<p>Dude let me ask you: WHY THE **** IS OUR TAX MONEY GOING TO IRAQ WHEN WE CAN'T FUND OUR OWN SCHOOLS? Schools are closing all over the place, people can't go to college because of the lack of financial aid, the public education system is falling apart, all because of this bottomless money pit called Iraq. If we're going to go around policing the world and "solve" problems around the world, we must solve our own problems, right here, right now, first. The primary job of the US government is to protect the life, liberty and property of those of us HERE IN THE US. Tell me we should go into Iraq once schools aren't closing left and right anymore, people that want to go to college can and not have to worry about cost, and our public education system isn't falling apart anymore. OK I look at it this way: under the NCLB act, schools that do better on standardized testing are getting more money. That's first of all the wrong way to go about it. If you truly want to leave no child behind, you need to pour money and resources into UNDERPERFORMING SCHOOLS, not ones that are doing fine. The underperforming schools need the most money, the best teachers, and the best resources, not the ones that are doing fine. The ones that are doing fine are doing fine. Leave them alone. </p>
<p>Besides, The government's abandoning its primary job for something that is not even in the job description. Time for a firing.</p>
<p>You mention the 'No Child Left Behind' act. Guess what, that is a nonfunded mandate! Very few schools recieve money from the FEDERAL government. Education, at the primary and secondary levels (grade school and high school), is paid for by the local taxpayers, and the states; not the FEDS.</p>
<p>The way for us to save money is to tell the UN to get the **** out and quit funding it. We pay most of the UN budget yet we have so little say in how that money is spent.</p>
<p>Here's a way to save money, get the **** out of Iraq!!! We never should have gone in in the first place, it was completely frivolous, it's an incarnation of Bush's personal vendetta against Saddam, and the Iraqis want us the get the **** out, the entire middle east wants us to get the **** out, and the entire world hates us. Way to go Bush. You just ruined our relations with every country in the world.</p>
<p>Oh yeah and stop using Halliburton for supplies and stuff. They overbilled the government last time. Anyway the underperforming schools should be getting federal funds so they can afford top notch resources and teachers. I understand that this is a capitalist system, but kids don't choose what their parents' professions are, and what socioeconomic class they're born into is completely beyond their control, and they deserve a a chance to do well, at least. By chance I mean the same opportunities that they would get in a rich suburban school. Remember education is power.</p>