I got an opportunity to watch the documentary “Waiting for Superman,” and it confirmed much of  what I have been saying. Teachers are a national treasure. Teachers’ unions are the new empire of evil. Whoa! That’s harsh. Yes, but not nearly as harsh as flushing thousands of uneducated children into the streets to fend for themselves, when we should be educating them for our future.

The reason I chose the word “evil” is the patent dishonesty the teachers’ unions use to advance their agenda. The steelworkers’ union doesn’t talk about looking out for the steel; they say they are looking out for their members. The United Auto Workers union doesn’t talk about looking out for the cars, they say they are looking out for their members. The Teamsters union doesn’t talk about looking out for the trucks they drive; they say they are looking out for their members. But listen to any pitch from the National Education Association or the American Federation of Teachers and they are always “fighting for the children.” What utter twaddle. If that is true they should all be horsewhipped for the awful job they are doing. Who are they fighting with? The parents? The taxpayers?  It is a bald faced lie. They are fighting for the teachers and the children be damned.

In New York City, where Mayor Mike Bloomberg has shut down 110 poor performing schools, they are trying a new approach, turning around schools. The experiment would consist of replacing the principal and half the teachers at two schools but keeping the schools and their programs running. Here is the union’s position:

Union leaders might be seen by their rank and file as acquiescing to the replacement of teachers, though those teachers would be entitled to their full salaries and jobs elsewhere in the system. But if those schools were closed, they could be replaced with charter schools, which tend not to be unionized.

That’s the basic union formula, keep incompetent teachers at all costs. They do not want to lose one dollar of union dues and the power that flows from those dues.

In the documentary a bold approach was tried by Michelle Rhee, superintendent of Washington DC public schools perhaps the worst school system in the country, where she proposed a merit pay system where teachers could earn as much as $150,000 a year in return for giving up tenure. The union would not even allow it to come up for a vote. Hmmm…merit pay, rewarding teachers for doing a good job, which means actually educating the children, but the union says, NO! We won’t even vote on that. Can we queue the violins and roll one of the union’s commercials about “the children” now, please.

In New York City they finally shut down the “rubber rooms” where teachers accused of misconduct waited, sometimes as long as three years, for an administrative hearing on their case for dismissal. At the time of closing there were 550 teachers in the rubber rooms costing the city $30 million per year. The teachers in the rubber room continued to receive full salary and their benefits grew with the seniority they accumulated while in the rubber rooms. Psst…it’s for the children.

Another expert in the documentary estimated if only the bottom 5%-8% of teachers could be culled from the schools, the progress improvement would soon put the United States back near the top of the world in educational performance. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that if after three years on the job a teacher is guaranteed their job for life, that no matter how motivated, they lose their edge. When the going gets tough, instead of doubling their efforts, they can just say, “the hell with it,” I will get paid whether anyone learns or not, and next year I’ll get a raise.

The counter argument, if they were honest enough to make it, is that the unions are fighting to keep teachers’ jobs in a period of high unemployment. But how many uneducated of our youth will be and remain unemployed for much of their life because of failure factories? Why are high tech companies with jobs crying out for more visas for foreign workers? Because our own schools can’t graduate enough people to do these jobs. This is a national disgrace. Imagine if these children, our children, could graduate high school and actually be able to read and write, put together a coherent sentence, and do basic math.

The solution is not the federal government throwing money at the problem. The federal government should get out of the way. It is the teachers’ unions that are the problem. I ask this question to teachers and no one can seem to answer it. Why would a competent and skilled teacher want to link themselves to an incompetent teacher and be sold to a school district as a package? Anyone? Beuller?

That’s my opinion; I’d like to know yours.  Please comment below.

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people — Amendment X, United States Constitution

“I’m Mad as Hell and I’m Not Going To Take It Any More”

That quote from the movie “Network” popped into my head as I read about a legislator in Oklahoma, calling for legislative support for the 10th Amendment to the Constitution.  It passed the state assembly unanimously.  So what does this mean?  The sponsor of the bill, State Senator Randy Brogdan, explains:

The “federal government has been putting the screws on (the states) a little tighter and tighter each year” along with unfunded mandates of varying sorts.

And each time this happens, Brogdon explained, “We lose a little bit of our freedom and liberty.”

The federal government has been growing enormously and taking on more and more things that used to be handled locally, such as education, and welfare.  Other programs have not changed as the economy has, for example, as the percentage of the population that farms has decreased dramatically has the Department of Agriculture shrunk accordingly?

You Must Obey!

The way the federal government works around this is by saying, okay, you don’t have to do what we tell you, but you will get no federal funding if you don’t.  It seems like a Catch-22, no?  Since the 16th Amendment, which authorized the income tax, the federal government can decide how much to tax incomes and there is little that the states can do about it.  They take money from your pocket under threat of imprisonment, and will give it back to you only if you comply with their rules.

How Do We Fix This One?

It may require a constitutional amendment to fix as the 16th Amendment says:

The Congress shall have the power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration. — 16th Amendment to the Constitution

I’ll leave the legal mechanics to those better qualified, but I would propose the following.  That the federal budget shall include a breakdown of projected revenues derived from income taxes, broken down by source: individual, corporate, etc.  A state should then be allowed to refuse mandates and programs from, say, the Department of Education, and withhold from the IRS that proportion of tax dollars destined for the Department of Education from that state.

Certain departments should be deemed mandatory, such as Defense, State, Treasure, to name a few as these departments serve all citizens.

The legislation under consideration in Oklahoma will have little effect if the federal government can suck up as much money as it wants to from the states, via their citizens and then just keep the money if the states refuse to participate in the programs.  How do you determine which programs should be subject to the states discretion?  No money should flow from a state, to Washington, and then back to the state.  That is just plain stupid and wasteful, or a distribution of wealth, none of which is a government function. Paying for roads and infrastructure that does not cross state lines should be funded locally.  It is ridiculous that the federal government pays 90% of the cost of a highway that lies entirely within a city.  Look at the scandalous “Big Dig” in Boston.  Billions of dollars spent and parts of it are falling down.  Why should any of this be paid for by the people of Kansas, Oklahoma, Alaska, New York, Florida, et al.?

But the real answer is following the 10th Amendment.  It clearly states that the role of the federal government is spelled out in the Constitution.  If it’s not in the Constitution then that responsibility is left to the states or the people.  Show me where in the Constitution it says that the federal government is responsible for education.  It’s not in there and that department should be shut down tomorrow.

It’s Time to Rein the Monster In

The anger in the country is growing.  Those who acted responsibly are being told they have to bail out the irresponsible.  They are being told by “Buck a Day Biden” that it is their patriotic duty to pay higher taxes to help out.  Meanwhile half a dozen Obama appointees haven’t paid the taxes they owe, let alone paying more.  I give Biden the “Buck a Day Biden” moniker because that is how much this millionaire gives to charity.  He doesn’t want to spend his own money on charity, he wants the government to take your money to fund government programs to do that.

If you don’t think the anger is growing take a look at this.  Rick Santelli

“marked by or involving cooperation, agreement, and compromise between two major political parties” — Miriam Webster Dictionary

The talk about bipartisanship and the accusations about a lack of bipartisanship are flying back and forth with such intensity, who could blame the casual observer for throwing up their hands and wishing a pox upon both houses?

President Obama and Bipartisanship

I believe that President Obama is sincere in his desire for bipartisanship.  His willingness to meet with and listen to conservative columnists, and Republicans is indicative of his desire to change the tone in Washington.  On the stimulus bill, I think he just painted himself into a corner by letting Nancy Pelosi write the bill while he held those meetings.  Listening to the other side is a start, but it falls short of the definition.  It remains to be seen if President Obama recognizes where this approach fell short or if it really is just window dressing.

Democratic Leadership and Bipartisanship

The Democratic Leadership has a very different view of bipartisanship.  Their view is, “we stake out a position and you (Republicans) agree with it and that’s bipartisanship.”  If they don’t agree, they are rabid partisans, doing it strictly for future political gain.  But if you look at the definition of bipartisanship above, the Democratic Leadership is just not interested.  The stimulus bill was put together solely by the Democrats and when asked by a reporter if the bill was bipartisan Nancy Pelosi responded, “That depends on how the Republicans vote.”  That’s pretty much it in a nutshell.

When President Bush came into office, he brought with him his experience in Texas where he worked very successfully with the Democrats in the legislature.  However, the Democrats in Congress were so angry with the outcome of the election in 2000 that they never gave him a chance, voting against anything he proposed.

Republicans and Bipartisanship

The Republican leadership has expressed their appreciation to President Obama’s efforts to reach across the aisle.  However, as genuine as the gesture was they were still pretty much excluded from the legislative process.  They fully understand that elections have consequences, but they want to be heard, they want to offer alternatives, they want the opportunity to persuade.  If denied that by the Democratic Leadership, they will take their case directly to the American people and in 2010 get the public’s decision.

Is Bipartisanship Possible?

Is there such a divide that bipartisanship is just not possible?  Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich is trying to tackle that issue through a non-profit organization called American Solutions.  That organization polled Republicans, Democrats and Independents to find areas of widespread agreement.  The key to bipartisanship is to first find areas where you agree. Then look for areas where you differ but not so significantly that there is not room for negotiation and compromise.  Lastly, is to recognize those areas where the difference is so wide that you simply have to agree to disagree.  This is a list of ten initiatives that a majority of Republicans, Democrats, and Independents agree on.

1. English should be the official language of government. (87 to 11)
2. We want our elected leaders in Washington to focus on increasing the energy supplies of the United States and lowering the costs of gasoline and electricity. (71 to 18)
3. The option of a single rate system should give taxpayers the convenience of filing their taxes with just a single sheet of paper. (82 to 15)
4. Every worker should continue to have the right to a federally supervised secret ballot election when deciding whether to organize a union. (79 to 12)
5. Keeping the reference to “One Nation Under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance is very important. (88 to 11)
6. Congress should make it a crime to advocate acts of terrorism, violent conduct, or the killing of innocent people in the United States. (83 to 12)
7. We should dramatically increase our investment in math and science education. (91 to 8 )
8. We believe that if research indicates we could build clean coal plants in the United States with no carbon emissions, it would be important to build such plants as rapidly as possible. (71 to 8 )
9. Illegal immigrants who commit felonies should be deported. (88 to 10)
10. We support giving a large financial prize to the first company or individual who invents a new, safer way to dispose of nuclear waste products. (79 to 16)

As you can see by the percentages, the support for each of these ten measures is rather substantial.  Bipartisanship on any one of these issues should be very easy to obtain.  You just have to ask yourselves: how many of these are supported by the Democratic Leadership or President Obama?  You can see that a number of them are not only not supported, but adamantly opposed.

So what is your view of bipartisanship?  Is it where you surrender your principles and fall in line with your opponent?  Or is it trying to find common ground among all Americans and not pushing a partisan agenda where government runs the smallest aspect of your life?