Pelosi and her delusions

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi released a statement in response to the 28-year high in unemployment, which stood at 9.5 percent in June. Part of the statement reads:

Today's unemployment numbers are another reminder of the years of failure to invest in making Americans the most highly educated and innovative workforce in the world -- and years of delay on affordable health care and the clean energy jobs and industries that will sustain our economy for years to come.

Years of failure to invest in American education? We have spent trillions upon trillions of dollars for education, yet our schools have failed us, mostly because of liberal administrators and teachers corrupting what once was a fine education system.

Recently, the Goldwater Institute tested a group of high school seniors with the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services exam. Only 3.5 percent of students tested who attend public schools passed. Nearly 98 percent of our high school kids can't pass this test, yet we require our new citizens to pass it.

Their report also states:

...public schools are not in fact equipping students with an understanding of civics. The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) administered a grade-level-appropriate civic knowledge exam to a nationally representative sample of 4th-, 8th-, and 12th-graders in 2006. The percentages of students scoring at the proficient level or above: 25 percent of 4th graders, 24 percent of 8th graders, and 32 percent of 12th graders.

Legend has it that a woman asked Benjamin Franklin, leaving the Constitutional Convention, what sort of government had been created. “A Republic, if you can keep it,” Franklin replied. A major justification for supporting a system of public schools has long been the promotion of a general civic knowledge necessary for a well informed citizenry.

According to Pelosi, we have failed to invest, but the real root of the problem is what is being taught. While our heath care system is one of the worlds best -- it is a free market system -- our schools are one of the world's worst -- it is mostly government-run system.

So Ms. Speaker, not only do you and your party not understand what makes our educational system work, you do not have a clue on how to get us out of this near-depression. You are delusional on the fact that liberal policies do not work, have not worked, and never will work. Yet, you keep pushing them down our throats, without debate, and have bankrupted the mightiest economy the world has ever known.

That will be your legacy: the destruction of the American Republic.