Wednesday, on 60 Minutes, there was a section on the education in Texas, the state George Bush oversaw when he was Governor Bush. The program was a study of how books were cooked and how claims for education progress and the success of his claim for genuine educational improvement were falsified.  This was the basis for people believing he actually did something to improve the deplorable state of public education in the State of Texas.  He reached the Presidency of this country on the capital gained by claims for educational excellence in the State of Texas. This was not true and the facts proved to be different. The 60 Minutes program laid it out in detail and since then the subject has been ignored.  No counter argument was offered. There are whole States filled with those who are afflicted with eyes that see only the educational miracle worker they want to lead them.

Cooking the books was a quiet measure that simply promoted ninth graders to the eleventh grade without the test that would have shown that almost fifty percent of these children failed the test while claims were that there was only a one percent drop out rate. Retaining children in grade or advancing them avoided the test results that would have shown the truth. Governor Bush (the Texas one) was the responsible person for what happened there. He, like President Nixon before him, was a co-conspirator and the responsible official and HE should be exposed and admit the chicanery that brought him to power.

There was a whistle-blower in this story.  An Assistant High School Principal exposed the practice.  As punishment, he was sent to a K-3 Elementary School as a second Assistant Principal in hopes that he would resign.  He did not! We should be asking ourselves why Mr. Bush is concerning himself with illegal aliens from neighboring countries instead of helping to employ American Citizens. The education morass that he is not solving and the children who ARE being LEFT BEHIND are hidden from view in the same way that Texas schoolchildren were used to advance the ambitions of the elder son of George Bush I.

As a former teacher in the Public Schools and Professor of Education, I have no sympathy for this president and his supporters.  They lied then and they lie today.  We are told to look to the space station that will be set up on the Moon. We are told to forget about real education that should prepare our scientists and technicians. What we have is faulty because of the Bush ambition to be the leader of the free world where war is constant and educated eyes are not allowed to see solutions that truly educated and truly democratic minds have conceived.  Mr. Bush has conceded he is poorly educated. But, he wants to stay as President. He is a disgrace to the position to which he thinks he deserves to be reelected.