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Failing Grades On Education

Third in a series on the crucial issues that American Jews
should consider in the Nov. 2 presidential election.

W

e Jews love to educate our children.
We have a robust system of our own day
schools that serve well a rising number of
students. In addition, many of us can afford either to
live in communities with high-quality public schools
or to pay tuition for private non-Jewish schools.
The question for us, however, in this presidential
election, when national priorities get shaped, is how
much we truly care about educating other people's chil-
dren in cities that once were vital to Jewish success in
America.
Far too many public school systems are in
awful trouble, dealing with youngsters who
can barely read or write or handle simple
mathematics — much less deal with history
or art or foreign languages or any basic science. And
that condition is as urgent for America's future as any-
thing the Department of Homeland Security faces.
Historically, education has been a local responsibility
and presidential and congressional candidates tended
to think more about what the teachers' unions were
doing than about what was actually happening in the
classrooms. But in the last two decades, Washington
has, properly, provided both new programs, such as
Head Start for preschoolers, and older programs, like
special education. With federal dollars accounting for
about 10 percent of all public education spending, it
was inevitable that politicians would call for greater
national monitoring of classrooms.
The most recent sad result of the federalization
process is the No Child Left Behind law, which

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President George W. Bush claims as a
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major achievement and as proof of his
commitment to bettering schools. But
the law, with its emphasis on state-run
standardized testing as a measure of
school progress, is deeply flawed. The
tests become a straightjacket for teachers,
taking joy and experimentation out of
the classroom and conditioning students
to think that rote learning is enough.
Imagine teaching Torah as if one-word
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multiple-choice answers were sufficient.
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To make matters worse, the president's
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budget provides about $27 billion less
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than the various federal laws
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would seem to require. While
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he would provide more money
to assure reading skills by the
end of third grade, his proposal under-
funds Head Start and provides no money
to reduce class size or meet other federal
mandates.
At the core, this administration doesn't
seem to embrace the ideal that public
school teachers and traditional public
special college savings programs benefits the well-to-do
schools are part of America's bedrock. It advocates
but not the middle-income families. In this, as in other
charter schools, which have, at best, a mixed record of
education areas, the proposals from Sen. John E Kerry
success, and tuition vouchers, which will certainly
and the Democrats are substantially better.
drain dollars from public classrooms. It almost never
There are a lot of big E's to think about in this elec-
has a kind word for classroom teachers, the frontline
tion — the Economy, the Environment and Energy.
troops in the war on literacy.
But none deserves more care than Education, for with-
At the higher education level, Bush would add
out it, we do not have a future as a nation. As Jews
money to the Pell Grant program, but not for lower-
who love learning, we must demand a president who
income students. And his reliance on tax credits for
does also.

EDIT ORIAL

❑

One Heck Of A War

N

athan Bedford Forrest may not have been the
most admirable character. The Confederate
cavalry general was, after all, the first Imperial
Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.
But he had a firm grasp on the nature of war.
"War means fightin'," said Forrest, "and fightin'
means killin'."
This is a crude but simple formulation that
America's leaders seem to forget from time to time at
their peril.
When a democracy goes to war, it had better be
fighting to win unconditionally because its citizens
will not support a conflict with uncertain goals, hazy
definitions of victory and mounting casualties. Like
the one we're in now
There is no such thing as a benevolent war. You
cannot announce yourself as a liberator rather than a
conqueror and expect to be taken seriously. You can-
not loose the dogs of war, then yank them back on a
short leash to become targets.
Another Civil War general, William T. Sherman,
has been called the first modern military leader. It is

George Cantor's e-mail address is

gcantor@thejewishnews.com

is for the terrorists who have hijacked the reli-
because he understood that a war is won only
gion to refrain from coming over here and
when the other side loses the will to fight.
killing us. If they cannot bring themselves to
That's why Sherman said war is hell, and
do that, we have to go where they are and kill
proved it on his march through Georgia.
them.
In carrying out this confused and bungled
But that isn't what we did. If they are sup-
campaign in Iraq, however, President Bush
posed to have lost the will to carry on the
seemed to think that war need only be briefly
fight, they don't seem to be picking up on
unpleasant. He was in such a rush to get on
that message.
with the nation-building part, he neglected to
GEO RGE
Where is General Sherman when we need
win it first. It was the same mistake his father
CAN TOR
him?
made in the 1991 Gulf War.
Rea thy
Instead of leveling Falujah, the terrorist
Gen. John Pershing, who led the American
Ch eck
base, we bargain a truce. Instead of demand-
Expeditionary Force in World War I, said the
ing that Saudi Arabia close its hate-filled
biggest mistake the Allies made was accepting
Wahhabi schools, we permit them to keep on turning
an armistice too soon, before the fighting reached
out terrorist recruits. Instead of taking out Iran's
German soil.
nuclear capability with an air strike, as Israel once did
Because the German people never experienced the
with Iraq, we wring our hands.
war's devastation firsthand, he said, they were all too
I hate to be the one to break the news, but we are
willing to believe that they had been betrayed and
in a war to defend our civilization against an enemy
not defeated. This fed right into Hitler's message, and
that made the first strike, will not negotiate and does
you know whom he blamed.
not hesitate to kill us, Jews and Christians alike,
In his recent pseudo-documentary, Michael Moore
wherever he can find us.
accused Bush of visiting unnecessary destruction
When a nation goes to war, it opens the gates of
upon the happy, blameless Iraqi people. But he had it
hell. If the president wasn't prepared to gaze at the
absolutely backwards. Where we erred was starting to
horror on the other side, he should have kept them
rebuild Iraq before crushing all resistance.
tightly shut.
America has no argument with Islam. All we want

❑

10/ 1
2004

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