Gov. Scott Walker can thank Michelle Rhee for making teachers unions the enemy

Washington Post ^ | February 27, 2011 | Richard D. Kahlenberg

[Gene Eric]

Michelle Rhee is courageous individual that gives a crap about the bottom line - the students, and the resource requirements necessary to educate, and not perpetuate the administrative and unionized complacency.

Rhee knew the Democrats would dispatch her role once they had the power.

[Intolerant in NJ]

...GOP has a strong partisan interest in undermining public-employee unions, which provide troops and treasure to the Democratic Party. In Wisconsin, Walker's campaign to restrict the collective bargaining rights of teachers and other groups to the issue of wages is transparently partisan...it's funny how these libs see attempts to protect taxpayers from greedy unions and public employees as "partisan", but don't see those employees' support for the unions which vote them such large wage and benefit packages as partisan, or maybe even conflict of interest......

[Falconspeed]

Rhee is admirable for her understanding of the problems of education and for her clear and successful solutions. Vouchers work. Giving tax dollars to parents who can shop around for a good school is much better than giving tax dollars to schools who force local students to attend. Such a simple solution that is blocked by greed and pride.

[9YearLurker]

Oh, no! Ego Christie wants all the credit for the trend!

[kearnyirish2]

Police & fire may have supported him, for their own reasons: here in NJ, both police & fire personnel ARE being laid off, while the teachers not only hang on but are still getting pay increases (stronger union). Paterson NJ just became another city to lay off 1/3 of its police force (following Camden, Newark, Jersey City); teachers are doing just fine in the meantime. Those unuons stuck together when the money was rolling in; now it is obvious (especially to the police) that they are at the bottom of the food chain.

Fire departments are slightly better off, as there are less paid members; in my town they agreed to concessions/ demotions to avoid layoffs. Our recenly-hired veterans, who were sheduled to be laid off as the most recent hires, attended town hall meetings in their military uniforms to protest the cuts; I guess we owe them a lucrative job for life (in a town with few fires - the large paid department is a holdover from a time when there was a lot of industry which left decades ago).

[St_Thomas_Aquinas]

But Walker's argument - that greedy teachers are putting their own interests over the interests of the public - resonates because in recent years, many Democrats have made that argument as well it's true.

Fixed.