Dubya's Dumbing Down of a Nation

How a nation spend its money, where it spends its money, is very revealing about the nature of the nation. The largest cut in Bush's proposed budget is in education.

He wants to sink more money into his "No Child Left Behind" program, but other than that, a wide range of educational programs benefitting low-income children and families is being eliminated....such as HUD low-income community housing grants.....and foreign language learning is being gutted even as the military is bleeding for lack of linguists (because its "Don't Ask Don't Tell" policy led most of the linguists to leave, as they tended to be homosexual. That is a post for another day, to talk about the implicatons of the fact that the most well-educated men in the military were deemed unfit to serve because of their sexual orientation. What exactly does that say about the education level of those who remain in the military?).

The USA barred Germany and Japan from building weapons after the World Wars of the 20th century, so those countries ploughed their money into education and whipped the pants off the USA in science, technology, mathematics, languages....and learning in general. They still beat the USA hands down today in science mathematics, technology and multi-lingualism. With the current budget and the upcoming proposals, nothing is changing, perhaps only getting worse.

How many US students graduate from high school fluent in at least three languages and well versed in mathematics and science? Do we care? Does the Bush Administration care?

Maybe we do not want to hear the answer....