Submitted by Jason, Nov 5, 2007 04:21

Teachers oppose privatization for one simple reason: it exposes their incompetence.

How many of you remember your public school experience? How many of your teachers were memorable? How many actively engaged you in learning? I had three teachers throughout my 13 years of public eduation who made a difference. In contrast, I remember dozens of teachers who were unprofessional, unsupportive, unimaginative, and did absolutely nothing to make the educational experience a positive one. The sheer amount of incompetence in the public education system is staggering.

Why would anyone choose to move their child to a private school? Maybe for the obvious reason: private schools produce superior students. They have better teachers and they use their resources more efficiently than the bloated bureaucracies of public education. Incompetent public teachers are terrified of the idea of competing against an agile and sustaining private education industry.

So why would unions be against this? Because unions make their money and consolidate their power from incompetent public teachers. If the public school system emaciates, the robber-baron unions emaciate right along with them. Like public teachers, union officials are also terrified at the prospect of losing their six-figure paychecks because the American public rejects the substandard quality of education that unions institutionalize and try to pass off as "highly qualified."

Think about it: why such a fight over this system? If it's so obvious that vouchers are a bad idea, wouldn't American families simply not use them? Wouldn't this law die on the shelf because nobody would use it? No. Teachers and unions are fighting this opportunity because they know that every family in America is quietly begging for vouchers to become a reality. Every family in America is begging for a chance for their children. And the public education system wants to deny that opportunity to children for their own selfish self-preservation.

Privatization is not only a fighting chance for students who need to be rescued from a decaying and antiquated public system, but it is also a challenge to that system to take responsibility for itself. When threatened with losing its stranglehold on hard working American families who have no choice in their children's education, can the public education system shape up and be a competitive force against the nimble intelligence the private education system represents?

I doubt it.

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