Recent posts about public education--> oracle 1: How can we REALLY improve public education? The best first step to improve public education would be to bust the unions. JFK, actually an overrated president because of martyrdom, first allowed public employees to unionize-- it was an EGREGIOUS and snowballing mistake. We had gone nearly 200 years as a nation without unionized public employees, and schools had done rather well despite FAR LESS per capita spending. Today the 3 million public school teachers are either union members or benefiting from the blackmail of same in neighboring states. What has this meant for them? The average teacher now makes almost 60k a year in base per the NEA and has benefits well above those of the...

Guvment employee unions MUST INDEED BE stanched! Group think and GROSS delusions of grandeur---> A key problem with unions is ALWAYS insular, lock step, group think. They all tell each other that they are aggrieved and pretty soon that becomes gospel among them. Then they further get delusions of grandeur and self-importance---> see the Air Traffic Controllers under Reagan. When they threatened to strike, which would have supposedly crippled aviation, R.R. resolutely replied---> Go ahead! Make my day! Reagan fired them all...then amid braying about dire consequences to result, including planes would crash and people would die, the supervisors stepped in and did the jobs without a hitch. Hmmm. Planes landed on time and nobody died--...

Guvment employee unions MUST INDEED BE stanched! Group think and GROSS delusions of grandeur---> A key problem with unions is ALWAYS insular, lock step, group think. They all tell each other that they are aggrieved and pretty soon that becomes gospel among them. Then they further get delusions of grandeur and self-importance---> see the Air Traffic Controllers under Reagan. When they threatened to strike, which would have supposedly crippled aviation, R.R. resolutely replied---> Go ahead! Make my day! Reagan fired them all...then amid braying about dire consequences to result, including planes would crash and people would die, the supervisors stepped in and did the jobs without a hitch. Hmmm. Planes landed on time and nobody died--...

Guvment employee unions MUST INDEED BE stanched! Group think and GROSS delusions of grandeur---> A key problem with unions is ALWAYS insular, lock step, group think. They all tell each other that they are aggrieved and pretty soon that becomes gospel among them. Then they further get delusions of grandeur and self-importance---> see the Air Traffic Controllers under Reagan. When they threatened to strike, which would have supposedly crippled aviation, R.R. resolutely replied---> Go ahead! Make my day! Reagan fired them all...then amid braying about dire consequences to result, including planes would crash and people would die, the supervisors stepped in and did the jobs without a hitch. Hmmm. Planes landed on time and nobody died--...

Agree entirely about no restrictions on home schoolers...homeschooling families produce better educated children while demanding less, but while also contributing taxes to support schools. ********************************** the vibrant, proven homeschool alternative Academic Performance-- * The home-educated typically score 15 to 30 percentile points above public-school students on standardized academic achievement tests. * Homeschool students score above average on achievement tests regardless of their parents’ level of formal education or their family’s household income. * Whether homeschool parents were ever certified teachers is NOT related to their childrens' academic achievement. * Degree of state control and regulation of...

The democrats have unquestionably assumed that they could make herd instinct, reflexive voters for the Left and big Guvment out of all blacks and Hispanics. At a minimum, this is racist prejudice to fathom that all Hispanics should want what the Left deems as appropriate, as dingy harry Reid boasted. That said, the Left is correct in assuming that almost all ILLEGAL alien Hispanics figure to vote for the Left as soon as they are given the privilege to vote. This is why they tried the Dream Act scam and ploy recently. It would have put about 2 million on a path toward amnesty, and MANY more after that due to "chain migration" amnesty. NO THANKS! It is right for conservatives to oppose strongly such amnesty ploys, but this opposition...

OMG-- clearly deranged hug an ILLEGAL syndrome! Total dissembling...Mexico is a sewer, so we should want those from there why?!

from the column: "Reflecting on this somber discussion, I think the 18-wheel nomad's dark prophecy may well be right. Our country does indeed face enormous challenges -- both domestic and foreign -- many of them exacerbated by what the Obama administration and the 111th Congress did and failed to do. " I am indeed commenting on our greatest challenge and how Washington is or is not dealing properly with it. We do not need "posting police" when my posts are germane.

declining results in public education We have seen a general long-term decline in standardized test scores since the 1960's. Most students go to public school, so they must be substantially held accountable. It got so embarrassing that they "recentered," i.e., dumbed down the SAT scoring in 1995 by about 70 points (all on the verbal). from article cited below: * SAT verbal scores have dropped from a mean of 478 in 1962 to 423 in 1994-a drop of 54 points. The SAT mean math score has fallen from 502 to 479 - a drop of 23 points. While math scores have risen 8 points since 1984, they are still below 1974 levels. The national verbal average has fallen 3 points since 1984. During the same period (1960-90), spending on elementary and...

re: "Obviously, it is not these graduates that set salaries but taxpayers, but as taxpayers we might want to listen to what would attract top graduates to the profession. Don't you think? " >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Horse puckey on taxpayers setting teacher salaries...the unions and the teaching establishment foist that onto taxpayers for the most part...and they play the endless game of ubiquitously braying that they are "underpaid professionals" ad nauseam...all too often, they are NOT underpaid, and too often too many are not professionals, nor are they held accountable.