Time to rip that silly mask off the teacher's union's face

I have linked to a good article from the WSJ Op-Ed about the school choice situation in Milwaukee. For any Star Trek fans, the piece begins comparing the teachers unions to the "Borg":

those destructive aliens in the "Star Trek" TV series who keep coming and coming until everyone is "assimilated."

The article then mentions the actions of the teacher's unions involving successful school choice programs:

We saw it in Florida this month when the state supreme court struck down a six-year-old voucher program after a union-led lawsuit. And now we're witnessing it in Milwaukee, where the nation's largest school choice program is under assault because Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle refuses to lift the cap on the number of students who can participate.

I say it is high time the people and any responsible media (oops a little weak in that area) rip the mask off of the face of the teacher's unions and expose them for what they are. Here there are programs proven to be helpful and effective, specifically in Milwaukee for minority children, and this group shows itself to be a greedy, self-serving, power-hungry, agenda driven shadow of humanity.

When you look at this under the microscope at the level of a single child, it is brought into perspective. We all have one life to live with the opportunities given us. In general, the United States is the land of opportunity where all can overcome any limitation and achieve greatness (as we have seen many times). In practice, the inner city presents unique obstacles that transcend mere poverty. It is very difficult to overcomes these obstacles, no matter how much money the government has thrown at the problem. So down at this microscopic level we see a whole life of an individual child hanging in the balance. Along comes something that has been proven to be able to break through the unique barriers of the inner city and offer the American Dream to these kids and the teacher's unions stand up and say "NO! You cannot have this dream!"

They resist a proven help to many thousands of children. They have resisted standards of excellence and testing for teachers to prove they are competent. The most destructive part is how these unions have entrenched themselves into the political landscape wasting resources battling political ideology instead of offering solutions.

They claim to care about their teachers and the students. They have it completely backwards where it comes to money. Here is an illustration: a girl wants to marry a guy and goes from dropping hints to pressing for a committment. In the meantime, she "shacks up" with him which in essence provides all of the "benefits" but no committment. Teacher's unions keep pressing for more money so we can "attract good teachers". What is completely missed here is what a position of weakness they are coming from. Stop blocking and balking at ideas that work and work toward solutions. When a product of excellence is delivered, the people will respect and appreciate that. At that time the union could bargain from a position of strength and people would be willing to support higher pay and benefits matching those results.

The bottom line is that results are not high on the priority list of teacher's unions. Their actions display they do not give a rip about each child that we see under the microscope has a chance at the American Dream. Their dreams appear closer to Marxist dreams than the American Dream. The people, the media and even members of the union themselves should not allow the union to wear a mask of caring and wanting to help, when in fact they don't give a rip. It is time we rip the mask off.