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If your belief in the courts system is that far skewed then we are all doomed. DOOMED, I TELL YOU, DOOMED

Most lawsuits don't get to the jury phase. Some are settled out of court, but the court wields the power to grant motions to dismiss, in which case your point about the quality of the jury system is moot if the court system is biased and/or corrupt. Something tells me your legal observations are highly selective in nature. The problem is happening now, and electing or recalling judges is a nice idea, but won't address the current or near future abuses, nor will it address the long haul abuses without some comprehensive strategy to bring the issues to the attention of the voting public.

Teachers are plaintiffs in cases in which they are the odd persons out. Often by contrived means, conservative teachers are weeded out, leaving a residue of incompetent and/or liberal teachers. Such teachers will be more reluctant to use the court system to fight for their rights if the court system is perceived as corrupt to begin with and loser-pays is implemented.

As a substitute teacher, I have been present during some informal, full-time colleague discussions of the types of liability policies you are proposing. From these sources (who are neither union ideologues, nor HR types hired to “flog” the union alternative) as well as my own limited research, the alternatives you cite are neither as comprehensive, inexpensive nor as extensive as the alternatives offered by the unions.

That's news to me. I have personally used the insurance as have many other charter school and private school teachers. Otherwise charter schools and private schools would be wiped out by being limited to credentialed teachers, which is to say, often pre-screened liberal and/or incompetent teachers, and would not be able to offer an effectively differentiated product in the marketplace.

I must disagree with part of your assertion. While it is probably true that real reforms of the type I cited would be opposed by those entities you cite, it is also true that mere opposition does not translate into political victory. The overwhelming majority of the American electorate is not composed of teachers.

No but organization and solidarity count big as well as the ability to sway elections by delivering votes in blocs and through big political ad money. Pay attention during elections and you will see the effects of teachers' and government workers' unions.

These are the groups that have landed us in the current situation to begin with. To deny that they have political clout seems to me to equate to head-in-the-clouds idealism out of touch with reality. Additionally, most teachers are liberal and do support the NEA, while ed schools weed out conservative and libertarian citizens who aspire to teach in public schools. IOW, it's a racket. Step 1 in any solution is to recognize it is a racket. The racket is furthermore protected by judges trying to reduce their caseload (liberal or otherwise) and by the MSM. You need to define effective strategies to defeat these forces, not merely assert that the public can somehow be magically awakened to the problems and solutions.

You also dropped my mention of model solutions that are more effective and exist outside the US, such as Belgium. What happened there?? You are refuting only selective portions of my argument. Do you deny Japan, HongKong, Singapore, Belgium and many other countries do better than we do in teaching essential skills such as reading, writing, and math?

Court corruption exists. Yes, perhaps we are doomed, by naiive people who think reflexively, not reflectively, and use sarcasm as a shortcut around reasoning, investigation, and analysis. If you are trying to make a point, it is not clear.

Ok, here are my points: Our court system is not perfect (and neither is our republic). However, both are the best available on the planet at the current time. There are institutional mechanisms available to correct the problems you have cited.

All that is required to exercise these existent, correction mechanisms is political will on the part of the electorate. The fact that the electorate does not do so (to your satisfaction) is an indication that the majority does not see the same need, either through ignorance, mental incapacity or apathy.

Otherwise charter schools and private schools would be wiped out…

You have presented a false dichotomy. The implied premise of your statement is that private and charter schools (and their faculty) are exposed the same level of risk of frivolous lawsuits as ordinary public schools (and their faculty). I contend that you are in error from several perspectives. In a nutshell, neither, the students attending these institutions, nor parents thereof, are as likely to institute such suits.

Obviously, the students typically attending these institutions are not a representative cross section. Additionally, the parental involvement with instructors is typically higher in the institution types you cited thus decreasing potential misunderstanding and mistrust. Beyond this fact, administrator attention and involvement in the institutions you cited tends to be higher and more intense because the institutions are usually smaller and of higher profile (at least, to those portions of the public who demand accountability), meaning that potential problems are caught and corrected prior to the lawsuit stage.

These are the groups [NEA, etc.] that have landed us in the current situation to begin with. To deny that they have political clout…

First, neither I, nor anyone else of which I am aware, denies that this group has political clout (a term that usually refers to legislative or other influence within a government entity). My counter point is very simple: regardless of the political clout of this group, they do not constitute a majority, or even a plurality, of the over-all electorate in any area. Therefore, to lessen the political clout of this group and institute change, all that is required is to inform and motivate the majority of the electorate to move in the opposing direction.

You also dropped my mention of model solutions that are more effective and exist outside the US, such as Belgium. What happened there??

Sorry, to have not mentioned yourmodel solutions. However, I was addressing them generically in the same vein with my counters to the other proposals for change. Simply put, neither these models nor vouchers (except in Utah), nor any other model for change has, yet, motivated the voting public to demand emulation thereof.

You are refuting only selective portions of my argument.

I could level the same accusation your way. However, I did, and do, not from the logician’s principle of “charity”… that is assuming the presented argument is intended to address the specifics as well as the generality. Additionally, refuting selected portions is an effective and efficient (shorter) method of attacking and countering the entire argument. If you feel that my generalized counters have been in error by ignoring some of your specifics, then, by all means, just reassert your specifics with an expansion of how you feel that they are significantly different from the generalities to which I offered previous counters.

Do you deny Japan, HongKong, Singapore, Belgium and many other countries do better than we do in teaching essential skills such as reading, writing, and math?

Obviously, I do not feel that our current system is as efficient as some others or I would not offered a prescription for change. The question is what change is the most palatable to the electorate while simultaneously correcting the problems.