Education "Reform" is identical to Health Care "Reform"

I've taken a break the last few days to focus in our primary races in the St. Louis area...what an election! Proposition C passed with 71% voting YES to health care freedom. I was an assistant supervisor at a liberal leaning precinct...and many people told me they came in to vote specifically against the health care mandate.

I hope our legislators can now focus in on what's going on in the state with the educational mandates. I've said all along the Race to the Top and other federal mandates are the educational versions of the Health Care bill. Let me outline why I say this:

• The educational and health care bills were formulated behind closed doors.
• Both bills bypassed state legislatures. Legislatures have to come up with money they don't have to fund the programs the Federal government has mandated states must follow.
• Both bills had little or no input on the specifics from the taxpayers who are told how their tax dollars are to be used.
• Both the health care and educational mandates do not resolve the failures of each program; they create more bureaucratic levels and more control.
• Both programs were pushed through because the health care and educational programs "were in crisis". Politicians and educators signed onto programs before they even knew what they entailed.

Missouri Education Watchdog has plans to engage state legislators on this issue. The voters have spoken on the health care mandate, now let's raise our voices on the educational control Arne Duncan and company wants us to buy (literally and figuratively) into.