The Democrat Unions screwed D.C. kids and their parents once again.
Can’t have them straying off the Democrat plantation. They may open their eyes.
On the final day of the National Education Associations convention last summer, its outgoing general counsel, Bob Chanin, gave a speech for the ages. After sharing fond recollections of his 41 years as the NEAs top lawyer, he switched gears and started lobbing grenades at conservative and right-wing bastards, including Fox News, the Wall Street Journal, and Forbes. The NEA and its affiliates, by contrast, were the nations leading advocates for public education and the type of liberal social and economic agenda that these groups find objectionable.
Chanins glowing portrait of the NEA was wildly wrong, of course, but so was his characterization of the unions opponents. People of all political stripesnot just right-wing bastardsare starting to realize that the single biggest impediment to education reform is the NEA itself.
Take the nations 4,000 charter schoolspublic schools that operate with less red tape, fewer suffocating union rules, and a higher percentage of minorities and poor students than regular public schools do. In California, 12 of the top 15 public schools are charters, including three in Oakland that cater to exceptionally poor children. Los Angeles charters median score on Californias Academic Performance Index was 728 in 2008, compared with 663 for regular public schools. . . .