Posted on 11/06/2007 10:52:46 AM PST by TheEaglehasLanded
Edited on 11/06/2007 11:21:35 AM PST by Sidebar Moderator. [history]
There, teachers unions, whose idea of progress is preservation of the status quo, are waging an expensive and meretricious campaign to overturn the right of parents to choose among competing schools, public and private, for the best education for their children.
(Excerpt) Read more at heraldextra.com ...
“Intellectually bankrupt but flush with cash...”
This is the real problem with the teacher’s unions, and why they are the biggest enemy of true education reform in our nation.
Here, here! I voted early with a hearty YEA for school vouchers. Some guy came by my house Saturday, wearing an “Against Ref. 1” T-shirt. I told him not to bother giving me a pamphlet, I’d already voted and fully support giving parents choices.
1) Don't change the headline
2) Wash Post syndicate writers such as George Will must be excerpted
3) The Activism/Chapters sidebar is reserved for news of FR activism or activism by like-minded groups such as Gathering of Eagles.
On the bright side, the UEA may have alienated some members. I know a couple of teachers who are quite upset that the UEA gave them bad information (knowingly mislead) on the issue. They're voting for vouchers and don't trust the union any longer. Hopefully, this thing will shed some additional light on where education union priorities lay - membership ($$$) not the students.
The down side, we will have an additional new 150K students costing hundreds of millions to the system. When they come for the millions more, old folks are going to lose their homes to the tax burden.
Utah is actually an ideal place to try a voucher experiment. The unions & liberals have been working hard and spending lots of money to defeat it. Why not try it and see how it works? The unions apparently don’t want to take the chance that it might work.
I support the vouchers and they should have easily passed here, but, given the above, they will either barely pass or fail (IMO).
I assisted a family member who is a teacher (Jr. High) with grading a relatively simple assignment. I told her that I would have failed 3/4 of her class - she agreed but said the School District doesn't allow her to do so. Most of the work was less than pathetic - my dad would've taken me to the woodshed if I had come home with one of those assignments. But, at least, her students will FEEL good about themselves.
The students I felt bad for were the two or three who turned in the A grade work in a sea of F worthy crap (which ended up with a C). We're failing our kids but the general populace isn't involved or informed enough to care - everyone is too focused on fun and "me me me".
One last thing to note as well is that Utah is quite deceptive. While the states seems dominated by Republicans, many (if not most) of our elected officials are weak social Republicans and fiscal Democrats.
Utahns are incredibly trusting of government. The result is that state and local government, for the most part, taxes and spends (often on feel good stuff) and government programs and institutions are frequently seen as sacred, untouchable stuff (such as public ed). While there is a minor tax rebellion going on in Davis and Weber counties, it remains to be seen if it can reach a tipping point where people come to their senses and exact greater responsibility from government for the use of our money...
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