Senator McCain

Last night, Senator John McCain accepted his party's nomination for President of these United States. His speech was well written (by himself and others, I understand). It was delivered in McCain's style (no Sarah Palin there). He made the promises so correctly missing from his running mate's speech the night before.

I have tried to understand what he wants to do. This brief excerpt helps me understand that he is thinking correctly, albeit, unconstitutionally. He said,

"Education is the civil rights issue of this century. Equal access to public education has been gained. But what is the value of access to a failing school? We need to shake up failed school bureaucracies with competition, empower parents with choice, remove barriers to qualified instructors, attract and reward good teachers, and help bad teachers find another line of work.

When a public school fails to meet its obligations to students, parents deserve a choice in the education of their children. And I intend to give it to them. Some may choose a better public school. Some may choose a private one. Many will choose a charter school. But they will have that choice, and their children will have that opportunity.

Sen. Obama wants our schools to answer to unions and entrenched bureaucracies. I want schools to answer to parents and students. And when I'm president, they will."

He neglects to mention home schooling. He wants the "teacher's union" (an oxymoron) to support him (unlikely) so he fails to encourage the one method that has saved education in this country for several years now.

There are many other great promises to be kept. The entire recitation can be found at

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0908/13179.html

I hope that you will go to that site and copy the entire speech to your word processor. Email it to yourself and file it in your "to do" box. If he gets elected, let's all make it a point to check off the items he has promised us as they are accomplished. I hope that we are very busy checking and checking.