Federal Government has to be involved by setting standards.

My friend Danny and I have had some excellent discussions concerning the Federal Government's involvement in our lives. I am going to responds to some concerns Danny has on this issue and explain further my stand and direction I see for us as a country. I invite everyone to chime in with their thoughts and ideas. As brilliant as I am I do not have all the answers. Once everyone stops laughing, keep reading this post. Danny when I talk about Federal Standards I look at our history and see many times when states failed to protect their citizens by imposing standards on either private citizens or businesses. Without federal intervention we would still be a segregated society. Remember the state of Mississippi refusing to admit James Meredith to their university. When many states, imposed laws to keep certain groups from voting, who stepped in to stop this abuse? Without Federal standards who would have established clean air and clean water acts? The state and local governments did not act on these issues. Who has set the standards for new drugs that are developed? The federal government. The highway system that links all of the states and allows for easy travel from area to area in the nation. Who set this up? Oh, wait again, I believe the Federal Government. I could go on but I believe I have established my point of view. Their are some issues and I believe education is one of them, that if the states were left to their own standards, we would be even further behind then we are now. In our wonderful state, Mr. Scott and a Republican controlled legislature has already slashed the amount of money spent per student. Last year we paid five times more per prisoner then student and that gap has just widened. That is what happens when we allow our "Sovereign States" to have free rein. You say we need to allow our state and local officials have more control, but where did most of our federal politicians begin? They were local and state elected officials! The corruption that begins locally has just grown to include the federal level. Now I am sure you are thinking that I am just saying give it all to Washington. No, I agree that more decisions need to be made local, but the standard has to be set at the Federal level on some issues, and education needs to be one of them. If no standard is set then the children in various states will not get a quality education because the state and local officials will undercut the spending further and make education a low priority. On Michele Rhee, the results I was talking about was that some test scores from D.C. are being questioned. All I want is for someone to be accountable for their results and not make up scores or skew them. I stated that there are many issues that I can support from her and I stated that tenure and seniority were part of them. Again you want to throw out the entire union process instead of looking at the good parts and adjusting the weaker parts of the contracts. The last point for now is my statement that instead of abandoning unions for teachers we need to expand them for others. You asked who I would want unions for? The short answer is for everyone. Right now who speaks for the average person. Nobody. The law makers hear from lobbyists for corporations, businesses and the wealthy. Maybe I missed my invite to Tallahassee, to give my opinion during the latest legislative session, but I really don't believe they wanted to hear from me now. This is the state officials that you want to place all of our faith in. Again I will agree that I do not have an invitation from the federal level, however I am working on that. One thing I know we can agree on 100% is that education, whether it is in schools or our own education on important issues and elections is paramount. This is were it should begin and end. Yes the most important part of the Constitution is "WE THE PEOPLE" and we have not just a right but an obligation to know who, whether it is at the Federal, State or Local level, is doing what and voicing our opinions loud and clear. My question to everyone is why do we turn out, still not strong enough, in Presidential elections and then in off years the numbers drops even further. I believe that if we could have strong  state and local elections and  hold them accountable, we could have more standards set locally. Then Danny and people that believe in less federal government would be happy and people like me that believes in strong standards would be happy. It is up to us.