In a Bid to Attack Obamacare, GOP Suddenly Pretends to be Interested in Education

John Kline (R-MN) head of the House Education Committee

As just one example of Republican attitudes toward education, in 2012, the National Education Association (NEA) had this to say about the infamous Ryan Budget:

The Ryan budget is projected to slash education funding by $115 billion over ten years — hurting the neediest students, causing class sizes to rise even further, forcing elimination of more programs aimed at providing a well-rounded education, and putting more public servants in unemployment lines.

Not Kline, you say? In fact, Kline voted for the Ryan Budget.

And just this past July, John Kline’s H.R. 5, the ironically named “Student Success Act,” (a “No Child Left Behind” rewrite) went up for a vote in the House and passed 221-207. No Democrat voted for this anti-education bill. Twelve Republicans voted against it. President Obama promised to veto it if it ever appeared on his desk.

The Student Success Act was held no surprises: it was a promotion of highly profitable (for Republicans if not students and families) charter schools, and would have made drastic cuts in education funding while pretty much eliminating anything resembling performance standards for schools (Republicans call this “reducing the federal footprint”). Unsurprisingly for GOP legislation, H.R. 5 would have hurt minority students the most.

Kline heads the House Education Committee and, like so many Republican hacks (think of Lamar Smith (R-TX), head of the House Science Committee, who does not want the EPA to base its regulations on actual science), is unfortunately in a position to do the most harm. He claims that school districts plan to “cut back on programs and part-time staffers to meet the demands of the health care law,” reports the Star Tribune.

“Americans continue to express their concerns about ObamaCare and the troubling impact it is having on their lives, and our nation’s schools are not immune to the consequences of this law,” Kline said before his committee hearing on the subject in November, the hypocritically themed, “The Effects of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act on Schools, Colleges, and Universities.”

In Hastings, a pleasant little city south of the Twin Cities, the school district is “already [planning] to hire classroom aides, food service and transportation employees for 5.75-hour workdays instead of eight hours to avoid providing them insurance,” reports the Star Tribune.

“You’re looking at dollars and centers, and you’re going to have to make choices,” says Kline.

Kline and his party have already made those choices. In fact, Kline has a long history of hating on education. Kline’s anti-education stance has earned him failing grades from the NEA, including a despicable 17 percent rating in 2003. In 2006 he voted against $10.2 billion for education (the American Competitiveness Scholarship Act) and in 2007 against $84 billion for black and Hispanic colleges.

With adequate funding, our school districts would be facing no hard choices with regard any program. But Republicans would rather run them into the ground and privatize education as a money-making activity for Republicans. There is gold in them there classrooms, Jeb.

There is also the Affordable Care Act, the law no Republican can accept and survive politically. As the Star Tribune points out, the federal shutdown “left Republicans and their poll numbers reeling” (think how many education problems that $24 billion they wasted would have solved) and their way of compensating is to attack the ACA some more. Yes, your attack failed miserably the first time and made the plague more popular than you, so you “bounce back” by attacking it again.

The Star Tribune quoted Superintendent Daniel Bittman of the Sauk Rapids-Rice School District near St. Cloud as saying, “There are so many unanswered questions at the federal level.” Bittmann said that, “We absolutely support the idea and the intent of the law, but for school districts it creates an absolute challenge.”

It is interesting that the mainstream media is suddenly concerned about education. Republicans have been waging war on education for years – and not just public schools but universities and colleges. But now that we have a law that provides people (many for the first time ever) with the opportunity to have health insurance, suddenly there is concern about education.

It would be nice if media outlets would occasionally ask school districts how they felt about Republican cuts in education. Those questions just aren’t as important.

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Hrafnkell Haraldsson

Hrafnkell Haraldsson, a social liberal with leanings toward centrist politics has degrees in history and philosophy. His interests include, besides history and philosophy, human rights issues, freedom of choice, religion, and the precarious dichotomy of freedom of speech and intolerance. He brings a slightly different perspective to his writing, being that he is neither a follower of an Abrahamic faith nor an atheist but a polytheist, a modern-day Heathen who follows the customs and traditions of his Norse ancestors. He maintains his own blog, A Heathen's Day, which deals with Heathen and Pagan matters, and Mos Maiorum Foundation www.mosmaiorum.org, dedicated to ethnic religion. He has also contributed to NewsJunkiePost, GodsOwnParty and Pagan+Politics.

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