The Bush administration: Lowering Expectations for the next generations

Our kids are getting dumber, fatter, and more complacent. Now, without judging, simply sit back and look at that objectively and try to figure out why. Could it be because the American lifestyle is just too complex and busy to actually make sure that we are educating our children or feeding them properly, or teaching them how to go out into the world and be useful to society? Perhaps.

That is part of it, and no small part at that, but kids today have another target for their blame.In nearly everything they touch, the Bush administration is lowering the bar for the present and future of this country. Accountability and truth are being assaulted and drawn to the brink of extinction. What does it say that a crony of our president can get his sentence commuted simply because the president deems his sentence excessive? It tells me that well-connected people don't ever see consequences as long as they follow the leader. Already, this commutation is sending shockwaves through the law enforcement community, with prisoners throughout the country asking their lawyers to assert the Libby "excessive sentence" ploy.

Whatever happened to "honesty is the best policy?" What about, "the truth will set you free?" Our youth are being taught that you can lie your way to the top, and, once you get there, you and your friends will be bullet-proof. They're also being taught that the Constitution, that revered document our framers worked so hard on, is just a piece of paper. The rule of law is being perverted to help the few, while subjugating the many, and this is what our children are viewing every day on the evening news. Oh wait, their parents don't make them watch the evening news...what am I thinking?

Every day, we see our president appeal to the lowest of the low, as our country sinks further and further into the quicksand that we tripped into after the 2000 election. No Child Left Behind may be dragging the less studious kids along for the ride, but it's leaving behind quality educators. My generation and the generation of my parents, are leaving the teaching field as quickly as they enter it. It's no longer possible to teach class like that favorite teacher you had growing up. Now our kids are being taught based on curriculums set up by some guy in a room that wants test scores to go up. And if the scores don't go up...? Well, then the unthinkable and completely counter-intuitive occurs...funding is cut. Shouldn't it be the other way around? Shouldn't the struggling schools receive more funds to try bringing themselves back to the level they should be? Of course not...this brainchild of a plan comes from the same administration that last week looked at benchmarks for the Iraq war and concluded that 8 out of 18 was satisfactory enough for Bush to waive Congress' benchmark requirement on war funding. For those of you who may not be math whizzes, 8/18 us roughly 44.4 percent. I don't know what new math they're teaching in schools these days, but when I was in school, that was a failing grade...what's next? kids being told that they cannot go to recess unless they pass their spelling tests, then being allowed to petition that the 2 words out of twenty they got right are the hardest on the page, so by extension they should be allowed to play kickball with the other kids even though they got a 10 on the damned test!

We need to change this road we're on because if we don't, it won't be long before someone will trump Bush as the dumbest and worst president in history!