Posted on 08/02/2011 11:19:25 AM PDT by Kaslin
Teachers unions and their supporters hoped to draw 1 million people to Washington D.C. last weekend for their "Save Our Schools" rally. They apparently fell about 992,000 people short.
The embarrassing attendance underlined one major truth – there is no mass movement to maintain the status quo in our nation’s public schools. The only people defending the current system are those who profit from it, like the leaders of the nation's teachers unions.
The "Save Our Schools" message was honest in one respect – the union goal is to save public schools as they currently exist. Notice that there was no call to improve the quality of education for students, because that's not what the unions are fighting for.
Their only concern is to maintain a system that has kept unions financially health for decades. The fact that American students are struggling in this system is not on their agenda.
The unions certainly did their best to draw a crowd, even going as far as inviting Matt Damon to be a keynote speaker.
The burning question in my mind was if Damon would draw more people to this rally than he did to his recently flopped film "Green Zone." The answer was a definite no. And he got a little temperamental when pressed by a reporter from ReasonTV:
Person behind the camera: Aren't 10 percent (of teachers) bad though? Ten percent of teachers are bad. Ten percent of people in any profession should think of something else.Damon: Well, okay, but I mean, maybe you’re a shi**y cameraman. I don't know.
A popular theme of the rally was to attack student testing. See, if the establishment can get rid of any sort of objective measure of student performance, then they can dicker about subjective measurements for employees, such as how much they work, how much they care and how hard they’re trying. It has been a full-frontal attack on objective measurements, which they’ve deemed "high-stakes."
The unionists were also complaining about Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, collective bargaining reform in Ohio and boogeymen such as the Koch brothers.
Once hoping for 1,000,000 teachers in front of the White House, they could only rustle up about 8,000 attendees, according to unofficial Parks Department estimates. Even grading with a curve, that’s a big fat "F."
But never fear, they have millions of people behind them, Damon said. They just happened to be at the beach or on vacation because, after all, it’s summer, you know. Perhaps the real reason for the poor turnout is that millions of union teachers throughout the nation disagree with their leaders' rejection of necessary reforms.
Either way, the poor turnout demonstrated that there isn't much enthusiasm nationwide for maintaining our public school system in its current form. Most people want change, and all the union bluster in the world will not alter that fact.
Thanks for the laugh. I need it, after the debt ceiling debacle.
Even the Left is bickering over education, with the effite urban hipster types and its “leaders” squaring off against the unions, let them kill each other off.
No overtime pay provided.....
“Save Our A**es!”
Parents need to remember one thing. Your kids need a good education to be able to support themselves in the future. You need for them to have a good education so that when you get older, they can help support you. Just something to think about.
And dedicated America-haters aspiring for union leadership.
Teachers are *busy* while on vacation.
It's new, new, new, new, new, math.
The numbers mean whatever your feelings tell you they mean, and the sums are correct if it makes you feel good about yourself.
Let us be honest here, a hipster couple moving to the city like the rest of their herd does not want to send the kid to a public school ran by thugs for thugs being taught thuggery. So the left is forming a circular firing squad, get out of the way.
In “Team America: World Police”, Matt Damon was a character who so stupid he could only say his own name.
Seems to be an accurate representation.
They'll just take a class field trip during the school year!
And, I predict that if it happens, the teachers will drag their students along with them. After all its "for the children" and "and educational experience".
I'd also like to add that Matt Damon is a putz.
You are absolutely correct, the kids need a GOOD education. Now, do you care to compare SAT, ACT or even the Iowa Basics Skills Assessment scores of the 2000-2011 years against the scores in 1960-1990's? We aren't producing the students we used to - but that's ok, China, Russia, India and other 3rd world countries are producing superior students. That's a good thing, right?
Yep, scheduling a Million Teacher March is a bad idea when teachers are off the clock.
However, I firmly believe that the Battle of Madison marks the Pickett’s Charge of the teacher’s union confederacy. They disgraced themselves on national TV for weeks. They tried every trick in the book and they lost. The vestigial bubble of reverence we peasants held for publik skool teachers has been irrevocably deflated. I’m pretty sure a lot of NEA bumper stickers have been quietly scraped off by their owners. They have become public enemy number one in the minds of many.
Much like government deficit spending, public education is reaching critical mass in the sense that the situation has gotten so bad, even apathetic Americans are waking up to the realization that the public school system is basically crumbling - from within. The teacher unions have effectively devolved public schools to the point where, in global comparisons, using test scores, U.S. students routinely trail students from small, often much poorer countries. That is absurd - but true. The only bright spot in all this is the fact that parents are noticing the deficiencies (while playing higher local taxes to support local schools) and, as this failed ‘Teachers March’ fiasco proved, are holding teachers accountable and are unmoved by their cries of impoverishment and burdensome workloads., especially when teacher salaries are revealed as both fair and often higher than the salaries of the taxpayers that supply the money to pay those salaries. This state of affairs tends to focus parents attention on their children’s school; what is (and isn’t) being taught and, in too many cases, ‘why Johnny can’t read’. Unionized teachers, once considered dedicated professionals by most, are now often viewed as simply over-privileged union members, doing well on the taxpayers dime and then whining about how hard their lot is. Public sympathy for their complaints? Not so much.
We’re talking public “educators” here...
Failure was automatic.
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Oh, I lost that early in junior high when I came to realize what lazy, sadistic, narcissistic losers many (most?) of them are.
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