Five lousy lessons Congress is giving to kids
(Associated Press)
Congress has had a hard time lately getting work done on major education issues (and in this case, lately means years). Here are five lousy lessons that Congress is sending to kids in this regard:
1. It’s okay to blow deadlines.
Legislators let pass a July 1 deadline for preventing student college loans from doubling even though they had plenty of warning about what would happen if they didn’t take action. Meanwhile, the No Child Left Behind law was supposed to be reauthorized in 2007. SIX YEARS AGO. NCLB went into effect in 2002 and was supposed to be reauthorized by Sept. 30, 2007. Congress passes laws with the intent that they will expire after a certain period of time, most often five years, at which time lawmakers can update and/or fix a law, with some history of implementation to back it up. But even if Congress doesn’t take up the law again, its authority stays intact until a new law is passed. There are now competing Democratic and Republican bills in Congress to rewrite it but nobody is expecting much movement on it anytime soon. Why? Look at Lesson No. 2.
2. It’s okay to refuse to compromise (even when doing so sometimes