* While Ohio Republicans twiddle their thumbs, work on stripper legislation, and raise their campaign funds, students in Ohio's poorest schools cannot pass the graduation test. If students don't pass the graduation test, they do not graduate. Ohio's Republican elected officials have failed to help students in the state get a quality education. Here is an article from the Dispatch:
The likelihood that a Columbus senior passed the Ohio Graduation Test varied dramatically, depending on where that student went to school this year, district data show.....
.....The 2006-07 seniors are the first class that must pass the graduation test in order to receive a high-school diploma. They first could take the test, which includes exams in reading, writing, math, science and social studies, in 10th grade and have had several chances since then to take it.
District data show that seniors were more likely to fail portions of the test if they attended schools with high percentages of minorities and economically disadvantaged students, even if those schools have had high graduation rates in the past.....
* On a national level, Republicans seem to be abandoning Mr. Bush's failed Iraq policy. New York Times:
White House officials fear that the last pillars of political support among Senate Republicans for President Bush’s Iraq strategy are collapsing around them, according to several administration officials and outsiders they are consulting. They say that inside the administration, debate is intensifying over whether Mr. Bush should try to prevent more defections by announcing his intention to begin a gradual withdrawal of American troops from the high-casualty neighborhoods of Baghdad and other cities.....
How many Americans died while these same Republicans refused to budge on their support for Bush's Iraq War? How many American families will never see their loved ones again because Republicans did not speak up in opposition to Bush's Iraq invasion/war/surge?
Now that the 2008 election is on the horizon and their constituents are getting angry and impatient, Republicans have started to speak up about the ramifications of the war in Iraq. Is it too little too late?
