GOP Needs To Focus On Education, Says Man Whose State Textbooks Say Loch Ness Monster Is Real

Lousiana Gov. Bobby Jindal gave a speech yesterday outlining his version of what the GOP needs to do differently in order to be less like the GOP. Startlingly, there is a way to make fun of it.

His prescription: Education! We need to fix education! Which sounds like a great idea, until you take into account that the guy saying it took a prolific, probably unconstitutional dump on his state's education system, and that members of the party he is saying it to have come out vigorously against evolution, teachers' bargaining rights, embryology , knowledge-based college admission guidelines , the age of the Earth , student loan programs , and the entire skill of critical thinking . It's like proposing salad reform be embraced by velociraptors: It might help the raptors look better, but they just aren't built for it.

The story of Jindal's speech is brought to us by the charming folks of the Daily Caller :

“I believe we’ve got an economic and a moral imperative to provide school choice and a quality education to every child, every student in America. In that case, many lives will be transformed, many futures will be realized, and the results for all our country will be real and lasting.”

Well, that's nice. There are more hollow, nonspecific platitudes, mixed in with how important the middle class is, which he says as his party gleefully steps on it.

Jindal, for his part, has been paving the way for education reform in his state, where education has been reformed to the point it does not even really look like education anymore. From Reuters :

Louisiana is embarking on the nation’s boldest experiment in privatizing public education, with the state preparing to shift tens of millions in tax dollars out of the public schools to pay private industry, businesses owners and church pastors to educate children...

Top schools…have just a handful of slots open [to students with vouchers]. The Dunham School in Baton Rouge, for instance, has said it will accept just four voucher students, all kindergartners. The school willing to accept the most voucher students — 314 — is New Living Word in Ruston, which has... no library. Students spend most of the day watching TVs in bare-bones classrooms. Each lesson consists of an instructional DVD that intersperses Biblical verses with subjects such chemistry or composition.

QUICK. PUT THIS GUY IN CHARGE OF THE EDUCATION PLANS.

Hey, at least Louisiana is saving money, right? Possibly -- they haven't bothered to check .

Other Louisiana "schools," as we have told you before, are teaching students not only that the Loch Ness Monster is real, but that it disproves evolution . Aaaand , not only has Jindal gifted the state's education system to religion, but he has gifted it only to his (new) religion: Christian "schools" had no problem getting certified to get that sweet taxpayer funding, but when Muslim schools tried to join the voucher program, politicians done soiled their Jesus britches .

Education reform, however, fits with the new "fix the GOP" narrative that has developed since the American electorate reminded the GOP it was broken: Take the issues making the party look out of touch and ignorant, pretend to fix them, and hope nobody notices nothing's changed.

[ Daily Caller ]

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