BCT Editorial – 12/9/08

This page was last updated on December 10, 2008.

Poor grade; Editorial; Beaver County Times; December 9, 2008.

The editorial subtitle is “School violence reports show how unrealistic federal education law is.”

Though both the Times and I oppose the NCLBA, we do so for different reasons. I oppose it because the feds have no business getting involved in education. The Times opposes the NCLBA because it attempted make schools accountable.

The editorial asserts, “Not all the blame for this can be laid on state and local officials. They’re mandated to do so by a provision of the federal No Child Left Behind law that requires this information be used to determine whether a school should be labeled as ‘persistently dangerous.’”

I have to characterize the above paragraph as a lie or gross ignorance of the Constitution. The NCLBA is voluntary and I can’t believe any legitimate newspaper isn’t aware of that fact. The 10^th 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. As a result, the federal government cannot mandate “standards, rules and regulations to states and local school boards.” Schools and states don’t have to follow federal rules when they don’t accept federal education dollars. Check the various education acts – including the NCLBA – if you have doubts.