Even liberals think Obama in over head

I think even my liberal and progressive friends in the educational arena have now learned that President Obama truly is in over his head. Certainly, the state of the economy has made things quite difficult.

However, one of the key platforms that candidate Obama ran on, his lofty goals for renewing the national commitment to education, has vanished suddenly. In 2010-11, public education will not receive almost $950 million as was promised. State funding is already behind by many millions as well. The race to the bottom is well under way. In conjunction, as the president tells us how American students continue to lag behind their Asian counterparts, he has decided that we will virtually eliminate NASA. Our wonderful revelation of American ingenuity in space exploration will be farmed out to the Russians. That certainly speaks highly of our belief in the importance of math and science. Certainly the salaries of educators are not the sole reason why schools everywhere are in fiscal distress. Raising class size and letting quality educators go is not the answer.

We have entitlement programs for people who are not even citizens here, as well as many citizens bilking the system because the money's there. Pushing through health care while thousands of schools nationwide are laying off personnel is un-American and disgusting. Perhaps it is time to remind our representatives that public educators do teach what the bus drops off: good students as well as challenging students. Unions, educators, board members, parents and elected officials will have to work together compassionately to get through this.

As for President Obama, this is yet another instance where the rhetoric clearly has been revealed as change no one can believe in. American work ethic has proved time and time throughout our history that we will rise to the occasion when we pull together.

Andy Isaacson

Villa Park