With only opposition by teachers' unions to recommend it, I'd like to propose an alternative to the Obama/Duncan education plan outlined in Sunday's Tribune ("Obama pledges brighter schools," Views, March 14). Instead, abolish the federal Department of Education.
With the stroke of a pen, we could save nearly $50 billion a year of taxpayers' money, immediately create 50 competitive state education laboratories that would be closer and more accountable to the people, end a huge and unnecessary layer of government duplication and stop, once and for all, a role for the federal government that is simultaneously intrusive, expensive and at odds with the vision of our Constitution's framers.
Importantly, it would also begin to scale back the hubristic, one-size-fits-all, we-know-best, mischief-making of a federal administration and bureaucracy that perfectly reflects the mindset and conceit of the busybodies who reside within it.
Soon, the wisdom and efficacy of such a move would be so obvious, taxpayers and state governments all across the country would demand that other costly and duplicative federal departments and agencies be "deep-sixed."
Ultimately, the burden the governing class imposes on the producing class would be substantially lessened, and the private sector could return to what it does best - producing jobs and an improved standard of living for an American middle class that once was the envy of the world.
DAN MCCONNELL
Riverview
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