After years of national education policy designed by Republicans, it is discovered that the American educational system is not measuring up for some students.

Somehow, years of unfunded mandates requiring schools to focus resources on bringing the lowest common denominator up to average or above average performance have managed to harm the performance of schools in urban areas where local budgets have trouble meeting the demands.

So, naturally, it's the Democrats fault.

um...what again?  

I don't know, it looks pretty simple to me.  Here we are in Eden Prairie.  President Bush pushed all sorts of requirements onto the schools, but provided inadequate funding to cover the requirements.  Pawlenty eviscerated the education budget, and pushed the bill back to local communities.

Eden Prairie raised the taxes on its upper-middle class residents, and is doing fine.  Minneapolis tried to squeeze blood out of working poor turnips, and came up dry, and they're hurting.

And it's the Democrats fault how again?

I suppose it would be the Democrats fault too, if Pawlenty had suceeded in his bid to cap the amount of money a local goverment could raise to pay for their own schools?

sure, why not?

And its the Democrats fault that Pawlenty wants to take state tax money, and instead of rescuing urban schools, he wants to "give the money back" to property owners and look like he's the big brave tax bandit giving back to the people.  Dude, our property taxes went up BECAUSE OF YOUR POLICIES, and the policies of your Dear Leader.

You'd think he would have learned his lesson when he vetoed that bill which included money to repair a certain bridge, just so he could get his "Jesse checks" out.

[update:  Minneapolis schools dispute the findings of the study, saying that many of the students counted as "drop-outs" are infact merely students that live inside the district, but attend (and graduate from ) schools outside the district due to our liberal open-enrollment policy.

here's a link to that:  http://www.kare11.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=503005]

It should be pointed out that the first and biggest proponant of "school choice"  (of the REAL kind...as in, public funds spent on public schools, not private or religious schools) Was Gov. Rudy Perpich; (D).  He promoted the idea of open enrollment AND charter schools.  Guess who opposed Charter schools?  His successor, Gov. Arne Carlson (R).