DEAR EDITOR:

President Bush unveiled his education plan this week, and it attracted bipartisan support. I think that as loyal, Constitution-minded Americans, we should lend our efforts to totally defeating this program. Mr. Bush proposes more federal funding, and therefore control, of our public education system. He wants national standards, national testing and national direction of education. Furthermore, he is proposing a federal voucher plan that will allow parents to send their children to private schools. Vouchers would put private schools under federal control as well. Mr. Bush claims that this will improve schools, foster equality and help every child to read. We should fight the plan because it won’t improve schools or help children to read, and it goes against our Constitution, which actually makes it an illegal proposal. Why is federal funding and control of education illegal? This is easy to answer. The Constitution nowhere delegates to the U.S. government any power over education. The Constitution does not forbid states from providing or regulating education. Therefore, education automatically falls under the power of state government (10th Amendment). Since this is the case, would not that make all previous federal educational initiatives also illegal, things like free lunch programs, textbooks, supplies funds, remedial programs, computers, disabled student guidelines and building renovation? Yes, certainly, they’re illegal. These programs are not necessarily wrong, and if various states choose to pursue them then they’re perfectly within their rights to do so. This is how federalism is supposed to work. The national government handles a few select jobs, such as coining money, defense, foreign relations and the postal service, and the states tackle the other, more local matters. Since the states have differing characteristics and points of view, they can run their business the way they see fit without outside meddling. Naturally, some states will do a better job of running things than other states will. This is OK, too. The nice states will attract people, and the crummy ones will lose population. This diversity and healthy competition is what our Founding Fathers envisioned. Modern technologists, collectivists and statists like to regiment everyone and force all of them to be the same. These big government guys can’t stand individualism, and that’s why they want to nationalize everything (and later globalize everything). I have a few ideas on how we can improve education in Louisiana, but there’s no room for that in this letter. But I do think that getting Uncle Sam out of the education business is the best first step on the road to improvement. I hope others will agree with me on this and will join with me in fighting for it.

Ronald J. Theriot Jr.

LaPlace