For at least the last four years we have heard time and time again about how there isn’t enough money to fund public education. School districts all over the country are being forced to close schools and increase class sizes because there is not enough money available. There are large shortages of math and science teachers, yet there are large shortages of funds to pay their salaries even if there weren’t. Colleges are being forced to slash budgets, cut staff, cut programs and increase class sizes. And what is the Bush administration doing about it?

The Bush administration is asking Congress for $87 billion to rebuild Iraq and its infrastructure. That infrastructure includes its education system. So, in other words, the Bush administration is more than willing to spend billions of dollars and push the national debt even deeper to rebuild the education system of a foreign country, but isn’t willing to dedicate even 5 percent of that amount to help out the failing and crumbling education system here in the United States. Let’s imagine the Bush administration asked Congress for $87 billion to rebuild our own education system. Evenly divided among the 50 states, that is $1.74 billion per state. Imagine what the state of Iowa alone could do to help the school districts and public universities in our state.

The truth is, the Bush administration doesn’t really consider the U.S. education system as a priority. I don’t care much how successful Bush is in foreign affairs (and even that is debatable), because as far as I am concerned, he has been a miserable failure in handling the issues of the country that elected him as leader.

Justin Mack

Sophomore

Computer Science