By Roger Madon
Let’s see if I got this straight. Public school teachers are out protesting throughout the country that state governments want to freeze wages, reduce benefits and limit their right to collective bargaining because the states are running out money. While at the same time our schools have been failing for decades.
The American people are catching on to the fact that the public school system overall is a failed system. Oh, there are pockets of success, especially in the rich white communities that surround our major cities. But generally speaking we are not educating our children. And truth be told we can’t blame our hard working dedicated teachers for this. Rather it’s the system which we, as Americans, have chosen.
For example, why do we insist that where the student resides determines what particular public school he attends? Why do we spend incredible amounts of money to reduce class size when there is no objective evidence that a reduced class size improves a child’s ability to learn? Why do we insist on giving teachers an increase in wages for obtaining an advanced degree when it has been clearly shown that there is no relation between having an advanced degree and better teaching skills? And why are school systems saddled with a seniority system that limits them in their ability to lay off teachers based on merit? A seniority system may make some sense when dealing with labor which is fungible such as in manufacturing but it makes no sense in education when skill is the key ingredient to better learning not length of service. Oh, and one final question why do public sector teacher unions have anything to say about issues that affect children’s education, especially when they are legally bound to represent only the interest of their members, the teachers?
Now that resources are limited American parents are beginning to ask an even more important question about the delivery of education to their children: Why do we have a system of education that is failing our children and has government and public sector teacher unions collude in extracting more and more money from the American taxpayer to support it? By public school teachers protesting they have put a target on their own backs causing the American people to suspect that public sector teacher unions must be removed from the equation and replaced with common sense.
Roger Madon is an op-ed contributor for the Talk Radio News Service