Say Anything Blog

Unions have been and are some of Obama’s most powerful supporters for the usual reasons: self interest and power.

Now, however, he may be taking on the very powerful teacher’s union:

After weeks of pleasing Democrats by overturning policies set by the previous administration, President Barack Obama Tuesday will for the first time confront a powerful constituency in his own party: teachers’ unions.

Obama will propose spending additional money to reward effective teachers in up to 150 additional school districts, fulfilling a campaign promise that once earned him boos from members of the National Education Association.

Read the whole article. Interesting stuff, and way past due. I mean, what a novel concept - using merit as a yardstick to gauge a teacher’s performance in our public schools.

I have several friends who are hard working and dedicated teachers - and frankly, it’s not a job I could do. It takes a special breed of person to deal with what they have to deal with. One of the areas of frustration besides the behavior and lack of respect from the kids nowadays that my friends express to me are the teachers who get tenure, then get cozy, and then stop caring all together. It has an impact on the product they turn out, which is actually the future of this country in the form of our kids.

Anyway, if he sticks to this it will be props in his favor, and that’s what I’m worried about.

So far he’s shown himself to be very adept at playing to an audience. Is he playing disaffected conservatives by making anti-union noises or is he serious about this? Time will tell. If I had to wager, though, I’d bet the teacher’s union and other unions are scrambling to make some back door deals about this right now. They won’t like the fact that a union can be actively challenged.

For the sake of our schools I hope I’m wrong. We’ll see, and soon.