Have you noticed the news about what is going on in Wisconsin regarding the teacher's union? Seems the new Republican Governor Scott Walker is trying to keep his state out of bankruptcy by taking on the public employee's union. I think that it is about time that we had some Governors who had the courage to step up to the plate and try to hit the union fastball. Public unions are one of the worst things that has ever happened to the USA during my life time. World war I and II were not this bad because we all knew that there would be an end to each. In the case of public unions, there is no end except for total bankruptcy of our whole country. Even the Civil war did not bankrupt the country. It may have made things more difficult for a while, but it came to an end. There is no end to this thing unless people like Scott Walker are successful. Here are some of my ideas on the subject.
We can't allow public employee unions because the governmental units that the unions negotiate with are not playing with their own money. If it is not your money, it spends too easy. When I was a kid and worked for my own money, I was very careful what I spent it on. What I bought had to be worth the effort that I had made to earn the money. When we got money for out birthdays from our grandparents, we spent if very quickly for candy and things that we would never buy with our own money. See how it works? Even kids know the difference between their own money and that of others.
We also have to eliminate the clear conflict of interest in negotiations with unions. Can you believe that the school administrator who is negotiating for use was, just a few years ago, a member of the same union that they are negotiating with. Further, they are most likely qualified to participate in the same retirement programs as the union people they are negotiating against. It is even worse, because most of the time the administrator gets the same increase in salary or benefits as the union people they are negotiating against If that is not a clear conflict of interest, I don't know what is. The pay of the administrator should be based on cutting the pay and benefits of the union, not increasing them.
The unions have negotiated all kinds of special deals that help them "game" the system. Didn't any of the original negotiators for the public recognize this fact? Are the ones who negotiate for us that stupid? The answer is yes. One way public employees "game" the system is to take more classes or get additional certificates. 99% of these are Mickey Mouse classes. Sorry about using poor Mickey Mouse. He is too honest to get involved with something like this. In every business that I have ever been involved with, payed based on the job and what you "did". It was not based on you qualifications. If you are over qualified to pump gas, I'm sorry. We only pay for pumping gas, not for your knowledge of world history or art appreciation. When we look at what some teachers of 4th grade math get paid, we don't realize that it is because they took a class in summer school about "global warming". This type of thing sounds good during negotiations, but as you can see it is total bull shit.
We all know that the quality of education here in the USA has been going down for the past 40 years and the decline has accelerated when the teachers unionized. The union claims that it is because of "class size". If we would spend more and create more union teaching jobs, we could have smaller class sizes and that would fix the problem. We tried that and now have more high paid teachers than ever before. What we have to do is to eliminate any class that does not have at least 20 students in the class. I don't think anyone has found that super small class sizes does anything for improving our quality of education.
The point is a small one, but I would make it against the rules to have a "book pack". These are the big back packs that our kids carry to and from school. I never saw anyone with one of these in the old days and we did better in school. I used to walk a mile and a half to my country school and never needed a "book pack" to carry my things. I don't know who came up with this idea, but I think it is time we got rid of it. If we did, we wouldn't need a cop at every school to see if kids were bringing guns and knives to school. When I was in high school, we kept our deer rifles and shot guns in our pickup trucks out in the school parking lot so we could hunt on the way home. I don't know of anyone who ever got shot.
How about "home schoolers"? They do better than the ones who go to our school and who are taught by the expensive union teachers. Why do you think that is? The "home schoolers" are generally the parents of the kid who a mostly not college graduates or teachers. Isn't it interesting that these, so called, uneducated people can do a better job than our public school teachers? What I would do is to give at least 50% of what it cost to send a kid to public school to the parents who are "home schooling" their kids. Right now the average cost per kid in public school is over $10,000, so 50% would just be $5,000. For every kid that was home schooled, the taxpayers would save at least $5,000. The unions would hate this because it would mean we would have less to spend on them. Sorry. Think about a school district that had 100% of its kids "home schoolled". The kids would do better and we would be rid of the teacher's union. Looks like a "Win Win" to me.
The next thing that I would do would be to eliminate about 1/3 of the classes that are offered. I would get rid of music, art and theater. I would can the student newspaper. It is a joke anyway. If you visited every class that is taught in our schools, I am sure that you would agree that at least 1/3 could be eliminated. This would not only save money, but it would actually improve the quality of education in the areas that our kids really need. I know we could do this. We should all make our own list of the 10 classes that we took in school that have made a difference in our lives and stress these. We should also make a list of the 10 bull shit classes that we took that we now know were worthless. We can do this.
I would require that all kids wear uniforms to school. This would eliminate one of the big costs and distractions that we now have in school. School should not be a fashion show. It should be to learn and to do that economically. My kids wore uniforms when they went to school in Buenos Aires and it worked just fine.
The last thing that I would recommend is that we eliminate all sports from out schools. This is a big deal. Most of the world does not have any sports in their schools. Their schools are for learning not playing games. Sports are a big distraction for school. If you are on one of the teams, the coach will give you an automatic "A". This may help you get on the honor roll, but it does not mean that you have learned anything. School sports favors kids who are a year or two behind in school or who have matured earlier than the other kids. When you think about it, this really has nothing to do with school. I know a school that had very good football teams who encouraged kids to start school at least a year later than other schools. Most of the kids on their teams were 18 or 19 years old compared to the other schools who were only 16 or 17. At their ages, this was a big deal and just another example of how union teachers "game" the system.
Until we eliminate the public employee union, I don't see the USA getting either our quality of education under control or our public budgets at all levels. I think that we are finally starting to see some movement in the right direction.
