“New to politics?” (Reposted November 29, 2021)

Many patrons of the political parties and promoters of new party platforms within an established party seek to bring change by way of running for the positions in government offices without thought as to what the “power” of the office may be.  Case in point the Superintendent of Education for the State of Arizona acts as if she was a superintendent of a school system.  In fact and law the Arizona state Superintendent of Education is an administrator of the legal means the state has to deliver education and funding.  Policy making is not part of that role.  Directing dollars to the education of children is.

Tea party stands for taxed enough already.  Their modus operandi is to reduce government spending and thus reduce taxes.  Moderated forms of this often speak to more efficient or effective spending of the taxes collected.  In any event it is cutting without any follow-on planting or harvest.  Any effort that reduces the flow of money to education is an assault on the children and all our futures.

A platform of the TEA party’s Diane Douglas is, and only is, to eliminate “common core”.  It is a denigrating misnomer used to promote the propagandist’s line.  It is claimed in sound bites that the Federal government is dictating what to teach.  Nothing can be further from the truth.  Now let me show you how the failure in cognition and reasoning of the TEA party, as well as the egregiously novice approach of the TEA party, falls out as opposition to Federal law and thus does damage to our children’s future. 

Their rallying point is “the Feds can’t dictate to us”.  While there are many things the states have the power to do with and for the education of the masses, they cannot tell the United States government how they, the states, intend to spend the Federal dollars sent to the states for educational purposes without adhering to the laws, rules, policies, regulations, et al that accompany the acceptance of the funding.  If the TEA party focused their campaign on this they would have to be opposed to the following: publicly open, comprehensive, all-inclusive, processes conducted to create educational opportunities, means, and outcomes that are identified as necessary by the process participants from state government, business, the public, academia, and the United States Department of Education. 

They, the TEA party, are and have been opposing the very ones that participated in the processes in the first place.   The ignorance of law and policy even provided us with the high drama of the TEA party firing members of the Arizona State Board of Education; a “power” she does not have.  What was a statewide, all inclusive, consensus of purpose, plan, and operation that has been in effect for years is now under attack by the unlearned, power hungry, ill-spoken, obviously uninformed, ax-handler proxy from the TEA party.

God bless America. God damn Diane Douglas and her TEA party.

Bernard Lambert   May 15, 2015