Tea Parties and School Closings

Let me start off by saying, that I support the Tea Party movement as much as anyone. As I explained to my coherts, this is someone doing what we want to do, and in this case, the more the marrier. This is something that I have been waiting to see happen for a long, LONG time and I think that ultimately its good for the nation.

That being said, I'd like to switch the focus over to school closings. I know kids everywhere when they hear those words get excited, I know I did. However, this is no cause for celebration. Due to federal and state budget crunches, states are now considering closing schools to help right their ships. This simply can not be allowed to happen. Closing the schools down is worse then Bush's "No Child Left Behind" policy. Instead of vouchers for schools it will simply allow state governments to close schools that are deemed poor or failing. And allowing the government to do this is an injustice to the community, that schools students and teachers.

I think, in the spirit of the tea parties, that we as a Nation need to unify, in one voice that enough is enough. If the Federal government is allowed to give taxpayer money to financial institutions and auto industries under the guise of it being too big to allow to fail, then the same messures need to be taken to protect our schools. There is no bigger investment, no bigger entity in our nation nor anything bigger for the future of our nation then it's education system.

By allowing schools to close down, we are simply forced to transfer those students to alternative schools without the intention of making said schools bigger. This leads to the obvious problem, schools will become over crowded. Teachers, instead of the 15-20 students they currently have, will be forced to have double that, giving even less one-on-one time that students may need with their teachers.

This is not a worse case senario, Detriot may have to close 23 schools which would save the city $303 million dollars but put $600 teachers out of work. This is not a major city issue either, as New Albany, Indiana may be forced to close 2 schools. One of the schools in New Albany, a town just north of Louisville, Kentucky was visited by President Bush for it's improvments thanks to his "No Child Left Behind" and has recently recieved blue ribbons for being an exceptional school.

Ladies and gentlemen, I understand at times we may not agree. I also understand that this is a difficult time for all of us. However, President Obama promised us better schooling for our children. And while he may focus on higher education and making college more affordable, we need to keep elementary schools open so our children can grow up with dreams of going to college. This is where we need to draw a line in the sand. For a president who said that Wall Street was too big an entity to allow to fail, WE need to say that the children on Main Street are too important to allow to fail.