The Destruction of Public Education
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11:17 PM | Posted in
Apparently yesterday was "bizarro world" day in the United States Congress as Michele Bachmann testified in favor of new federal programs for educating foster children.

Let us examine the inconsistency, or in Bachmann's world, the twisted consistency:

From the St. Cloud Times:

“If anyone needs a leg up in life, it is foster children,” she told a House Ways and Means Committee panel on income security and family support. “They are great kids. They just want to know that somebody loves them.”

Bachmann suggested that Congress create a federal program that would give foster parents the option of sending children to public or private schools.

Isn't this the same woman that said she was "a strong supporter of LOCAL control for our schools"? Well yes, but if you notice, her aversion to federal programs and mandates is trumped by her ongoing quest to denigrate and dismantle the public education system in this country. Her longtime support from organizations such as Edwatch and Alliance for the Separation of School and State that seek to end public schooling in the United States is well documented. So, this is not out of sincere belief that she tries to create this program but out of a strategy to chip away at our longstanding free public school system.

From the St. Cloud Times:

As a foster parent, she testified, Bachmann was not allowed to send her foster children to private school.

Bachmann said many of her foster children suffered because they were not challenged at school or expected to succeed. She testified that one of her foster kids said she was placed in a “stupid people math” class.

I haven't been able to find any state statute or rule stating that foster children are "not allowed" to attend private school. However, on St. Cloud Times Story Chat I found this authoritative answer:

23.

hickchick from the sticks

Comment Posted: 6/20/2007 9:44:23 AM


I can think of two reasons why she wasn't "allowed" to send her foster kids to private schools. First, she would have had to pay the tuition with no funds from county or state to reimburse her. In that case it's not that she wasn't allowed to, it's that she wasn't willing or financially able to pay for it herself. The second possible reason it that education choices for foster kids are made by a team consisting of some or all of the following: foster parents, social workers, guardian ad litem, birth parents, and the foster kid themselves. If the team decides it isn't in the childs best interest to go to a private school, then they don't go. Although foster parents are told to treat the child as their own, many things have to have the approval of the entire team.


From Bachmann's Legislative website:

"I believe it’s critical for Congress to create a federal school choice program for foster children, providing an option to stay in the same, stable school environment, regardless of where they are placed. In Congress, I will continue working to ensure that these children have stable learning environments where they feel accepted and can fully realize their potential."

Good job Michele, you keep plugging away at the public school system!

Please remember, this entire paragraph is code for:

I believe it is critical for Congress to create a program drawing money away from the public school system and placing it in the hands of private schools such as the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod. In Congress, I will continue working to destroy the public school system in America as instructed by my good friends at Edwatch and Alliance for the Separation of School and State. You see, only in a private religious school can I effectively indoctrinate these children about such "myths" as evolution.
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