[A_perfect_lady]

(Oh, I know, I know - all the self-described “good” teachers on this forum will loudly dispute this statement, but do they resist paying the teacher’s union dues and do they REALLY dare say ANYTHING that might ruffle the feathers of their fellow teachers in that union?) I have a relative who has enough guts not to join the teacher’s union, but even he is out-shouted by the hordes of lemmings that make up the majority of his co-workers.)

Actually, a lot of teachers start wising up after some years in the gulag. I'm in LAUSD, and just yesterday in a schoolwide meeting I kind of went off about how the kids should have to pay for their books because by giving them all this stuff paid for by the taxpayers, we are not teaching them the value of anything. Of course, I was told that we can't do that. But the next day, at least three people came up to me and said, "I really agree with what you said, and even though the real problems are things they always say can't be changed, I was glad to hear someone say it."

And some of them, I know, were liberals when they started out all starry-eyed and foolish years ago.

[Maelstorm]

I would say that is a good idea if we tax payers weren’t already paying such extraordinary amounts of money to buy those text books. If you were just going to make people who don’t pay taxes pay then I might go along with you but then again I don’t think that would fly. I don’t understand why we spend any money on text books at all. I’d rather schools be centered around a well stocked library with all lessons being crafted from books shared from there.