YOUR COMMENTS

It seems Mike from Temple was never taught anything about hypocrisy. Spewing hatred and labels while accusing a subset of America of doing the same is just hilarious.

Jay from Nashua, you got it right.
Even the average bonuses dished out from some of the failed and bailed out banks exceed most teacher salaries.
- Herb C., Concord

Mike, Temple - You just don't like unions, period. It clouds your judgement. Or, maybe you don't have any.

Then please support Sarah Palin in the primary! Lol!
- joey, Penacook

Well said, Mr Buchanan.

My how the moonbats love to tar and feather their most hated conservative figures while of course offering no ideas of their own outside of the same old junk that has not worked for the last 40 years they've been attempting it.

If you want to start pointing fingers, start pointing at one of the most powerful, far reaching liberal labor unions in the country...the National Education Association (a.k.a. Liberal Teachers for Obama). The NEA administration's coffers are chocked full of our dollars, yet the dumbing-down of American education in this country continues. Of course, that's the way liberals like it. If children aren't learning the basics, they certainly aren't learning about their nation's true history (though liberal revisionism runs far and wide) and they certainly know little if anything about the contents of the Constitution (a.k.a the document you moonbats love to hate). If they don't know what's in it, it won't be too hard for their government to strip it from them. Moonbats love to fling accusations at the conservative authors of these articles, claiming them to be some sort of racist bigot. They do this for one reason...they are the haters themselves, fearful of any attempt of someone to dare disagree with their own failed liberal worldview. Public education is broken. More money (freshly printed of course) poured into Obama's liberal elitist supporters pockets at the top of the system is not going to fix the problems. Why do you think Rep Day and the other Moonbats in our state government are so fearful and hateful of home schooling?
- Mike, Temple

Hey Bill in Concord,

No Child Left Behind was the brainchild of what politician. If you guessed Ted Kennedy, you'd be right. Do a little research before you start assigning blame.
- Daryll Doda, Raymond

Spike

LOL I've been wrong much in my life and most likely will be some more, but I'm getting better from the experience. I'm almost Al Gore like now but I'm having trouble manipulating my data. (Grin)

Cheers!
- Deb, Derry

Let's see....2005.........Bush administration leadership........No Child Left Behind....what a coincidence!
- Bill, Concord

Craig, Manchester - You missed, (apparently on purpose because it is clear enough,) Roger's important point - money wasted is money wasted.

You can't hide behind the flag. Your oh-so-predictable invocation of, "keeping our troops safe" is ridiculous. If they aren't in Iraq - they can't get hurt! That quagmire, certainly, has been a monumental waste of money!

Do you feel safer with thousands of American soldiers on the N. Korean border, where all predictions of any conflict there say they'd immediately suffer enormous casualties? How about Germany? You still expecting Russian tanks and missiles? It's not a liberal point of view either, libertarian Ron Paul says the same thing.

Hiding behind the needs of troops after they'd been misplaced, for the political benefit it affords you, is the supreme expression of GOP koolaid.
- Roland, Manchester

Thanks for the wink & nod clarification on the merits and worth of the mostly-minority young people in DC and NYC. I personally disagree.

We understand you Pat, part of your pundit role as white populist blow hard is to gently reassure the casual bigots that their defensive stance with respect to minorities is aok. Just tough love. Right. Lol.
- Mary Anne, Belmont

Roger from Rochester, here is an apple, and here is an orange, do they appear to be the same to you? If you actually go through life looking at inefficiencies only by comparing them to other inefficiencies enjoy a superbly inefficient life. Schools get 10 times what they did 20 years ago, and standards are at the lowest they’ve ever been, but according to Roger, there is also some wasted money spent on keeping our troops safe, so it's all just a wash. Very intellectual argument.
- Craig, Manchester

Educators are trying to repeal Darwin. They'd have as much success with Newton.
If that doesn't make sense to you, thank a teacher.
- John, Manchester

Our public schools have become indoctrination centers. No longer is their goal EDUCATION. Bedford has the International Baccalaureate Program. At the IB web site they reference how they integrate the agenda of the United Nations within the program/curriculum. The kids become political pawns instead of educated.
- Ann Marie, Bedford, NH

George Bush proved an ignoramus can become President. Ask a small businessman how often he uses algebra.

Money spent on social needs like educating our people competes with other funds, it does not exist in a vacuum. So if you decry inefficient education spending, it has to be in comparison to other wasteful spending. Unless of course you simply have a bee in your bonnet with respect to teacher's unions. Do you Pat? Hmm?

Oh where in our massive and wasteful and at times immoral defense budget shall I start to find waste? Missile defense for POLAND? $1,000,000 a year PER SOLDIER in useless and pointless Afghanistan? Millions for flashy tv ads to lure video game generation kids to that awful war? On and on there is no end to the waste that not only does not produce learned Americans, but produces wounded and mentally broken ones.
- Roger, Rochester

Jay, Wrong! The decline in American education is directly related to the entrance of the unions into the system. Until that time teaching was a vocation, not a profession. Those educators, for the most part, who still see it this way are employed in the private schools. Compare the quality of these two systems and there can be no argument as to which is best.
- ck, Manchester

Jay - are you saying that a Master's in Engineering is somehow equivalent to a Master's in Education? As someone with an MSEE I can tell you that the requirements are far beyond what a teaching degree requires. A Master's in engineering requires detailed subject matter expertise often with a lot of applied math. No one in college I knew who was studing education could have made it through a engineering program, athough I don't have the patience to deal with a bunch of whiny kids either. In any case the person with the engineering degree is more like to have their job sent to China or India and doesn't have a retirement plan so the teacher is probably better off even with the lower base salary.
- Greg Smith, Pelham

"By the end of the first two months in first grade, an alert kid can tell you who are the smart ones and who are the athletes."

Apparently Mr. Buchanan was an athlete.
- Dave, Sandwich

It takes a school to bankrupt a village. Yet, it seems, the more money they get, the worse their performance.

And, of course, government schools screech at the idea of having school choice - they like their monopoly just fine. The biggest obstacle to education is the government schooling system.
- CDR, Lebanon

"Is it not a time for truth?" Pat, you are talking about the hackarama! It is a time for tenure and impunity!

Judy touches on the orthodoxy of the public schools. Read what Dr. Sowell has written--this orthodoxy is taught in Schools of Education--and is basically all that they teach.

Deb, you're finally wrong about something. The reason we lost our manufacturing jobs is that we wrung the easy money out of manufacturing (even of computers), got it down to a science, and sold the business to companies in Asia. Manufacturing no longer requires American excellence. We are on to the next new thing.

Chris is wrong too. Highly paid people are never the problem if they earn their pay. Let's pay twice as much to lure achievers from the private sector into the SAUs to replace the excuse-makers.

Jay thinks he is the one to throw money at the problem "correctly." Watch your wallets; they contain the money Jay is talking about.
- Spike, Brentwood NH

This is why we once had manufacturing jobs in this nation. Not everyone is meant to be a scientist, doctor, or engineer. Some people only have so much ambition in life but according to some our manufacturing jobs were not good enough for them so they then get paid to do nothing by the state so long as they vote for those doing the handouts and paid for by those with ambition.

In this day of everything green and natural the same leaders pushing it want an unnatural society where everyone is entitled simply because they exist. Not to mention the tax revenue it would help create rather than consume and some might even like having the dignity of working for their money. Yes the democrat vision of the war on education is going rather well as all that is never needed is more money but generates the same results as spending less. You can’t force people to want to learn or succeed. It’s just not natural so it’s best to punish those who do. And it's time we stop thinking all the jobs we once had are beneith some in our population, even your own little darling.
- Deb, Derry

Poor academic performance in public schools is directly proportional to the high salaries of administrators.
- Chris, Merrimack

How many times have I said it, but it's worth repeating: public schools are now liberal indoctrination centers and spend more time on social engineering than actually educating children.

Plus, they have no clue how to think outside the box, as it's a one-size fits all mentality where creativity is stifled rather than encouraged....everybody has to be the "same" and pass the same standardized tests which tell nothing about a person's actual intellect or emotional intelligence or even their common sense. Oh yeah, but common sense isn't in vogue right now anyway, it's been replaced by PC. And PC has replaced truth.

Get rid of the teacher's unions and tenure, and you'll see an entirely different educational system that just might work where the children's education is the focus not how many days teachers' "have" to spend with their students being the focus...and the less the better as far as the teachers are concerned.
- judy, bradford

At once, blame the liberals and then quote the most grammatically challenged Republican you can find? That's bizarre.

I do agree that education needs significant improvement. Throwing money at it may be the solution if it were done correctly. Being a teacher is relatively thankless, at times. A recent graduate with a Master's in Engineering makes twice as much money as a 10-year teacher with a Master's in Education. Where are you going to work?

One of the proffered theories for the decline in education is the shift in gender-work dynamics. When the only accepted profession for women was that of a teacher (or secretary), smart women taught kids. Nowadays, smart women (and men) follow the money.
- Jay, Nashua

But, they'll all vote for Obama and he and the Shaheen's and Hodes's and Shea-Porters's will take care of them. That's The American Way, one year into the reign of Barak The Magnificent.
- Leo, Canterbury