Teachers Unions Succeed in Ending Scholarships
By Warner Todd Huston Posted in Culture — Comments (4) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
One would assume that everyone wants to see that our kids get the best education possible. I mean, who could possibly be against kids getting the best opportunities? Well, apparently the one entity that you'd expect to really care about kids is the one standing in the way of their education: teachers. Sadly, it is obvious that teachers as a group don't care a whit about kids, at least as far as their union is concerned.
Take the Republican led policy called the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program. It is a program that provides worthy minority student in the Washington D.C. school system with $7,500 a year for tuition and fees at private schools. We all know that government schools are nearly universally substandard and this program helps minority kids find their way to better schools so that they might get a better education.
Naturally, the Teachers union opposes it.
Fortunately, Republicans seem to care about kids more and have been able to sustain this project for several years. But, now that the union lapdogs in the Democrat Party have become the emerging force in Washington, this great opportunity for minority kids is about to be eliminated.
The Washington Post reports that the Democrat led subcommittee on financial services and general government, the committee that funds this project, said that the good times are over.
A House Appropriations subcommittee voted yesterday to fund for another year the federal voucher program that allows about 2,000 low-income D.C. children to attend private schools. But the panel's chairman said that this was probably the last time that the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program would receive full financial support from the government.
Of course this is because he is the slave to the anti-intellectuals in the teachers unions for it is they who oppose this program.
Once again, this sort of anti-kid, anti-education effort from a union proves that unions should never be allowed for jobs that are supposed to serve the public interest. Unions are entirely antithetical to the public weal and this is just one more example of that truth.
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The worst part of teachers unions is that their chosen people sit on nearly every school board position (just try running against a candidate backed by the NEA), so when it comes to negotiating with the union, they are literally on both sided of the bargaining table.
In the private sector, unions are balanced by the market. If the union demands to much, the company goes out of business, but there is no such check against government unions.
I have always thought that government unions should be prohibited from participating in any kind of elections because of the obvious conflict of interest that union candidates will have when elected. What is really in their best interest, the concerns of the union that got them elected, or the concerns of the taxpayers they are supposed to be representing?
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Ultimately, it's the voters who are in charge of the school district, and it is the voters who decide upon the school board members. So if the union makes its case successfully to the voters to put their slate of preferred candidates into office, then it's the voters who will suffer the consequences in terms of salaries and programs.
Now if we're talking about an appointed official to negotiate on behalf of the voters/school district - that is where the conflicts of interest need to be identified and prevented.
and therefore they control who hires the superintendent and the principals. I have seen many school's teachers simply do away with a principal who gives them too many distasteful duties to do, like pay attention to kids in the halls outside of their classroom doors.
As far as fair elections, the unions often try for "special elections" where there is no significant office at stake other than school boards and bonds. Next they provide their candidate with the money and the yard signs so that it seems like the seat is unopposed. When the union likes a board member, they have the necessary support to gain election. (Not always, but usually.)
What I see is a politician trying to appease a major organized support group, against being painted as their puppet.
He tossed the teachers a bone by saying that. Note well nothing has been done.
I everyone can conclude that the teachers union only wants more money for education when it flows into their coffers.
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-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777