Compassion in Action or Politics as Usual?

CNS STORY has the story.

Hard-pressed Gulf Coast school children have nowhere to go. The government has offered to fund up to 90% of all schoo children's educational expenses. What's the reaction by Democrats and Teacher's unions? "No Vouchers!"

Can Reasonable mouth-foamers not politicize a clear and present need in a time of crisis? Apparently not:

Government and educational leaders agree on one thing: The 372,000 students from the Gulf Coast who were displaced by Hurricane Katrina need help. But just how this help is divvied up remains in question.

When the U.S. Department of Education announced plans Sept. 16 to pay 90 percent of the educational costs of students and schools affected by Hurricane Katrina for one year, some Democrats and officials from teachers' unions immediately saw red flags. They said the plan for spending $7,500 per displaced student in public or private schools amounted to nothing short of a way to sneak in a national voucher program.

But cooler heads seemed to prevail during a Sept. 22 hearing of the Senate Subcommittee on Education and Child Development on how to legislate aid for Katrina's displaced school children. "This committee has moved from being the most contentious to being the most productive," said Sen. Michael Enzi, R-Wyo., chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, which oversees the subcommittee.

Even those opposed to vouchers said the emergency educational aid package could work for all students, as long as it was carefully worded and explicitly specified as a temporary emergency provision for one year.

The department's plan seeks $2.6 million in new hurricane relief spending. It would distribute public-school funds through school districts and private-school funds directly to parents -- in line with the 2002 U.S. Supreme Court decision allowing vouchers only if parents, not schools, receive the funds.

Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., said his support for the Katrina aid relief proposal to benefit public and private school students was "a deviation from the voucher position" he has taken in the past.

"This is not the time to rewrite laws; this is a tragedy," he said, noting that the response to the crisis "needs to be balanced and thoughtful to get these kids back on their feet as soon as possible."

Thankfully, "cooler heads prevailed." What's the priority when 372,000 school children have no opportunity to continue their education? Well, this fool imagines that getting the kids back into school ought to top the list. But some decided that this was too unReasonable! "Oh no!" they might as well have said, "We can't let those Foolish theocrats in the illegitimate Bush administration do this! They don't care about kids. They're just using them to hammer a hole in the separation of Church and State. They just want to use these kids to turn the country into a Foolish theocracy. They want to put hard-working teachers down!"

Ridiculous. Carpet. Broom. Door. Soon, evermen, soon. America could use a good sweeping!