Posted 4:47 PM by Susan Darst Williams

DUELING SPECIAL-INTEREST GROUPS

(apologies to “Dueling Banjoes”)

A million special-interest groups
Fight for every dollar spent.
No one referees and . . . oops!
Taxpayers are impotent.
How much of our dough’s misspent?

Gimme more, more, more!
Gimme more, more, more!
Gimme more, more, more!

Goals 2000 is arousin’
Neverending school spending!
Is the goal an education?
Or school jobs for the whole nation?

Spend our money on sight-reading,
Though it gives kids’ brains a beating.
Cost-efficiency of phonics
Is so much better, it is comic.

High-falutin’ learning standards
Aren’t much more than propaganda.
Dumb ‘em down!
Been misled!
The whole dang country’s special ed!

Money, to the NEA,
Is what school’s about today.
Setting rules no one can read.
Federal programs feed the greed.
Bureaucrats sprout up like weeds.

Gimme more, more, more!
Gimme more, more, more!
Gimme more, more, more!

Multiculturalism’s a mystery.
Kids no longer learning history!
Why keep teaching them bilingually,
Just ‘cause it makes you feel tingly?

Junkets, trips and seminars?!?
Just teach kids the old 3 R’s.
Why employ this mass of creatures?
More than half aren’t even teachers.

School to work?
School you’ll skip
For your paid apprenticeship.
While you’re tiny, Uncle Sam
Plans your future.
Bam! Bam! Bam!

At-risk kids in charter schools
Merely learning to use tools.
Distance learning? It forebodes
No more thinking! Just download!
Corporate profits will explode.

Gimme more, more, more!
Gimme more, more, more!
Gimme more, more, more!

Get their cards out on the table:
They make money on the disabled!
Call your school board,
Sharply quiz ‘em,
‘Bout the graft and nepotism.

Teachers running out of paper
While bond issues build skyscrapers!?!
How much of per-pupil costs
Go for PUPILS? Applesauce!

Why should special interests rule?
Why not just let school be school?
Taxpayers, come unhinged:
Special-interest spending binge!

One way to end this . . . madness
Is to give ‘em less dough . . . lots less!

-- Dedicated to teachers and students, the only “special-interest groups” that really count. :>)