…is education. Actually I disagree. I’d say that, in terms of advancing the “progressive” agenda, it has been a massive success.
[Update a few minutes]
The president’s hypocritical lip service on school choice, and the reason for it:
Perhaps the president is feeling pressure to adopt reform language because of the attention being paid to the new documentary Waiting for Superman, which charges education unions with the poor state of American education. But the plight of the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program falls squarely with certain members of Congress and the Obama administration, which has continually acquiesced to union demands.
These unions are, by a long shot, the largest contributors to members of Congress. The two major education unions, the National Education Association (NEA) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), make 95 percent of their political contributions to Democrats. And with a budget of more than $355 million, the NEA spends more on campaign contributions than ExxonMobil, Microsoft, Walmart, and the AFL-CIO combined.
I think this is criminal, at least morally.
I think the President screwed up this week when he said bad teachers had to go. As stated in this article, teachers unions vote to the left.
As much as I think teachers are to blame for the state of education, I blame the parents. If they hadn’t taken the power to discipline their kids away from the teachers, the teachers would have more power in the classroom. I have at least a half dozen friends, who were great teachers, who left because of p.i.t.a. kids. If THOSE good teachers had stayed, there’d be fewer BAD teachers.
And it’s my experience that GOOD employees generally don’t support the BAD employees. And the unions would then have a different ‘feel’ to them.
Public employee unions delenda est.