Teachers Unions

California is an "agency shop" state. That means that since the feds have ruled that unions are required to represent me even if I don't want them to, California says that I have to pay my "fair share" to the union for such representation. I must do this even though I refuse to be a CTA or an NEA member. This is a problem.

The feds created the problem by requiring the union to represent me, and California compounds that problem. It would be better merely not to force the union and me to associate at all. Freedom of association, and all that.

Some states are "right to work" states. Unions are still required by the feds to represent all workers if they represent any in an organization, but workers in right to work states are not required to be members or to support the union financially.

Let me state categorically: Every (non-military) American has a right to join a union. Every American has a right not to join a union. Every American should have the right not to support a union financially.

I've said that before on this blog, but it bears repeating. Often. Honestly, I don't understand how any American could legitimately disagree with that sentiment.

The California Teachers Empowerment Network isn't anti-union. It isn't pro-administration. It supports California's teachers, giving them information that will allow each of them to make informed choices which satisfy his or her own conscience.

I have no problem with unions. I have a huge problem with compulsory unionism.

Some might say: You knew about this going into teaching. You consented to it. Deal with it. Actually, I didn't know about it going into teaching, but that's irrelevant. Let me share a story with you.

From about 1821 until the early 1970's, West Point required all cadets to attend chapel services on Sunday morning. Cadets marched to the Catholic Chapel or up the hill to the Cadet Chapel. The stated reason for this requirement was for a cadet's moral and ethical training and character development. Everyone going into West Point knew about this requirement. It's clearly unconstitutional, but that didn't stop its occurrence for over 150 years. It's not until a cadet and some Naval Academy midshipmen filed a case, Anderson v. Laird, that made it all the way to the DC Court of Appeals, that the practice ended.

Honestly, are union supporters so blinded by their own desires that they can't see the injustice of compulsory unionism? Will it take the Supreme Court to fix this problem which the Congress could more easily solve by passing a national right to work law that eliminates the harmful parts of the National Labor Relations Act?

Congress created this problem, Congress should fix it. The Republicans had 14 years to pass a national right to work law and didn't do so. The Democrats would never go against their union overlords in such a way--in fact, the Democrats are trying to make it even easier for unions to move into businesses by getting rid of secret ballots and allowing card checks.

It's about as anti-American as you can get.

Even Liberal SUPREME COURT JUSTICES Are Whiners

For all those years when conservatives were in the minority on the Supreme Court, did you ever read news articles about how upset they were, how they felt compelled to read their dissents from the bench (because that's apparently a big deal), and how divisive the rulings were amongst the justices themselves?

I didn't. Divides were kept hidden. But no more.

With the liberal bloc narrowly losing a number of high-profile cases this term -- including late-term abortion, campaign finance reform, and public school desegregation -- the political and legal stakes produced sharper ideological lines.

Justices John Paul Stevens, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Stephen Breyer all wrote toughly worded dissents, punctuated by reading some of them from the bench. It is a rarely used privilege, reserved for only the biggest, most contentious cases.

"The one symbolic step that they can take to show they are almost outraged and that they think something terrible has happened is to read these dissents from the bench. And so the fact that the more liberal members of the court have done it is really a sign that they are frustrated."

I expect this from ordinary, garden-variety liberals, but I'd like to think that Supreme Court justices are at least a little above such plebeian acts. Apparently they're not.

Legal experts say the new conservative majority of the Roberts court will continue to produce divided rulings, and divisive rhetoric.

Why weren't legal scholars saying such things when liberals held sway in the court? Gawd, liberals think we're all entitled to their beliefs.

Update, 7/9/07: Here's someone else who thinks we're all entitled to the liberal view regarding court decisions.

Idiot Lawyer-Wannabe

So this idiot says that answering questions about the law, on his bar exam, violates his religious freedom?

Sorry buddy, I'm not buying it. The law may go against some of your beliefs (it certainly goes against some of mine), but that doesn't mean you're entitled to be ignorant of the law and still become a lawyer.

Oops, I Did It Again

Three and a half years ago, two student-editors of the high school paper approached me and and asked if I'd write an opinion piece for them. I did, it made international news, and about 8 months later my principal and I came to an agreement "ending hostilities". The district insisted on having a provision in the agreement saying I'm not allowed to divulge the details of said agreement.

Looks like I've created a bit of a controversy again, only this time in the blogosphere. And I wasn't even trying to.

http://rightontheleftcoast.blogspot.com/2007/06/presidential-hopefuls-attend-ceafu.html
http://shoeblogs.com/wordpress/2007/06/30/the-ron-paul-and-his-disgraceful-shoes
http://shoeblogs.com/wordpress/2007/07/06/ron-pauls-disgraceful-shoes-redux/
http://dcpleats.blogspot.com/2007/07/ron-paul-and-his-disgraceful-shoes.html
http://dcpleats.blogspot.com/2007/07/in-response-to-ron-paul-response.html
http://wonkette.com/politics/dept%27-of-shoes-make-the-man/ron-paul-dresses-as-poorly-as-his-internet-fans-274456.php
http://www.ronpaulsshoes.blogspot.com/
http://pajamasmedia.com/2007/07/ron_paul_shoes.php

If you know of any other blog posts on this topic, please send them to me. Not that I intend to go after people for copyright violations, but there are a lot of people out there using my photographs on their blogs, without attribution. At least The Manolo gave me credit!

Leftie Inadvertently Makes Case Against Socialized Medicine

I've often said that government works much better as a sledgehammer than as a scalpel, meaning that it can do big things well (defeat Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, build freeways, send men to the moon) but doesn't do so well when it tries to fine tune (War on Poverty, welfare).

This leftie says that part of the reason the US government doesn't do well in general is its "gigantism". I assert that's also why nationalized health care doesn't work in Europe or Canada and won't work here. I doubt he'd agree with me regarding health care, but he made the argument--I'm just agreeing with it.

The scalpel metaphor takes on a whole new meaning!

Update: A (former) Canadian tells us what health care in Canada is really like.

Government-run health care in Canada inevitably resolves into a dehumanizing system of triage, where the weak and the elderly are hastened to their fates by actuarial calculation. Having fought the Canadian health care bureaucracy on behalf of my ailing mother just two years ago - she was too old, and too sick, to merit the highest quality care in the government's eyes - I can honestly say that (Michael) Moore's preferred health care system is something I wouldn't wish on him.

Perhaps I'd wish it on him.

Even the Toronto Star agrees that Moore's endorsement of Canadian health care is overwrought and factually challenged. And the Star is considered a left-wing newspaper, even by Canadian standards.

That's pretty bad.

What's really amazing is that even the intended beneficiaries of Moore's propagandizing don't support his claims. The Supreme Court of Canada declared in June 2005 that the government health care monopoly in Quebec is a violation of basic human rights.

And the finale:

There's a good reason why my former countrymen with the money to do so either use the services of a booming industry of illegal private clinics, or come to America to take advantage of the health care that Moore denounces.

I'd say Q.E.D., but some people just don't let facts stand in the way of their political beliefs.

Update #2, 7/8/07: My admiration for Mark Steyn's writing knows no bounds, especially when he writes like this:

Some 40 percent of Britain's practicing doctors were trained overseas – and that percentage will increase, as older native doctors retire, and younger immigrant doctors take their place...When the president talks about needing immigrants to do "the jobs Americans won't do," most of us assume he means seasonal fruit pickers and the maid who turns down your hotel bed and leaves the little chocolate on it. But in the United Kingdom the jobs Britons won't do has somehow come to encompass the medical profession...According to a report in the British Medical Journal, white males comprise 43.5 percent of the population but now account for less than a quarter of students at UK medical schools. In other words, being a doctor is no longer an attractive middle-class career proposition. That's quite a monument to six decades of Michael Moore-style socialist health care.

The American Left

Calling the Weather Underground "patriotic" for carrying out a bombing campaign against the US government--this is the face of America's so-called progressives today. Lefties, if you think I'm wrong, then disavow these people.

Of course, this took place in San Francisco, and photoessayist Zombietime has more.

Update, 7/9/07: Victor Davis Hanson has this to say about the left:

What is striking about all this savagery—whether with the filmed beheadings of Westerners in Iraq to the recent flaming Johnny Storm human torch at Glasgow, screaming epithets as he sought to engulf bystanders and ignite his canisters — is the absolute silence of the West, either distracted by Paris and i-Phones or suffering from Bush Derangement Syndrome and obsessed with Guantanamo.

It is hard to recall an enemy so savage and yet one so largely ignored by rich affluent and distracted elites as the radical jihadists, as we have to evoke everything from mythology to comic books to find analogies to their extra-human viciousness.

For a self-congratulatory culture issuing moral lectures on everything from global warming to the dangers of smoking, the silence of the West toward the primordial horror from Gaza to Anbar is, well, horrific in its own way as well...

Maybe if the jihadis put panties over the heads of their victims before killing them, the left would get concerned.

Obama Supports Merit Pay

So Barack Obama supports merit pay.

Hillary Clinton is the accepted front-runner for the Democratic ticket, but Obama raised significantly more campaign money than Clinton last quarter. I have no way of knowing if Obama is sincere in his merit pay proposal, but could it be more than just a coincidence that he's swinging a bit to the right here in order to try to pick up some moderates and fence-sitters? After all, he has nothing to fear in such a move--if he were to become the party nominee, the NEA would support him no matter what. They've given Nancy Pelosi their 2007 Friend of Education Award, and have never supported a Republican for president (and they've been stumping for Presidents since Carter). They support candidates who send their own children to private schools, so why not someone who supports merit pay? It's not like a federal merit pay system would ever become law anyway--how could it?--so it's an easy point in Obama's favor with some voters, a point he'll never have to make good on.

The only way the NEA wouldn't support a Democrat for president is if that candidate were to be anti-union or if he/she were to support "right to work" laws. Otherwise, the NEA is an easy endorsement--just put a "D" after your name. Had President Bush said the same thing as Obama, he'd have been crucified by the NEA and the press.

This is a smart political move for Obama.

Update: EIA has more details on Obama's statement.

Ancient Greenland Warmer Than Previously Thought

The oldest ever recovered DNA samples have been collected from under more than a mile of Greenland ice, and their analysis suggests the island was much warmer during the last Ice Age than previously thought.

The DNA is proof that sometime between 450,000 and 800,000 years ago, much of Greenland was especially green and covered in a boreal forest that was home to alder, spruce and pine trees, as well as insects such as butterflies and beetles.

But how can that be? It's hotter now than it's ever been in the history of the planet! Earth rests in the balance, and all that.

Less glacial cover in ancient Greenland means the global ocean was probably between three and six feet higher during that time compared to current levels, the scientists say.

And how much of a rise is the IPCC predicting in the next century or so? About 17 inches?

Let's look at the track record of similar scares.

Population bomb
Peak oil
Global cooling/"The Coming Ice Age"
Nuclear winter
Bird flu
SARS pandemic
Global warming

What do they all have in common? Several things.

1. They all required immense, immediate governmental action,
2. action favored by leftists,
3. action that would have a seriously adverse effect on the global economy and prosperity,
4. to forestall apocalyptic consequences.
5. None of them happened.

Is it any wonder I'm skeptical about the claims of the Church of Global Warming?

Update, 7/9/07: In my list above, how could I forget Thomas Malthus?

Does High School Math Prepare You For College?

If I had to answer that based on the results of CSU's Entry Level Math test, I'd say no. Apparently they're getting similar results in Pennsylvania. Their reasons seem different from ours, though.

Students are heading to college less prepared for math than they were a decade or two ago, forcing colleges and universities to rewrite textbooks and add more review work and remedial courses.

Math professors in the Lehigh Valley laid the blame on integrated math programs that don't emphasize basic skills, high-stakes testing and the push to give students higher-level math courses at increasingly younger ages.

Has the curtain not fallen on those failed so-called integrated math regimes yet?

The NEA and *Your* Money

It's not like California's teachers don't already pay exorbitant union dues--teachers in my district gladly give almost $1,000/year to the local, state (CTA), and national (NEA) unions.

And now they're going to give more. From EIA:

The delegates also approved an acceleration of the increase in dues assessment that goes to the Ballot Measure/Legislative Crises and Media Campaign Funds. The assessment would have been $8 per member in 2007-08, $9 in 2008-09, and $10 in 2009-10. It had a sunset provision after that.

By today's vote, the assessment will go immediately to $10 in 2007-08, and that assessment was made permanent. I believe this raises the level of NEA's national dues in 2007-08 to $153.

They can call it a "democracy" since representatives voted on it, but there's a difference between democracy and freedom. As long as I'm required to give them any of my money at all, injustice reigns. I've said it before, and I'll say it again:

Every (non-military) American has the right to join a union. Every American has the right not to join a union. Every American should have the right not to be required to financially support a union.

California teachers, you really should look into the California Teachers Empowerment Network, or just click the CTEN label below or to the left.

Do You Wonder What Your Military Academy Looks Like?

Here's an aerial view of West Point, taken by a 1973 graduate who does aerial photography for a living. The picture was taken 2 days ago, on "Reception Day" (R-Day) for the incoming Class of 2011. They're in the lower right corner of the picture, marching either to or from their swearing-in ceremony.

Update: More pictures by the same photographer can be found here.

The Declaration of Independence

If you've never read it, you should. The prose is beautiful, the sentiments enduring. (I am adding the boldface for emphasis.)

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

— John Hancock

Thereafter follow the signatures of the gathered representatives of the thirteen colonies. Jefferson was masterful with words, wasn't he?

Have a happy Independence Day.

Carnival of Education

Find this week's Carnival, in an extremely readable format, over at NYC Educator. My post on Teaching And The Military is included.

Hypocrisy Regarding the Scooter Libby Commutation

I haven't addressed that issue much, because, to be perfectly honest, it doesn't interest me much. This CNN article, though, hits the nail squarely on the head.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The hypocrisy is unpardonable. President Bush's decision to commute the sentence of a convicted liar brought out the worst in both parties.

Gotta love the AP, though. "Convicted liar". I guess they don't have to refer to former President Clinton in such terms because he wasn't convicted--he was merely disbarred for lying to a grand jury. Like the old movie conversation goes:

"Every been convicted of any crimes?"

"Convicted? No. Never convicted."

But back to the article. After the biased opening sentence, the article is full of details. It's worth a read--and then we can let this issue drop, since no one's hands are clean and everyone seems to be living in a glass house.

Update, 7/6/07: Here's more.

WHERE Did This Statistic Come From?

The NEA has only backed Democratic presidential candidates in the past. About 85 percent of the union's members end up voting for the union's recommended candidate in the general election.

When even their own internal polling shows that Republicans/conservatives make up about a third of teachers, I find the 85% figure more than a little hard to swallow.

Does CNN Have Anyone Who Can Say This?

Anyone? Anyone at all?

I won't be on-air at FOX for a few days. My wife and I need time to absorb and then recover from the trauma that's just hit us, something that's irrevocably changed our family and left most of us in tears: this morning, we delivered our oldest son, Josh, to college.

Perhaps you've been down this path before; we haven't, which is part of the reason it hit us so hard. But before you think me a melancholy sap that needs a good dose of "man-up" medicine, let me say that the institution to which we've given up our son isn't an ordinary university. And no, he's not starting out in summer school on this second day of July. Josh is one of 1,311 new cadets hoping to join the class of 2011 at West Point — the United States Military Academy.

I'll skip my usual commentary about MSM leftie bias for this story.

June 2007 California Educator Magazine

Why is it that I don't get the June issue until July? Just asking. It's that way every month with California Educator.

It's a very short issue, and to be honest, most of it doesn't interest me. I did, however, find a few morsels on which to chew.

From page 4, in the outgoing president's column:

We soundly defeated those who wanted to destroy our public schools, the teaching profession and our rights as union members.

Let me state this unequivocably. Every (non-military) American has the right to join a union. Every American has the right not to join a union. Every American should have the right not to be required to financially support a union. Until I have that last right, I couldn't care less about Babs Kerr and the rights of her union members.

Page 24 is a puff piece on Michael Moore-on's new movie.

"We are the only country in the western world that doesn't believe it's a human right to provide care to its citizens," said Moore... "That's not what we used to be about."

It's not? When did we ever believe that individual health care is owed by government to its citizens? Where did the Founders write that?

"Moore fills three boats with emergency workers who were injured providing help in the aftermath of the World Trade Center tragedy. He then takes them to Cuba for health services denied them in the United States."

I wonder if they were taken to any of these fine institutions. And let's be honest here--they weren't denied health services in the US, they just weren't given them for free.

And CTA is using this new movie to try to sell California's legislature on socialized medicine. Grand.

Page 32 has a story called "CTA is leading the charge to erase the vindictiveness of NCLB (ESEA)".

"Recent polling conducted by CTA indicates that 91 percent of CTA members (emphasis mine--Darren) support CTA's campaign to erase the vindictive provisions contained in NCLB..."

Really, 91% you say? Recent polling conducted by the Republican Party indicates that 0% of them will vote for Hillary Clinton for President. Does either statistic surprise anyone?

And just for giggles, let's look at the chart on page 34 that updates us on CTA-sponsored and co-sponsored legislation for 2007. Of the 6 bills, four relate to community colleges and/or universities, one relates to universal healthcare, and one relates to mandatory kindergarten. So, K-12 teachers in California, how do you like those stats?

And finally, on page 38 are a few paragraphs about the NEA Rep Assembly taking place in Philadelphia. The piece closes with:

The association's 2007 NEA Friend of Education award will be presented to Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi...."

Do I even need to mock that? Or does it mock itself?

Terrorism in the UK

While skimming through Little Green Footballs (see blogroll at left), I came across two adjacent posts the juxtaposition of which was most interesting.

From the first:

The number of doctors involved in the UK terror plots is now seven, and a eighth suspect is a lab technician. All have links with Britain’s National Health Service.

Immediately below that:

If you were hoping that British elites might be shocked into a state of awareness by the Islamic terror attacks, you’re going to be sorely disappointed.

Because new prime minister Gordon Brown thinks the best way to approach the subject is to crack down on speech and refuse to acknowledge reality: Brown: Don’t say terrorists are Muslims.

They're doomed.

Update: Here's some more information about recent terrorists.

Ayman al-Zawahri, al-Qaida's No. 2. George Habash of the PLO. Mahmoud Zahar, the Hamas strongman in Gaza. All trained as doctors — as did at least seven suspects in the failed bomb attacks in Britain.

"People often assume that terrorists are poor, disadvantaged people who are brainwashed or need the money. But the ones who actually perpetrate violence without handlers and manipulation are highly intelligent by necessity," said Magnus Ranstorp, a terrorism expert at the Swedish National Defense College in Stockholm.

Another leftie mantra shot down.

NEA's Annual Convention

This year it's in Philadelphia, the city that gave birth to the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Let's see what genius is coming out of the NEA's convention there:

NBI (new business item) 36 directs NEA to "call for a 48-hour, locally initiated, nationally coordinated political strike early this coming fall to defeat NCLB, oppose bipartisan attacks destroying public education, and demand full education funding at corporate expense."

"Locally initiated, nationally coordinated." How is that accomplished, especially since it's being proposed at a national convention? Yep, these idiots are teaching our children. And yes, this is the very organization that former US Secretary of Education Dr. Paige says has a deathgrip on American education. If by "strike" they mean walk out of the classrooms, they can count me out. And bipartisan attacks? How can that be, with Nancy Pelosi getting the 2007 Friend of Education Award?

I bring up this other new business item just for its entertainment value:

NBI 15 wants NEA to "promote monarch butterfly studies."

Again, these people are teaching our children.

Democrats and Public Education

NewsAlert linked to this, and I will, too:

The eight Democratic presidential candidates assembled in Washington last week for another of their debates and talked, among other things, about public education. They all essentially agreed that it was underfunded -- one system "for the wealthy, one for everybody else," as John Edwards put it. Then they all got into cars and drove through a city where teachers are relatively well paid, per pupil spending is through the roof and -- pay attention here -- the schools are among the very worst in the nation. When it comes to education, Democrats are uneducable.

One candidate after another lambasted George Bush, the Republican Party and, of course, the evil justices of the Supreme Court. But not a one of them even whispered a mild word of outrage about a public school system that spends $13,000 per child -- third highest among big-city school systems -- and produces pupils who score among the lowest in just about any category you can name. The only area in which the Washington school system is No. 1 is in money spent on administration. Chests should not swell with pride.

And that's just the beginning; it gets better. But this line stuck out to me:

In so far as the Democratic presidential candidates talked about public school education and in so far as they mentioned the Supreme Court decision, they largely mouthed Democratic orthodoxy.

Where have you heard something like that before? =)