Dan Gainor
2008-05-22 07:00:00.0
Current rank: Not ranked

BALTIMORE -

If you can read this, thank your teachers but not their union.

For years, we’ve watched a systemic breakdown of American education — thanks in large part to the self-serving agenda of unions and the National Education Association. It’s only getting worse. In Baltimore, that means pathetic grades, shocking violence and a city held hostage to an ever-endangered quality of life.

The headlines from this very paper in recent weeks tell the story. “Battered Baltimore city teacher out of school; accused attackers allowed to return to take tests”; “Violent attacks leave emotional scars”; and “Police hope officers at schools will curb crime.”

Teachers are on the defensive. Thug students run rampant with little discipline. And then there’s the learning or lack thereof that so plagues our schools. 

That is the legacy of a union-controlled industry.

In the private sector, if a company fails every year to provide a quality product, it loses its market share and another, better firm takes over. In the public sector, such incompetence is rewarded with more money.

Take a look at per pupil spending. Nationwide we spend $9,138 per pupil for elementary and secondary children. In Maryland, which ranks 12th nationally, that number spiked to $10,670.

Instead of questioning if we are spending too much or unwisely, the typical union or political solution is to throw more money at the many problems. One look at D.C., ranked third nationally in spending at $13,446, and you know that doesn’t necessarily help.

That doesn’t mean I blame all of the

school system’s ills on itself. In many ways it reflects failures of other parts of our social contract — poor or no parenting, tolerance for crime, drugs, violence, sex and racial divisions.

But many of those issues are just excuses. Children can learn if we give them the opportunity and safety. That means two things. First, help them opt out of our pathetic public school system. We have to provide them with the financial means — a viable voucher system. Parents of children who opt out of the schools should be able to recoup some of what they pay to underwrite the costs of private education.

Such a policy would be a boon to the poor, who can’t afford to escape the incompetence of the education establishment. Rich folks have always been able to flee. It’s middle class and poorer workers who would most benefit.

Secondly, we need to retake the school system from the criminal element. Anyone accused of a serious crime needs to be removed from the mainstream schools and placed in high-security facilities. Maybe this will help them and maybe not. But it will sure help those who remain in their previous schools.

Liberals always complain how big businesses control sectors of the economy. Microsoft or Wal-Mart is supposedly too big. But they got big by doing a good job. They’ll get small if that changes. The real monopoly in this country is government, and few places is government more poorly run than our educational system.