Bargaining with the feds

The N&R editorializes on the shakeup at Oak Hill Elementary, expressing skepticism over the Guilford County Board of Education’s “bargain with the feds.”

The editorial concludes:

What Oak Hill students must have is the best possible chance to advance grade by grade with the skills they need to succeed. If they don’t get that after all this, school system administrators and board members should be the next to go. It’s only a matter of time before Washington requires that, too.

That would indeed be extreme, even as bad as we need change on Guilford’s school board. But it goes back to the theme I’ve been repeating for weeks now —– how long before local government is rendered useless in the never-ending chase for the federal dollar?

Doug Clark says there soon “will be no end to top-down dictates.”

Watt addresses healthcare reform

Pretty good Lexington Dispatch coverage of Rep. Mel Watt’s healthcare reform town hall meeting at Davidson Community College.

Read the whole article, but the key message comes from Dr. Zan Tyson, a cardiologist who’s already being squeezed by Medicare:

“We’re scrambling, getting ready to cut services. Physicians are planning to leave the practice,” Tyson said. “So, I have a message for you. That message would be that it won’t do much good to provide people with health insurance if there are no doctors there to provide for them.”

Anyone else see the irony behind Watt’s belief that tort reform would be unconstitutional?