This is one of those articles that reminds you how truly bizarre our spin-obsessed White House has become in putting message over action. For example, you’d think that the former budget director, Josh Bolten, now chief of staff, would make it a priority to strengthen the economy. But that would be too hard! Instead, we get this:
A prominent Republican in Washington who consults often with the White House said Mr. Bolten, who is to assume his duties next month, wants Mr. Bush to replace the Treasury secretary, John W. Snow, with someone who can more forcefully communicate the administration’s message that the economy is strong.
Brilliant. Instead of trying to find a Treasury secretary who can help fix the economy (by, you know, reigning in those nasty deficits that give people the jitters), we should hire someone who can spin it better!
More pricelessness later on:
Republicans said that if Mr. Bush turned to Wall Street for a new Treasury secretary, it could help reassure financial markets, which are increasingly worried about record-high budget and trade deficits.
Wouldn’t it be better to reassure them by, you know, actually lowering the budget and trade deficits? Just asking. If better spin is what the administration is after, why not cut to the chase and just hire a PR flack to head up every cabinet post?
And yet we used to be able to produce a steady number of high school graduates, who could not only read or write, but also were exposed to the very items that are now being cut.
Why is that? And how do we get the system back there again?
Do we really want to just bring up kids who can only read and write?
What about nurturing curiosity? Creating aspirations?
I’m not comfortable with raising an army of automatons.
Actually, arts education has been shown to increase academic performance…sometimes just studying one subject dulls the creativity and inspiration that gives kids a love of learning and the ability to think outside the box.
No question art, science, social studies and perhaps even home economics — wait, scratch home ec. — are important components of a well-rounded education. But we’re talking about children who are in danger of leaving the system either functionally illiterate or entirely illiterate. And I doubt very much that any of their parents — perhaps even their teachers –would disagree that the most important thing to get across — the area of study that should trump all other areas — should be reading and math.
I believe that playing piano helps SAT scores — I’d encourage my own kid to play piano — but we’re talking about a real crisis in education and I don’t really care if they miss out on making pinchpots, dissecting gnats or baking chocolate chip cookies . . .