Public Universities in U.S. in Sore Need of a Remake
An article with the above title posted on the Investor’s Business Daily website last week and it’s a shame it will probably be ignored here in Illinois. This is the home, after all, of…
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Showdown in Madison: Excerpts from the national coverage (Part 1)
After the big government blizzard – signs of a fiscal sanity heat wave. Just like a couple of feet of the winter white stuff seems to last a long time, it seemed as if…
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New film documents how adult interests are turning schools into ‘dropout factories’
Below is a press release about yet another new film documenting how our public schools are failing. New film documents how adult interests are turning schools into ‘dropout factories;’ Assembly-line model to blame MUSKEGON, Mich. –…
Read MoreA review of the Illinois GOP Platform – Preamble and Commitments
From the preamble: 2008 Platform of the Illinois Republican Party PREAMBLE “We, the Illinois Republican Party, since the election of 1860, the Republican Party has had a special calling – to advance the founding…
Read MoreThe Day of Reckoning has arrived – so what’s the plan Illinois Republican legislators?
For many years this column has been asking our 70-80 Republican state legislators to present a governing vision for Illinois. A few legislators have presented excellent outlines of what’s wrong along with their ideas…
Read MoreThe attempt to block genuine education reform is transparent
Since the November election some of the education industry profiteers (some refer to them as “The Blob“) have been cooking up new schemes and rolling out the next edition of their talk-em-to-death-in-order-to-delay-any-real-reform strategy. If you…
Read MoreThe Zettler Rx: Hitting the Reset Button (Part 1)
As more Americans wake up to the mess that’s been made of the government at the state and federal level, one thing has to be driven home: Solutions already exist to fix nearly every…
Read MoreBill Brady, meet Bill Zettler
Nationally the issue of state-level taxpayer-funded pension systems fills the headlines daily. If you’re not seeing them – you can get a daily digest of them at websites like Pension Watch. Illinois has been…
Read MoreWhy Is Education So Hard to Reform?
The above title is taken from an article by school reformer Chester Finn that’s almost a decade old. More on his fine article later. Another article that’s only a month old – written by…
Read MoreThe Illinois Education Association can’t do math
A colleague brought to my attention a blog post from the Illinois Education Association website that was good for a laugh. Evidently, members of the education blob have just about had it with the Chicago…
Read MoreFounders’ Fridays – Thoughts on Education
Continuing with our series of letting the Founding Fathers speak for themselves, below are a handful of quotes from men who proved that they were no dummies. I also encourage everyone to turn into Glenn Beck’s TV show every Friday for his ongoing series about the Founding Fathers.
Read MoreFounders’ Fridays: Thoughts on Education
Continuing with our series of letting the Founding Fathers speak for themselves, below are a handful of quotes from men who proved that they were no dummies. “Knowledge is, in every country, the surest…
Read MoreOur bloated school systems: End them, don’t mend them
My title above is taken from the cover of the latest Weekly Standard magazine which features an article by P.J. O’Rourke that “explains how to deal with our bloated school systems.” In the best article I’ve ever read on the subject of the public schools,
O’Rourke writes: “Here’s my proposal: Close all the public schools. Send the kids home. Fire the teachers. Sell the buildings. Raze the U.S. Department of Education, leaving not one brick standing upon another and plow the land where it stood with salt.”
Read MorePublic Education and the Global Failure of Socialism
The above is the title of a speech given by Warren T. Brookes in 1990. That’s right, 1990. Brookes was a Detroit News Syndicated Columnist who died in 1991. If we were to revive him and he saw the world in 2010 – I’m sure he’d have a heart attack.
Read MoreTwo films many Illinois Republican state legislators should watch
The June copy of the Heartland Institute’s fantastic newspaper School Reform News finally was in my mail box the other day and a quick perusal of it reminded me of this terrible news from last month: “Illinois House Votes Down Voucher Bill; Bipartisan Effort Undercut by Republican Opposition.”
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