There is a graphic going around, no doubt becasue of the OWS class-warfare hippy-fest, that asks why we wold cut teachers pay 20% instead of asking millionaires to give a little more. This is of course dishonest on several levels.
A few quick observations. No one is asking teachers to give up 20% of their wages and I challenge anyone who pays school taxes to find me an example of it. The job creators already front 70% of all taxes from which teachers are paid so if anyone needs to pony up it is the rest of us. And most importantly, the problem isn’t the wealthy it is the federal government. Since Obama took office the Department of Education’s budget has gone from 35 Billion a year (That’s BILLION), to 70 Billion. ($70,000,000,000.00). That’s 389 million per school day if you run on a 180 day calendar.
The rich bastard that is screwing teachers is not on Wall Street. The richest bastard of all is the US Government’s Department of Education.
The Department of Education does nothing that the states, or towns, or teachers themselves cannot do themsleves, (except double its budget every two years to pay more for doing even less.) So the real question is not how we can use class warfare to make an inefficient bureaucracy bigger, but how we find ways to help teachers teach children.
The answer is to dissolve the Department of Education, give oversight back to a congressional committee where it belongs, and give their 70 Billion dollar annual budget back the states and the teachers. If you are serious then it’s 70 Billion just sitting there for the taking.
Let’s make it very simple so that even public school graduates will understand.
Seventy billion dollars divided by the 2010 US population is $224.00/US resident.
So we multiply that by state population and write them a check for the next fiscal year. New Hampshire’s check would be for about $295,000,000.00 million dollars.
So who in the Democrat party, the teachers Union, or the Education industrial complex would like to argue that the state, SAU or town cannot do a better job of allocating that money than some suit in DC? Who want’s to argue for out of state control instead of local control? Who want’s to tell their residents that they lack the skills to handle this job. Please tell us why we need to send 70 Billion to DC to teach kids to read and write, many of whom (despite that spending and more) can not do either?
This is a huge wast of our money for no net gain.
In the second year, we would get to keep our money instead of giving it to the Federal government, the government reduces its budget by $70,000,000,000.00 billion, the completely useless Department of Education goes away, all the local expenses tied to dealing with that bureaucracy also go away, and we let towns and teachers do what is best for their children.
In the end, the money stays in state where it belongs and where local control can better accommodate local needs. That may mean budget changes. It may mean teachers pay a bit more for their own benefits, possibly even in parity with the local population. but it is for the children.
And look on the bright side. No more No Child left behind. No more Federal curriculum nonsense. No more Federal education mandates written by unaccountable bureaucrats. Just locally elected officials, parents, teachers and students, in close proximity to the resources they actually need to do the job they want to do.
The class-warfare left, union hacks who want an ever larger piece of the taxpayer action, and education establishment bottom-feeders, will cry foul, make excuses, and insist it will never work. But when was the last time the DoE sat in you kids classrom and did anything at all that did not make it harder or more expensive to teach?
That would be never.
So if you want to help teachers, you don’t want to occupy Wall Street. You want to empty out the US Department of Education. They are the richest bastard in Town any town.
