BCT Editorial – 11/24/04

This page was last updated on November 24, 2004.

Follow the money; Editorial; Beaver County Times; November 24, 2004.

The Times simply refuses to acknowledge the federal government has no Constitutional role in education.

The gist of this editorial is that the feds once again imposed rules on schools but failed to provide adequate funding. Rather than address the editorial sentence by sentence, I’ll stick to a couple of sentences upon which the validity of the editorial depends.

The editorial states, “But don’t get too carried away by the bonhomie coming out of D.C. on this issue because lawmakers ducked something very important: their responsibility to fully fund special education.”

The Times must have a different version of the Constitution than I. The 10th amendment to the U.S. Constitution says, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved for the States respectively, or to the people.” The Constitution delegates no education powers to the federal government. This makes education a state, community, and individual responsibility. Special or otherwise, the Constitution indicates the federal government has no role in education.

Toward the end of the editorial we read, “Special education has been and remains an underfunded federal mandate.” This is BS; there is no mandate. Remember that the definition of mandate is “command” or “order.” Because the Constitution delegates no education powers to the federal government, schools don’t have to follow federal rules when they don’t accept federal dollars. Check the various education acts if you have doubts.

There is a life lesson here for individuals and local and state governments. If you don’t want to be controlled by someone, don’t accept their money.