Minimum Standards and States Rights

Last Wednesday, there was a vote in the House to establish that schools across American could not tie down, use solitary confinement, and other medieval techniques of discipline that should never be applied to children.

Nearly every single Republican voted against it, on the idea of "states rights."

I have to say - what exactly is wrong with a minimum set of standards? We set up minimum standards for air quality on the federal level, for automobiles, even federal standards for what should be taught in classes.

There are some 22 states without provisions against treating children as if they were criminals, which this law seeks to address by establishing minimum standards to let all teachers know "No, you may not tie down Jimmy when he's bad. No, you can't put Susie in solitary confinement - you run a school, not a prison."

Evidently, the vast majority of Republicans thought that setting up these standards and spending $22 million a year to enforce them is too much. So remember, trillions for war, billions for tax cuts - but torturing kids? Well, they, we can't go spending money on that.