By Dave Anderson:
I was driving back from a soccer game last night, and I needed to get this morning's weather report. I flipped the radio to a local talk station (KDKA) which has weather on every ten minutes with eight minutes of wingnuts in between. The local wingnut host was talking school reform with a Teabagger, and they had a very interesting solution to resolving all problems with public education in America. Their plan would improve test scores, lower costs, and keep the undesirables out of the lily white rural and exurban districts both live in.
The solution was not vouchers. It was not privatization. It was not high stakes testing and zero-tolerance discipline policies. Those are old hat.
Instead, the new solution was to ban any teachers and union officials, as well as their spouses, direct blood relatives, and their paperboys from voting in or running for any local school boards.
Municipal elections are usually a contest between different real estate development interests and a few interested and highly motivated groups that benefit from a variety of public policy decisions. Removing any teachers and their families and their union representatives from the democratic process means the uniosn can be crushed and the "right" people can make decisions that benefit only their property values.
Amazing!
I think that the unions do cause many problems, but telling any American they can't vote is unconstitutional and would cause more problems than it would solve.
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