Free Press –
Dear Friends,
Good morning. This morning, I thought it would be fun to discuss the presidential, congressional, and 145th state representative district primary results. There were many surprises. But first, let’s turn to the Quakertown school board budget.
Next week, the school board directors will vote on the proposed $86.3 million budget that would raise taxes 4.9 percent, or 5.88 mills. I don’t begrudge increasing school taxes if the Quakertown area children are getting an education, which prepares them for international competition.
The question remains…does it?
The problem is that while America leads industrialized nations in money spent on public education, it lags behind Asian and European public schools in its results. That’s the worry. There’s an educational disconnect across America, which goes like this: “Yes, I realize that public schools are not measuring up to foreign competition, but my local school is fine.”
That disconnect is similar when it comes to our opinions about the congress. To wit, “Congress is terrible…it has an approval rating of just 20 percent…but I’m happy with my congressman.”
The million dollar question is: how do Asian and European schools out perform our high school students but spend less money on public education than we do?
Look at Bob Herbert’s column in the New York Times (April 22). He says that more than a million kids drop out of high school every year…one every 26 seconds. “Roughly one third of all American high school students drop out,” Herbert begins. “Another third graduate but are not prepared for the next stage of life- either productive work or some form of post-secondary education.
“When two-thirds of all teenagers, old enough to graduate from high school, are incapable of mastering college-level work, the nation is doing something awfully wrong” Herbert continued. “In math and science, for example, our fourth graders are among the top students globally. By roughly eighth grade, they’re in the middle of the pack. And by the 12th grade, U.S. students are scoring generally near the bottom of all industrialized countries.”
In his column, Herbert referred to Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, who claims that American high schools as obsolete. Said Gates, “Our [America] high schools cannot teach all our students what they need to know today.”
Herbert also mentioned the educational Testing Service, which claims that there’s a “perfect storm” affecting the quality of life for millions of Americans and is already shaping the nation’s future. There are three elements to the “perfect storm”: (1) the wide disparity in the literacy and math skills of both the school age and adult populations. (2) Globalization and technological advances. (3) Sweeping demographic changes. Our population is getting older and more diverse.
If you doubt it, consider Herbert’s last two paragraphs. “Other nations are catching up and passing us when it comes to educational achievement,” he concluded. “You have to be pretty dopey not to see the implications of that.
“But then, some of us are pretty dopey. In the Common Core survey, nearly 20 percent of respondents did not know whom the U.S. fought in World War II. Eleven percent thought that Dwight Eisenhower was the president forced from office by the Watergate scandal. Another 11 percent thought it was Harry Truman.
“We’ve got work to do,” Herbert quipped.
I’d say so!!
And now to the results from the April 22 primary.
Were you surprised that Hillary Clinton beat Barack Obama by nearly 2 to 1 (71,830 to 42,869) in Bucks County? I was. Obama won all the Philadelphia suburban counties except Bucks. By overwhelming numbers, Obama thumped Clinton in Chester, Delaware, Lehigh, Montgomery, and Northampton Counties…but not in Bucks.
Why? Is it that Bucks has a higher proportion of older women and blue color, male workers…Clinton’s base?
I haven’t a clue.
But, if I were Harry Fawkes, the Chairman of the Bucks County Republican Committee, I’d be in frenzy. It appears that Republicans didn’t show up on April 22. In the presidential Democratic primary, 114,699 votes were cast compared to 37,961 votes in the Republican primary…John McCain (29,150), Mike Huckabee (2,943), and Ron Paul (5,868). That’s a 3 to 1 margin in favor of the Democrats.
At the congressional level, Patrick Murphy garnered 93,823 votes compared to Republican Tom Manion’s 33,615. That’s about 3 to 1.
And looked what happened in the 145th state representative primary in Upper Bucks. The Republican incumbent, Paul Clymer, attracted just 3,743 votes compared to 7,909 votes for his two Democrat challengers (Tom Peterson received 4,380 votes and Brian Kline, 3529). That’s a 2 to 1 edge for the Democrats
Are Republicans in Bucks County throwing in the towel? Is the GOP dispirited? The November election may prove differently but the interest in the April primary certainly belonged to the Democrats.
If Paul Clymer is swept out of office this year, he can blame the Commander in Chief, George W. Bush. It is his remake of the Republican Party that now resembles a pack of bullies headed in every conceivable wrong direction.
You can understand why a daughter of the GOP supports Barack Obama. Would you believe that Julie Nixon Eisenhower has become an Obama-can? Yes it’s true.
Sincerely,
Charles Meredith