While Republicans focus on skewering GOP presidential candidates in primaries, Team Obama’s regulatory juggernaut continues to destroy the American way of life. Small businesses, entrepreneurs, and job creators are already groaning from the weight of the many and new regulations Obama has initiated in the past three years.
Even more regulations are on the way. However, many of the regulations are masked as "initiatives", where the actual regulation is buried in various appropriations bills sent to congress in the President's 2013 budget.
One of the most recent examples is the recently announced Education Department "Together For Tomorrow" initiative that shifts accountability for student education achievement outcomes away from teachers.
Like so many other Obama inspired regulations, this one, too, starts with a wonderful title, “Together For Tomorrow”. It certainly sounds like a good idea—increase national community volunteer service corps (Americorps) involvement in the education of American children. The "initiative" is connected to a "regulation" that is buried in a Department of Education budget request, which eliminates accountability.
Anyone willing to take a harder look and get passed the winning title can see that the "Together for Tomorrow" plan is just another, blatant political strategy to reward loyalists, such as the teachers unions. The only “togetherness” that Team Obama is interested in, is in building a collation for his 2012 bid for re-election.
The two-page, Department of Educationtakes vagueness to new levels and outlines few of the initiative’s strategies, though the Department of Education’s budget, in particular, the CNCS’ budget outlines the need for increases, in order to support the program. Of course, more spending on education, with little or no accountability has been the perennial goal of teachers unions for years.
So, the Teachers Unions, who consistently and almost exclusively vote and donate to Democrats, are to be given even more resources with little or no accountability. Nowhere in the Department of Education announcement does Team Obama address Americans’ concern regarding teacher incompetence in the classroom. Nor does the initiative allow for evaluation of teacher outcomes versus student outcomes.
Under the current Team Obama plan, all responsibility for student accountability and student outcomes lies with some vague entity termed the “community”, despite the growing trend in the country to question what exactly is going on in classrooms across the nation.
Startling and sad statistics confront Americans about our nation’s education system. Over 30% of all students in the United States do not graduate from high school. Within minority communities, another startling and dangerous statistic emerges—over 50% of minorities do not graduate from high school.
Yet, 90% of all high-paying jobs require a high school education, and some post-secondary education. How, as a nation, can we possibly hope to “Win the Future” when our next generation cannot even earn a high school diploma?
That is why, across the nation, even Democrats are finally joining Republicans in confronting the iron grip of the teachers’ unions on education. Even Barack Obama’s former Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, as the Mayor of Chicago is finally confronting the intransigence and incompetence of the teachers’ unions and demanding more accountability for outcomes.
But not Team Obama.
Even more shamefully, buried on page 11 of the CNCS’ Budget Authorization document is the request to delete a rule that requires both accountability and public notice of “significant changes to program requirements, service delivery or policy only through public notice and comment rulemaking.”
The Department of Education claims that requiring public notice and a public comment period “infringes on the prerogatives of the Executive Branch in carrying out programs consistent with the authorizing statute.” Put another way, what Team Obama seems to be telling us is that they are going to reward teacher union loyalists, and there is nothing citizens can do about it.”
Most troubling of all is that Team Obama has decided to buck the trend for increased accountability in our schools. Obama makes the task of education reform all the more difficult and delays again the urgent necessity to honestly deal with the many schools that are failing our children.
Team Obama, once again, slides regulatory over-reach up to new levels, all while avoiding congressional mandates and congressional debates.
Congress is fighting against Team Obama's tendency to avoid accountability, but Team Obama continues to circumvent the constitution and congressional authority by continuing to issue a plethora of Executive Orders creating "initiatives" that increase regulations on all Americans, stifle economic and individual growth, without full congressional approval or budget authority to do so.
‘Together For Tomorrow” is just another Obama sham. Our President hopes to masquerade his policy to reward loyalists, like the Teachers Unions at the expense of the future of the nation. Obama lacks the courage to join the honest reform of an education system that is failing millions of American children. Instead, he is completely focused on his own re-election. And so, yet another terrible Obama executive order goes out that advances a trend that will put another generation of American children at risk.
Barack Obama needs the votes, and the teachers' unions need the money; so, America is stuck with the latest in a long string of Team Obama initiatives, a sham called “Together for Tomorrow”.