Smart Republicans (both of them!) will send a thank you note to Janet Napolitano. After all, the script for the next election cycle has already been written:
C'mon, guys - if you can't win this fight, you really are the Stupid Party. After all, most people like their kid's teachers, and Chris Christie is still effectively taking on the Teacher's Union. And teachers don't do this to your kids:
Nobody likes the TSA screeners. They're not teachers. Just to be absolutely clear, we know this because teachers don't do this to kids:
"You know why we're doing this."
If you guys can't win this, then you deserve to lose the election. Helpful hint: Google reports almost 3 Million hits for the search string "TSA abuse". There's even a blog devoted to the subject.
No need to thank me, it's all part of the service.
Maybe this is can get the foot in the door to say no Federal employees are allowed to unionize ever again.
ReplyDeleteIf they play it right.
The federal government is an open shop organization. The TSA can pretend that they're a closed shop, but if there was something other than a teleprompter in the White House, they would get stomped.
ReplyDeleteNew Jersey, however, is a closed shop state. And I disagree with Christie. I do have a problem with teachers, because they negotiate their contracts through collective bargaining. They can negotiate a zero increase or even a pay cut. They would rather wave goodbye as younger, more motivated teachers are laid off.
Most public school teachers live in two-earner households that haul in a comfortable sum in the low six-digits, have a "10-month" work year replete with generous holidays, paid sick days with substitutes and HMOs with little or no co-payments, and their employers are contractually obligated to provide them with continuing education but cannot hold them accountable for learning anything. They took 5 to 8 percent pay increases for the last 20 years. (In my state they do 185 days, which is actually only a half-year.)
Young, energetic teachers have been ejected, districts can't afford building maintenance, textbooks and furniture are not being replaced when they need to be, NCLB compliance is failing because the supporting technology is starved for funding, and all this is happening while tax revenue for public education has been increasing every year.
In this country, our teachers are *royalty*. Teachers' contractual pay raises are ruining education. I'm sorry, but that is the truth.