OPINION:
With the new year comes the inevitable.
The White House and Congress are considering growing federal tentacles already strangling public education.
The census takers are coming and you need to truthfully fill in the blanks.
Local and state governments, including those run by Democrats, are promising to deliver better services — but be honest. Are they?
If you’re among the “Anybody But Trump” crowd, are you also a member of the eeny, meeny, miny, moe bunch now that Sen. Kamala Harris has dropped out of the race?
On the local news front, what’s your No. 1 source? Do you even have a trustworthy source?
And what about military families? The question is always timely, and certainly more so now as our armed forces are deployed, redeployed and ratcheted up in Middle East, where unadulterated peace is hard to come by.
Allow this, too: Do you listen and pay attention to kids? I mean really listen.
Do you give them your undivided attention or are your eyes and ears giving full time and attention to your smartphone? Or laptop or computer?
Well, listen, because now is the time for all parents to come to the aid of children. They need help and they need it now.
A snapshot of public schooling. You know how the politicians claim to push STEM and STEAM education. Well, that’s a hoax, an unforgivable hoax, because of this fact: While most K-12 classrooms have computers or tablets, most teachers aren’t trained to leverage computing education for rigorous learning. Indeed, few teacher training programs offer computing education as part of their teacher training.
Wonder what Sens. Cory Booker, Bernard Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have to say about that as they pitch government largesse — or, as libertarians might say, continue to head butt parents out of educrats’ business.
Ditto the census. Tax-and-spenders want to rake in your dough, but they don’t want you telling them how to allocate it.
Even Republicans are playing that game. Something called the Education Freedom Scholarships proposal would allow taxpayers to voluntary contribute to scholarship-granting organizations that would give scholarships to students that could be used for a broad variety of educational options.
The proposal is still in the development stages, but at first blush it sounds like educational savings accounts and 529 accounts, which are available to a cross-section of demographics, be damned.
I’m hoping the “Anybody But Trump” crowd kicks such a scholarship proposal to the curb, because the last thing America’s public education bureaucracy needs is another federal tentacle sucking the life out of the school-choice lifeline.
Tentacle wrapped
The new year hasn’t even wrapped a full week, and world affairs are distracting from what’s important closer to home.
Veterans and military families deserve better housing (on and off base) and they need and deserve improved health care services.
We shouldn’t be learning from local news outlets that spouses and children of our armed forces are living in dilapidated housing.
And, with 2020 being the year of the census, who’s running the show? The advocacy groups who don’t want taxpayers to know who claims to live in America or the politicians who never want honest Americans to the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth?
Happy New Year, dear readers, and remember, the truth shall set you free.
For sure, there’s much to discuss in 2020.
⦁ Deborah Simmons can be contacted at dsimmons@washingtontimes.com.
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