LETTERS: FEDS SHOULD GET OUT OF EDUCATION

To the editor:

Since the massacre at Littleton, Colo., the federal government has been calling for stricter legislation that keeps guns and explosives out of the hands of our nation's children, even though there already are enough laws that no kid should even get through the gate with a squirt gun.

The feds can't enforce the laws we have now. Why would they think more laws will work? To only propose laws is not proposing a solution. The federal government is spinning all four wheels and is going backward.

The more laws that are passed in the name of education only succeed in restricting education. Teachers can't teach our children now because their hands are tied by all the regulations and the constant threat of lawsuits. It is obvious that the federal education system is an utter failure and only continues to get worse.

The great ones who founded this country had no intention of letting an all-powerful central government educate their children. Nowhere in the U.S. Constitution does it say anything about education or give power to educate to Congress or any branch of government. However, education has always been a key debate. The first Congress used surpluses for public education. Now we must raise taxes in order to buy computers or metal detectors.

In order for education to work, educators must be freed to teach without fear of lawsuits or restrictive legislation that won't allow discipline. Congress opens with a prayer. Yet prayer in schools is forbidden.

DAVE LEFLER

Cape Girardeau