Edspresso is Hot These Days, Burning Down the Magical Money Tree

The horse isn’t dead yet, so I’m not going to stop beating it. I’ve already highlighted the silliness of the “magical money tree” solution to education coming from Congress.

Let’s not mince words: the so-called “stimulus” bill in Washington, DC, is a disaster. A disaster for education reform, and a disaster for students – who would end up being burdened with far, far more debt than we can hope to gain from the proposed education spending.

As much as I have enjoyed picking apart the nonsense of this gargantuan wasteful spending bill, the writers at the Edspresso blog truly have been in their heyday unraveling the topic. After a hot start a few years ago, Edspresso went through some tough, slow times. That appears to be in the past, though.

The latest piece “Status Quo Education Stimulus” ironically lauds the National Education Association for showing us how “the stimulus bill is nothing more than additional funding for the education programs and structures that already exist, regardless of efficacy.”

Edspresso also creatively muses on what a speech by President Obama might look like, if he were willing to expend political capital on education reform rather than massive amounts of government pork projects. Democrats for Education Reform (DFER) could have written this imaginary speech for him.

But choosing to venture where DFER may not, Edspresso has come out as “the skunk at the garden party”, bluntly noting that the bill before Congress “is sort of like a bad drug, at least when it comes to education spending.”

I’m too young to know about drugs and what they can do to you, but it’s truly sad to see that plenty of ambitious adults in Washington seem to be unaware of the consequences themselves. One thing I do know about all this, though, is that the Edspresso blog is back with a vengeance by exposing the terrible, destructive folly that so many Democrats seem poised to inflict on my generation.

Let’s hope they keep it up.