying President Obama’s Race to the Top and Common Core measures are to blame for the sag in scores because the “improvements” are so sweeping. “Big change,” he said, “never happens overnight.”
Actually, when it comes to our centralized, bloated, bureaucratic, union-dominated public schools, big change never happens, period.
Spending on education has gone up a lot in the past decades, but test scores haven’t budged:
Cato Institute graphs education spending against test scores
Although test scores are not going up, the teacher unions are donating millions of dollars to the Democrats so that there is no accountability:
Don’t expect Democrats to put children’s education needs over teacher unions
But there is some hope… when politicians embrace school choice, parents get to pull their kids out of failing schools and put them into customer-focused schools. Check out Bobby Jindal’s answer to a question about rising tuition costs in last night’s first CNBC debate:
Republicans should care about the education issue… because Democrats surely do not.
Now, Ted Cruz is currently my #2 choice behind the excellent Governor of Louisiana, Bobby Jindal. However, this 10-minute video of Ted Cruz doing what I think he does best must be blogged.
Sen. Ted Cruz’s questioning of Sierra Club President Aaron Mair turned contentious Tuesday, then went viral when the Texas Republican posted the nearly 10-minute exchange.
Cruz repeatedly pressed Mair to address satellite data that found an 18-year pause in global warming, countering the Sierra Club’s claim of a warming trend. He asked the green group to retract its assertion that the “planet is cooking” in light of scientific evidence suggesting the opposite.
Mair stonewalled the question each time, answering only that his group supports the “97 percent of scientists that say the exact opposite.”
“So if the data are contrary to your testimony, would the Sierra Club issue a retraction?” Cruz asked.
“Sir, we concur with the 97-percent scientific consensus with regards to global warming,” Mair responded.
The two battled back and forth in a contentious exchange until Cruz concluded in frustration that Mair was unwilling to rescind his claim.
“You know, Mr. Mair, I find it striking that for a public policy organization that purports to focus exclusively on environmental issues, that you’re not willing to tell this committee that you would issue a retraction if your testimony is objectively false under scientific data,” Cruz said. “That undermines the credibility of any organization.”
Now, the knock on Cruz is that he has not been able to accomplish much as a legislator. I am looking for someone who can craft legislation that gets enough votes between the two parties to move forward and either get vetoed, or get turned into law. Cruz sounds so good when he talks, but I want a candidate who has more policy accomplishments and has successfully defended his policies and decisions from attacks.
Bobby Jindal is my top pick for exactly that reason. Rather than merely saying the things I want to hear, he adds doing the things I want to be done to his words.
Take a look at this article from the Washington Post, which looks at which candidate was the most effective at moving legislation, and getting bills turned into laws.
It says:
Jindal got 1.7 laws passed for every year he spent in the House, far more than anyone else.
By sponsored bills, he also comes out on top, though John Kasich also had a relatively high percentage of the bills he sponsored in the House see the president’s pen.
So who is the most effective legislator running for president? By this metric, we’ll give it to Jindal.
Here’s the graph:
Governor Bobby Jindal is the best at getting things done
Let’s look a bit more at the differences between Cruz and Jindal. First, Jindal is a policy guru, and has got things done in education and health care policy going back as far as 1996, when he was only 24 years old and go the job to take over state-level health care policy in Louisiana. He knocked it out of the park. As Governor of Louisiana, he put into place a state-wide voucher program and privatized many wasteful, bloated government programs. And he was willing to battle against the Obama administration to keep his “parent’s choice” education plan. He is the only GOP primary candidate with a detailed plan to repeal and replace Obamacare, and because of his past success, we know that he is competent to do that job. We don’t have to just believe his words, we can look at his accomplishments. And Jindal is the most socially conservative candidate in the race. Whether it’s on abortion or gay marriage, we don’t have to trust mere words. We have something better: actions. Cruz does not have the record on social issues that Jindal has. And what’s more, I don’t think that Cruz is as conservative on social issues as Jindal is.
So, that’s why Jindal is my number one pick right now, and Cruz is number two. We are losing a lot of experience and achievements if we have to fall back to Cruz. He would make a good attorney general, but he is not the best qualified conservative in the primary. Jindal is.
Carly Fiorina outperforms at first GOP primary debate
Carly Fiorina was the star of the first GOP debate, no one else was even close. I admit that even though I am someone who favors only conservative governors as candidates (Walker, Jindal, Perry).
Highlights:
The Fox News moderators were just awful, but Fiorina still shined. The other candidates who impressed me were Perry and Jindal.
The reactions on Twitter were unaninmous in declaring her the winner, with Jindal and Perry being mentioned as runners-up.
Twitter reactions to the first GOP debate
Let’s take a look at that article from The Federalist that Mollie Hemingway tweeted.
She says:
FOX News hosted an early debate for seven candidates whose polling numbers weren’t high enough to get on the main stage. Former New York Governor George Pataki, former Virginia Governor Jim Gilmore, Sen. Lindsay Graham, R-SC, Former Sen. Rick Santorum, R-PA, former Texas Governor Rick Perry, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal and businesswoman Carly Fiorina answered questions from FOX News’ Martha MacCallum and Bill Hemmer.
Graham focused his answers on ISIL, discussion of which seems to be the main motivating factor in his run for presidency. Perry focused on his experience. Jindal emphasized the importance of conservative governance. Pataki and Gilmore emphasized records from their time as governors less recent than Perry’s. And Santorum revisited themes, such as helping out blue collar workers, he emphasized during his earlier run for presidency.
But it was Carly who stood out. Fiorina towered over her opponents, even though many of them handled themselves well. When asked about Donald Trump’s popularity, Fiorina pointed out progressive positions he held while also acknowledging that his popularity is a result of the GOP political class failing to serve its constituents. Still, she asked, “What are the principles by which he’ll govern?
“There’s a sharpness and intelligence about her. A precision of her message that really cuts through,” FOX News’ Chris Wallace said immediately after the debate.
That was seen in one answer when she went out of her way to draw distinctions between conservatism and progressivism, about how they differ at their core in their views of the individual, equality, and the role of the government. Though she officially ran out of time in this answer, she kept going until she made her point and a moderator would have been crazy to stop her, on account of how compelling the moment was. Her control of the stage at that moment had something of Reagan’s “I am paying for this microphone” to it, a defiance based in commitment to a cause.
Simply articulating conservatism, much less doing it with precision and eloquence, reminds viewers how rarely such defenses of conservatism are heard from current Republican leadership. It also reminds them how ineffective and inarticulate such defenses of conservatism usually are.
She should have been in the debate of the top 10 candidates, and let that clown Donald Trump go jump in a lake.
Now there was some division about who won – some people thought Jindal and Perry also did well the debate:
Jindal and Perry also did well in the first GOP debate
Rachel Alexander explain why she liked Jindal in this article at The Stream.
She writes:
It was clear who the winners were. Carly Fiorina and Bobby Jindal consistently had solid, confident, precise, conservative answers to each question.
The other candidates fared less well. Lindsey Graham was tripped up a couple of times on his lack of a conservative record. When confronted about working with Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton on climate change legislation, he admitted he would reduce the country’s use of fossil fuels. George Pataki likewise stumbled when confronted about his pro-choice record. Asked about the horrific Planned Parenthood undercover videos of selling fetal body parts, he responded that Roe v. Wade has been the law of the land for over 40 years and he would not ban abortion before 20 weeks.
Rick Perry seemed unsure of himself on issues, stumbling a bit over his words. Rick Santorum kept saying he wanted to make the U.S. number one in manufacturing jobs — despite the fact we are a First World country and technology is naturally causing shrinkage in manufacturing jobs. Jim Gilmore seemed too focused on repeating his past experience.
When asked about Ohio Governor John Kasich supporting Medicaid expansion in Ohio, Bobby Jindal soundly refuted it. “We can’t afford the entitlement programs we already have today,” he said, and stated that it was a mistake to expand Medicaid.
He said Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are working hard to turn the American dream into a nightmare.
“We’re going to have too many people in the cart rather than pulling the cart,” he said, and it isn’t free money we’re borrowing from China. He then pivoted to simultaneously enlist Obama in the point he was making, and point up how loose spending weakens America on the world stage:
Yesterday, the president stunningly admitted this. He said, “we don’t have leverage with China to get a better deal on Iran because we need them to lend us money to continue operating our government.”
The president of the United States admitting that he’s weakening our government’s position, our foreign policy standing, because he can’t control spending in D.C.
Both Perry and Fiorina did well discussing the Iranian threat. Perry said he’s on the side that keeps Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. In a surprise endorsement of Fiorina, he said, “I would rather have Carly doing our negotiation than John Kerry.” If so, he continued, maybe there might be a deal that didn’t give everything away. There needs to be a Congress that says, “Hell, no” to this regime. If elected, the first thing he would do would be to tear up Obama’s agreement with Iran.
I also found an interesting exchange between Fiorina and that liberal clown Chris Matthews on MSNBC. She knows how to deal with the liberal media. Probably because she is used to being CEO and having people listen.
I listened to the second debate as well, but it was harder to follow, because of the crowd noise, and the more obnoxious moderators, e.g. – Megyn Kelly. Will hopefully have a post up about that by midnight.
WINTERY KNIGHT 