The primary concern of leftists in the school debate must be the job security, working conditions, pay, and benefits of all school employees (teachers, staff, janitors, etc.) This is not only first, all other concerns are trivial in comparison with it.
Carrol
I couldn't believe this one when I read it. This latest ex cathedra pronouncement reaches us without even the slightest hint that it might be in any way controversial or debatable. The idea that students and their families might have a stake in education doesn't even get a look-in.
Now let me explain that I live in a country where this thought not only exists but has become a concrete institutionalised reality, and it is a nightmare. In South Africa the South African Democratic Teacher's Union SADTU has managed to take almost complete control of the schooling system, even to the point of deciding who should be appointed at schools as teachers. The resulting situation is akin to the inmates taking over the asylum. Now teachers come to school when they feel like it, they don't bother to get themselves up to speed with their knowledge and skills, they have sex with the learners (with the consequent spread of HIV in the school system) and many of them are practising drunks, both by day and by night.
What are the consequences of this? We have one of the very lowest standards of school education in the world (look it up). This is an infringement on the rights of every citizen in the nation. Everyone is negatively affected by it (excepting of course the union bureaucrats, who enjoy an undreamed of level of power). Imagine the consequences for a young democracy in a context of underdevelopment. We have basically an unschooled populace and a university system (in which I happen to work) crippled by students coming into degree studies who cannot add up a few figures, or identify countries on the world map, or read properly.
Is this trivial? Tell me Cox, do you care?
Tahir
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