Our teachers unions really did us proud last year forcing government to intervene to cosmetically raise the achievements of pupils and in so doing flooding the market with uneducated and falsely entitled youths that will for the most part not be worth the minimum wage that government forces business to pay. Government will of course need to force business to employ this new workforce lest it leans on the increasingly fragile taxpayer-base.

So, basically a fundamentally stupid nation now also sacrifices its once proud and innovative business-base to emotional rather than critical decisions.

America might be able to absorb more of this nonsense than South Africa, but in the end the results will probably be the same.

Einstein’s famous definition of insanity (repeating the same act over and over while expecting a different result) is on full display in the never-ending effort to make government education work. Catastrophic failure is obvious in graduation rates and proficiency scores even as public “investment” skyrockets. It is time to wake up and smell the coffee.

Yes they Are !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Similarly, if education was completely privatized (not quasi-fascistic “controlled” privatization), we would find that good teachers were UNDERPAID, bad teachers were OVERPAID (and need firing), and that the hundreds of Deputy Assistant Vice Principals who manage compliance with Leave No Child Behind are completely useless leeches.

As for money – in most areas, efficiency, computerization, etc. is taken advantage but in education, we keep DECREASING class size, adding extra bureaucrats, teacher’s aides, counselors, special Ed. – e.g. the equivalent of having 6 people changing a light bulb.

Bob is right – the entire educational “establishment” must be smashed (but the public lacks the moral clarity to do it). Penny – Amen to St. Thomas (Jefferson). Steve – I am not as optimistic – when the system implodes, the result is more likely to be tyranny than freedom (see Wiemar Germany).

Ilana – thank you for your perseverance in speaking the truth.

[Bravo; as brilliant as ever, MP.]

The good news is that we don’t have to elect anti-union politicians, assuming that can be done at all. No, we only need to wait for the dollar to crash, and it will. Once federal reserve notes buy nothing, the game is up. The public servants, including the parasitical teachers’ unions, will get an up close look at the new and frightening reality. The six figure salaries, cozy pension plans, and plush offices will be but a fuzzy memory. That day is coming soon. I wouldn’t miss it for the world.

To acquire a better understanding of the profoundly negative impact organized labor in education has on our children, I strongly urge all to view the movie “Freedom Writers.”

With the consent of the unthinking masses–which Rand refers to as “social ballast”-the ruling elite has put principled and moral Americans between a rock and a hard place. Under penalty of incarceration or confiscation of their property moral Americans are forced to support with their tax money public schools and the “irrationalists, nihilists, socialists, and communists” who infest them.

In Madison, Wisconsin unionists whine that they deserve more taxpayer extortion as a human right. Gov. Scott Walker will learn that it is not enough to oppose these altruists on political, economic or even legal grounds. He must oppose them on moral grounds. He (and we) must fight them with what Rand refers to as “philosophical self-defense and self-esteem.”

Following Rand’s prescription, Gov. Walker should tell unionists that their mooching constitutes a moral crime. He should tell Wisconsin taxpayers that the battle for educational freedom in Wisconsin can be won…

“But to win it requires your total dedication and a total break with the world of your past, with the doctrine that man is a sacrificial animal who exists for the pleasure of others. Fight for the value of your person. Fight for the virtue of your pride. Fight for the essence of that which is man: for his sovereign rational mind. Fight with the radiant certainty and the absolute rectitude of knowing that yours is the Morality of Life and that yours is the battle for any achievement, any value, any grandeur, any goodness, any joy that has every existed on this earth.”

Government unions are just one facet of the real problem which is government bureaucracies. Ordained to life by politicians, structured by senior (non-unionized) civil servants, and all-too-happily staffed by big unions, this is what is strangling us.

Oh, there are cuts sometimes, but always it the front-line troops that feel the blows. You get teachers in classes filled with pupils who should be in special-ed, overworked nurses, imperilled cops or prison guards. Paper-pushers might be pushed out, but only in the direst of circumstances ! Know thy enemy !