Teachers aren’t paid enough, we hear. If we really want to invest in education, we’ll recruit an “army of teachers” and provide incentive for quality professionals to want to become teachers. If we really want to invest in our kids, we’ll make sure there are low student-to-teacher ratios and that every classroom is outfit with an iPad for every student.

The truth is, teachers are like many – not all – union workers in the United States: overpaid and spoiled.

Let me ask you something, blogger to reader: did your public school help you adequately prepare for and land your current job?

If you’re like many people, the answer is no. Some people study Business Administration and end up working in retail. Some people study Pre-Med and end up working in fast food. Some people study Theatre and end up in California waiting tables. Or worse, they end up in Iowa waiting tables.

(Photo source: inlandnet.com)

I know that I am no friend of public schools, but I think I have a critique a lot of people won’t find difficult to agree with: public schools have messed up priorities.

Frequent subjects include advanced math, art, music, science, and other subjects many people barely use throughout their lifetimes. Since public school has us from the approximate ages of five through eighteen, they can be doing better things with our time than teaching us how to dissect frogs.

They could be teaching us skills.

Any kindergartner, even if not taught it, knows that school stinks. But adults don’t realize it.

That’s because many adults keep on insisting we have this thing they call the Department of Education – wouldn’t you know it, education is too important to be left in the hands of a private market or a school voucher system. The current public education system in America is, quite literally, communist. And, like the U.S.S.R. before it, it’s basically a giant expensive disaster.

Note: This post is also an addition to the BPN Platform.
In the 2010 U.S. federal budget, almost $47 billion is pledged to the Department of Education. This is $47 billion too much. The Department of Education should be cut from the federal budget and education should be left to the states themselves.
When it comes to school policy, the government makes a few faulty assumptions:

The best way for children to learn is to be lectured to.
The best way to make sure all children are lectured to is to …

Public school teachers will be deferring to their high priest next Tuesday (Sept. 8th), when Barack Obama is set to “deliver a national address directly to students” at noon, according to the Department of Education’s web site.  As Michelle Malkin notes,
Instead of practicing cursive, reviewing multiplication tables, diagramming sentences, or learning something concrete, America’s kids will be lectured about the importance of learning.
Man.  I once wrote a column about how lecture-style teaching wasn’t the most effective; now Obama’s holding lectures to talk about lectures.  Apparently when you want to pay …

Thomas K. Smith, billed as a “former state agency budget and policy director” in this Sunday’s Journal-Sentinel, wrote an opinion piece that was given the headline “Overpaid teachers?  Not even close to what really happens”
Of course, if you know me and my distaste for public schools, that’s the equivalent of the Dan-signal flying high in the skies overhead.  It’s time for some education for reals.
First, let me establish my thoughts.  Yes, teachers are overpaid, despite constantly complaining that they’re underpaid.  Yes, the ENTIRE SUMMER OFF is a factor – someone …

“You think you’re so [expletive] cute with your little column,” she told me. “I read your piece and all you want is attention. You’re just like Bill O’Reilly. You just want to get up on your [expletive] soapbox and have people look at you.”
Such is the intolerant orthodoxy of Academia. A University of Oregon student named Dan Lawton – who claims to be neither conservative nor Republican – did the research and found that of all the 111 registered voters in the faculty of the Journalism, Poly Sci, …

Hat tip to Patrick McIlerhan: a teacher in New Hampshire who was up for Teacher of the Year has been laid off:
The Hampton School Board has been making moves that would be a publicity agent’s worst nightmare.
In the past week, it has announced a massive restructuring of Hampton Academy, the school’s principal announced his resignation and, after she thought her job was intact for next year, an educator who is in the running to be the state’s Teacher of the Year was told a mistake had been made and …

The Dan Signal is flying up in the sky, so it must be time to make fun of teachers.  This time, there’s been news that a professor called the police on a student – for giving a pro-gun presentation!
On October 3, 2008, [CCSU Student John] Wahlberg and two other classmates prepared to give an oral presentation for a Communication 140 class that was required to discuss a “relevant issue in the media”. Wahlberg and his group chose to discuss school violence due to recent events such as the Virginia Tech …