Monday, June 13, 2005
Rewarding Further Bureaucratic Incompetence
One of the biggest moves on the elementary education front is to end what is called social promotion -- the tactic of promoting kids whose test scores and classroom work prove that they clearly don't belong in the next grade. In New York City, Mayor Bloomberg successfully pushed to end the practice. Recent test scores may have proven him right.
Now, what happens at the federal level?
Let's just say, for instance, that there exists a federal agency implicated in one of the most catastrophic intelligence and crime-prevention failures in history.
Further, just for arguments sake, that that same federal agency, nearly four years after the aforesaid catastrophic failures, still has yet to completely modernize its file management systems. Indeed, that agency was told to abandon the project costing some $170 million.
So, what should happen to that federal agency? Should the head of the agency lose his job? Should there be more federal oversight? Should there be some sort of sanctions? Well, of course, not. This is the federal government, after all. It should get -- brand new powers!
Which is one reason that even some conservatives are also asking -- What the #%@!?
They are focusing more on the civil liberties issue, which can't be dismissed. But what happened to the basic idea of, uh, competence?
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Now, what happens at the federal level?
Let's just say, for instance, that there exists a federal agency implicated in one of the most catastrophic intelligence and crime-prevention failures in history.
Further, just for arguments sake, that that same federal agency, nearly four years after the aforesaid catastrophic failures, still has yet to completely modernize its file management systems. Indeed, that agency was told to abandon the project costing some $170 million.
So, what should happen to that federal agency? Should the head of the agency lose his job? Should there be more federal oversight? Should there be some sort of sanctions? Well, of course, not. This is the federal government, after all. It should get -- brand new powers!
Which is one reason that even some conservatives are also asking -- What the #%@!?
They are focusing more on the civil liberties issue, which can't be dismissed. But what happened to the basic idea of, uh, competence?
