“When school children start paying union dues, that's when I'll start representing the interests of school children.” Albert Shanker, teachers’ union organizer (shown below).
Reverend Mike, one of my virtually life-long friends, called this morning and started with his usual oblique reference to something I’ve written.
Today it was about me “seeing Communists under every bush”, which naturally evolved into a bumpy debate about public education and the power of teachers’ unions which we’ve jousted over for years.
There are socialists, communists and fascists trying to and succeeding in infiltrating state and federal government in order to “fundamentally change America.”
That was Barack Obama’s promise and he is true to his word; an outraged public—we, the people—just forced the ouster of avowed Communist and proud “community organizer” Anthony “Van” Jones 
from Obama’s inner circle…. appropriately, over this Labor Day weekend.
And that’s where some of my oldest and dearest friends like Mike and I part company politically. They simply do not see the threat even though it is currently played out on a daily basis.
Others see it, yet do not think it’s a threat.
Yes, I’m speaking in the micro of my fellow so-called Baby Boomers… The Worst Generation. We were given more than anyone and have done less with the sacrifices of our forefathers.
Michelle Obama is not the first leftist to proudly insist that she “… isn’t proud to be an American”; my generation invented the phrase.
Case in point: A long time ago a lefty co-worker of mine rebutted something I’d observed with, “I get so sick and tired of hearing about all that our parents’ generation did.”
I used to argue with such people…. no longer, I don’t debate the Holocaust with Nazis or ragheads either.
Anyway, back to Rev. Mike.
I prefer clarity over agreement in any discussion; no one has to agree with me, I just want to know how they reached their opinion, and I expect them to defend it with facts.
Otherwise, it’s simply hope, belief and shudda, wudda, cudda.
As a former reporter, I have never given up my interest, perhaps need, to find out… call it a true liberal arts education, if you will. For many years my job was to go to work with other people and observe.
Then tell you what they did.
And through LM3/1 (before that e-mails, and before that faxes, and before that phone calls and letters…) I have been a good-natured thorn in my liberals friends’ hides for decades.
The Socratic Method
Many of my friends are career teachers; some, like Mike are retired. So it’s natural that he is sensitive and passionate about this subject. As always I went out of my way to stress that my criticism of virtually all major aspects of the US educational system had nothing to do with him personally.
I
insisted that the anecdotal does not trump fact, and that pointing out that there are very good and great teachers, and some kids are saved by education from a life of under-achievement, does not offset the patient’s dire condition.
I am reminded of the quip… “Yes, but other than that Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?”
Our public school systems worsen year by year; I thought everyone agreed on that simple fact since even the schools’, the states’ and the feds’ own statistics show we are failing.
(Cue the obligatory…. “well, the parents are to blame, we need more money, and did I mention that we need more money?”)
Hogwash and gingersnaps.
That is the central fallacy of left-wing thought on everything…. just throw more billions trillion$ at it until we solve ( fillintheblank ).
The major culprits in this national disgrace are teachers’ unions.
Stanford University Professor Terry Moe, William Bennett Munro Professor of Political Science and Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution:
“… should we test incumbent teachers for their competence? Well, I think so, it just seems to me that it's obvious that that would be good for kids and good for schools. Well, the unions are against that. Why are they against it? It conflicts with their fundamental interests. That's why. They do care about good schools, but they will not do certain things, because those things conflict with their interests. That's the key to it.
“Now, notice what I have not said. I have not said anything about good schools, making the schools better, or doing what's best for kids. Now, I think teachers care about that, definitely, and union leaders care about that. But it's not fundamental to the interests of the union. Now, this may sound offensive, but I think it's flat-out true. And it's exactly the same kind of thing we say about legislators when we say they don't fundamentally care about the public interest.”
There…. more proof is found in the ever-increasing salaries, benefit packages and retirements of public school teachers while school taxes rise and the end product—student education—gets worse and worse.
Myths
A recent Rasmussen poll indicates that only nine percent (9%) of non-union workers would like to join a union. Eighty-one percent (81%) would not.
More over, the same survey found that 47% of union members believe that workers want to join a union, while only 18% disagree.
Some unions were useful 100 years ago, and now they are the labor problem, not the solution.
I’ll leave the well-known ties between the Mafia and labor unions for another day…. I thought anyone who saw “The Sopranos” knew all about it anyway.
Most of what the public believes about public education is nothing more than collectivist propaganda driven home by the unions such as United Federation of Teachers and American Federation of Teachers. These unions were run by Albert Shanker for more than 40 years and he was instrumental in creating educational propaganda and myth.
A child of union members, Shanker was a member of the Young People's Socialist League and chair of the Socialist Study Club as an undergrad. In 1949 he graduated college with honors and enrolled in grad school at Columbia University. In order to earn money while writing his dissertation, Shanker became substitute public school teacher.
In his excellent book Education Myths, Jay P. Greene, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, deconstructs numerous education myths:
- Pay---U.S. Department of Labor data shows that in 2002, elementary school teachers averaged $30.75 per hour and high school teachers made $31.01…. about the same as other professionals like architects, economists, biologists, civil engineers, chemists, physicists and astronomers, and computer systems analysts and scientists.
- Hours worked--The average teacher in schools where students have different instructors for different subjects, taught fewer than 3.9 hours per day in 2000. This leaves plenty of time for grading and planning lessons during regular school hours.
- Performance -- “It has been well documented that the people drawn into teaching these days tend to be those who have performed least well in college. If teachers are paid about as well as employees in many other good professions, why aren't more high performers taking it up? Possible causes would be: teaching’s rigid seniority-based system doesn’t allow fast promotion or raises based on merit. Obviously raising pay is not the answer.
Economist Eric Hanushek of Stanford University examined every solid study on spending and outcomes on public education—a total of 163 research papers—and concluded that extra resources are more likely to be squandered than to have a productive effect.
Greene states, “Few people would see a doctor who wasn't licensed, or a lawyer who hadn't passed the bar. Teacher quality is certainly a crucial factor in students' academic achievement, but having an extra education degree is not linked to success.
“After examining every available study on the impact of teaching credentials on job performance—171 in total—Hanushek found that only nine uncovered any significant positive relationship between credentials and student performance, five found a significant negative relationship between the two, and 157 showed no connection.”
Teachers, not unlike family farmers, have long been sacred cows due largely to the emotional ties to our childhood—and an earlier, simpler time they represent.
In my former profession—psychotherapy—it’s fact that the higher the credential, the higher the number of complaints and grievances filed by clients.
I firmly believe that at least one-third of all mental health practitioners have no business treating people.
Yet, see if you can find a tenured, paid-by-tax-money teacher to go on record about the dead weight and incompetence in his/her profession.
When education ends
The national drop-out rate (especially if all of those starting first grade, through high school graduation are counted) is scandalous. Approximately 1.2 million American teenagers drop out of high school, alone, every year.
And the key words here are “high school”; until last school year there was no standard national formula to determine “the drop-out rate”. For example, New Mexico defined its graduation rate as the percentage of enrolled 12th graders who receive a diploma, a method that grossly undercounts dropouts by ignoring all students who leave school before 12th grade.
Until last year North Carolina so exaggerated graduates that when the state adopted a more accurate method last year; its graduation rate plummeted from 95 percent to 68 percent. (Read more here.)
“Shelbyville Indiana had been comforted by its self-reported--and wildly inaccurate--graduation rate of up to 98%. The school district 
arrived at that number by using a commonly accepted statistical feint, counting any dropout who promises to take the GED test later on as a graduating student.” – Time Magazine.
Imagine what the true national school drop out rate is for all students, age 6 –18.
When I asked The Padre, he estimated it at “about 40 percent”; I was surprised, given his passion on the issue, that he is probably spot on.
But I would not be surprised if it was near 50 percent. Black and Hispanic students are already near that rate.
Would Americans pay for cable TV that works only 50 percent of the time? Not just “no”, but “Hell, no!”
Yet we pay a fortune for the same poor outcome in education something far more important than American Idol.
It is simply freedom of choice, which liberals cite immediately when murdering babies in the womb; yet there is no choice when it comes to your child’s education, save paying for private school, and government school taxes on top of that.
Thus, most Americans (especially the poor) are financially forced to send their children to public school to be indoctrinated by secular, leftist, union employees K-12.
Eventually, ironically, it may be only the drop outs who have an understanding and appreciation of the nation in which they live.
There can be no exaggerating the importance of this educational crisis, yet we ignore it; in our respective towns and communities, including right here where I live in Gainesville By-Gawd Texas, we complain but nothing changes.
Solution: Charter schools, vouchers, education savings accounts.
One of the great myths of our time is “too big to fail”; and my friend Mike is worried that these solutions would destroy public education as we know it… to which I say, “good”.
Because that means two things: parents, not the government, are back in control of their kids education, and don’t have to pay for a sub-standard product turned in by the left-wing collectivists.
- Vouchers give parents who live in failing public school districts the ability to attend private schools and not have to pay twice for education.
- A charter school is an independent public school which provides the option to attend a school based on specific interests. Over the past 10 years the enrollment of public schools in DC has continued to decrease and almost a third of the city's students attend charter schools.
Choice would bring education into the free market where competition would eventually give parents a choice of the best schools for the greatest value.
And speaking of charter schools in Washington D.C., here is the epitome of leftist hypocrisy, Obama style:
April 15 (Bloomberg) -- A spending law signed by Obama last April ended a program that gave low-income parents tuition vouchers of as much as $7,500 a year to send their children to good private schools.
And which rat-infested, gang-controlled, garbage pit public school do the millionaire Obamas’ precious daughters attend?
Yeah, right…
Sasha and Malia Obama attend Sidwell Friends – a school so swanky that doesn’t even have “school” in the title.
And when they lived in Chicago?
“Tuition for the Chicago Lab School where Obama’s daughters attend is $18,492 a year for grades 1-4 (per student); the tuition climbs to $20,286 a year for grades 5-8, and $21,480 a year for grades 9-12, according to the school.”
Right, just like the Kommissar says, “We are all in this together, komrade.”
there have been times where America has shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive.”
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