US Education: A Sea of Red

That is not a sea of red. That is a recent rally for teachers in California.

The photos are from Zombie, at a San Francisco rally, and from his partner Ringo at a Los Angeles rally. Zombie discusses his previous reservations for adding competition into the education system. But after this rally, he's come full circle:

The only way to break the stranglehold that leftists have on public schools is not to get rid of the leftists (which is impossible) but to get rid of the public schools. And how can we get rid of them? By making them so terrible that no parents in their right minds would allow their children to attend. And how can we accelerate the decline of public schools (beyond the atrocious decline already caused by the progressive masters)? By letting their funding dry up. Simple.

Zombie is one step further than we are on this issue. We suggest a simple voucher program with zero involvement from the government except to cut a voucher to each parent at the start of the school year, and to monitor the standardized testing at every grade level. Then let the chips fall where they may. No doubt some public schools are stellar, and our own recent experience with a son in high school confirms there are stellar teachers.

This would have an immediate effect on students, and over the course of several years would deliver huge benefits to teachers.

Students would have choice and go to the schools with the best reputations. The early years in such a program wouldn't necessarily deliver major improvements, but students would know they have moved to a better school than where they were the year before.

But for the teachers, it gets exciting. Entrepreneurs would recognize the business climate and demand and offer small schools with limited enrollment and entrance requirements. These entrepreneurs would know that their teaching staff and test scores would be the attraction to parents and would pay a premium for the right teachers. We're upset because teachers are receiving over $100k in salary and benefits and not producing. Consider us a major proponent of teachers making over $100k salaries in a voucher environment! When compensation is tied to performance, great things happen.

Public school teachers today are either liberals progressives communists, or are cowered by their commie co-workers and union-thug representatives.

We say America is ready for the concept of PRO-CHOICE to reach our schools. Lets not lose another generation.

Update: Another advantage to vouchers is it will reduce the number of DOE SWAT team college-loan collections raids. BTW, that raid was authorized by Judge Gregory G. Hollows.

U/T: Zombie and InstaPundit