The N.C. House of Representatives revealed the education portion of its budget bill this week, and it's a sobering document that continues the current legislative session's unprecedented attack on public education in North Carolina. Remember, though, that the N.C. House actually leans a smidgen less to the far-right than the N.C. Senate - in other words, these ideas could get even worse by the time they make it through both houses. Here are some lowlights of what the House GOP wants:

• The state's GOP: leading us back to the "good ol' days"

- Set up a voucher program that would take $100 million from public education and give it to private schools, despite the fact that over 60 percent of North Carolinians oppose the measure, according to Public Policy Polling.
- Increase class sizes, especially in early grades. Overall teaching-load limits for teachers in grades 7-12 would be removed. Public-education advocates, led by former N.C. Schools Superintendent Bob Etheridge, delivered 15,000 signatures to Gov. Pat McCrory opposing increases in class size.
- Students with disabilities and students with limited English proficiency would not be eligible for pre-kindergarten. As Progressive Pulse noted, these are the children who benefit most from pre-k programs, so, um, WTF?
- New teachers with masters degrees would not get a salary supplement anymore (currently, they receive a $3,000 supplement). Our state's teachers are already among the most underpaid in the nation (46th out of 50), by the way.
- School buses less than 15 years old could not be replaced until they reach 300,000 miles rather than the current requirement to replace them every 200,000 miles.

The education cuts and policy changes making their way through the General Assembly - the Senate's budget, for instance, calls for cutting 6,000 teachers' aides - are some of the most destructive, and frankly puzzling, measures we've seen from state lawmakers in years. Another way of putting it is that the state is self-destructing; after all, it's we the voters that elected the smug half-wits who seem determined to wreck public education in North Carolina. Of course, a poorly educated citizenry will be perfect for the kind of low-paying companies the good ol' boys in Raleigh want to bring here. Needless to say, keeping citizens ignorant won't hurt GOP reps' chances of re-election, either.

No wonder the Moral Monday protests are getting bigger by the week.