McCain/Palin - The Absolutely Wrong And Dangerous Choice To Deal With The Continuing Crisis In American Education

Besides the U.S. economy, the most serious problem in America is our consistently substandard and ever deteriorating educational system. The American K-12 educational system is in tatters, with America falling behind numerous developed nations in reading, math, science, and history. Not to mention the increasing numbers of high school dropouts and increasing truancy amongst school-age children. The national educational policy of Leave No Child Behind, has only succeed in leaving millions of America's children behind the educational 8-ball in more ways than one. Not mention the numbers of good teachers and administrators that have quit the field of education in frustration and disgust.

For the average American family, sending a child to college is no longer part of the American dream, but the new American nightmare. Going to college has become an extremely expensive endeavor for the average American family, who also face the additional strain of sending a child to college who may or may not be adequately prepared for the rigors of collegiate academics. The American educational system is in major crisis mode from top to bottom and who ever is the next President of the United States must begin to work on resolving this issue immediately.

That means we, the American people need to elect a president that understands and respects education as the most valuable tool for every single American in this nation to attain in order to have a successful and productive life. John McCain and Sarah Palin, the GOP candidates, are not the people for this important presidential responsibility.GOP presidential candidate John McCain, who was a "thank ya lawdy" instead of a "Summa Cum Laude" graduate from the Naval Academy, finished at the bottom of his class and has earned no advance degrees. His VP Pick Sarah Palin needed five different colleges and six years of a mixed bag selection of failed majors and coursework to cobble together a inconsequential undergraduate degree in journalism with a minor in political science. Their less than sterling educational careers should give anyone listening to them wax poetic about the value of a college education extremely dubious.

Check their records in their home states on education. Alaska is running dead last in most educational categories. Arizona is one of those states that eliminates minorities from their Leave No Child Behind records because minority children are not passing the "test." They are both big on "school choice" but if there are no decent schools in your neighborhood, where is the choice? And Sarah Palin is big on home schooling, but since she doesn't believe in science or global warming and thinks that books should be banned and that intelligent design should be taught in schools, who wants her around any kind of national educational legislation?

And McCain talks big about attending a public college, but that's not the truth about the Naval Academy. You need to be sponsored by someone with connections to get in the Naval Academy and it's damn hard to be admitted to the Naval Academy. Average, ordinary Joes don't get admitted to the Naval Academy. And his own daughter didn't go to a state school, she went to an Ivy League institution on her mama's nickel. And I wonder what kind of "special needs" education Bridget McCain has been getting, if she is getting educated at all? And apparently Bristol Palin was engaged in independent home school sex education lab with herself as the experiment since she ended up pregnant instead of earning a high school diploma.

No, these are not the folks we want directing the state of U.S. education for the next four years. Too many of the American people have their futures riding on attaining a quality education.