What is it with teachers’ unions these days? In Milwaukee, they want their Viagra. In Los Angeles, they don’t want to be held accountable. A.J. Duffy, the president of United Teachers Los Angeles, has been hard at work organizing a boycott of the L.A. Times after the paper dared to publish a series of articles focusing onteacher effectiveness.

The articles used past and present student test scores to evaluate each teacher’s effectiveness in the classroom. The results (shockingly) showed discrepancies among the teachers in the district, many even in the same schools.

Mr. Duffy has called for a boycott of the Times because it’s “leading people in a dangerous direction, making it seem like you can judge the quality of a teacher by … a test.”

Let me get this straight — it’s dangerous to judge someone’s competence by testing? I hate to break it to Mr. Duffy, but life is a series of tests, and the results are positive or negative based on how well you perform. If you fail biology, you have to take summer school. If you fail your driver’s test, you don’t get to drive. If you fail to set the oven timer, everyone will have dry chicken and burnt potatoes for dinner.

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Remember back in the day when teaching was about the kids? Specifically, educating them? Those were good times, weren’t they? These days, teaching is about the teachers’ unions. And Viagra.

Yeah, you heard me.

The Milwaukee Teachers’ Education Association let go of hundreds of teachers in June due to budget shortfalls, but is suing the school board for the lack of Viagra in the educators’ health care plan.

They claim that it’s a matter of gender discrimination.

Union lawyer Barbara Quindel said the case was worth fighting despite the district’s grim finances. Quindel said erectile dysfunction is associated with heart disease, prostate cancer, and other conditions, and the drugs are approved by the Food and Drug Administration and recommended by the American Urological Association.

“MTEA believes that men should not be discriminated against in receiving treatment for their medical conditions,” she said.

Seriously, people. There is something very wrong with the world that this is even a story. I do feel bad for the guy that can’t get it up, but I fail to see how that’s Mrs. Milwaukee Taxpayer’s problem.

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“The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.” — Margaret Thatcher

Not a day has gone by in the past two years that I have not heard, spoken, or at least thought these words. I have been frustrated over and over again by well-meaning friends that believe that the government should take care of us from the moment we enter the world until the moment we leave it.

The government should pay for our mother’s prenatal health care, our childhood vaccinations, our educations, our food and housing, medical care when we need it, and our retirements.

It’s the right thing to do. Everyone deserves a good life, and it’s just so unfair that some people are born as Paris Hilton while others are born in slums. (Although it’s probably a toss-up as to which of those two fates is worse than the other.)

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Organizing for America, which can be found at www.BarackObama.com, is “the successor organization to Obama for America, is building on the movement that elected President Obama by empowering communities across the country to bring about our agenda of change.”

On the surface, it looks good.  What’s wrong with encouraging people, especially young people, to become more involved with the political process, to donate their time and talent to serve the community?  Nothing, of course.  Unless it’s just a tool to spread progressive propaganda like “the government knows better than you do” and “rich people are stealing from you.”  On a side note, I’ll never understand why people get upset about CEOs making millions but not Kobe Bryant.

Those crazy kooks over at OFA are busy recruiting high school students in government schools to become part of the team that will transform America.  To help spread the word that health care is a right, not a service, that fetus’s aren’t babies, and that bankrupting energy companies is a good idea.  You know, to really be a part of sumpin’ special.

Remember, this is a partisan organization to promote liberal/socialist ideals, and they’re recruiting teenagers in their high school government classes.  Not at lunch in the quad, not after school in the office, but right in the classroom.  If that isn’t unsettling enough for you, wait until you check out the recommended reading list. On it is Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals, a book dedicated to Satan and containing such gems as:

“The third rule of ethics of means and ends is that in war the end justifies almost any means….”

and:

And so the guided questioning goes on without anyone losing face or being left out of the decision-making. Every weakness of every proposed tactic is probed by questions…. Is this manipulation? Certainly….”

and:

“An organizer working in and for an open society is in an ideological dilemma to begin with, he does not have a fixed truth-truth to him is relative and changing; everything to him is relative and changing…. To the extent that he is free from the shackles of dogma, he can respond to the realities of the widely different situations….”

and:

“A Marxist begins with his prime truth that all evils are caused by the exploitation of the proletariat by the capitalists. From this he logically proceeds to the revolution to end capitalism, then into the third stage of reorganization into a new social order of the dictatorship of the proletariat, and finally the last stage — the political paradise of communism.”

Unbelievable.

A few days ago, President Obama spoke with about 30 sixth graders to talk about his new Race to the Top program.  Basically, it’s a race to spend as much tax-payer money as possible on education for the children.   Barack Obama is so fantastically competent at managing schools, I’m sure he knows exactly what he’s doing.  I mean, look at what he and Bill Ayers accomplished in Chicago!  Wait, the Chicago Annenberg Challenge was an abysmal failure?  Huh…

Anyway, I got sidetracked for a moment there.  My reason for mentioning the President speaking to sixth graders was not to talk about education, but to point out that President I-can’t-speak-without-my-bff-teleprompter-present brought his bff the teleprompter to address the 12 year olds.  Seriously.

As if trying to prove that he really has no clue what he’s talking about unless he’s reading off a screen, President Obama brought along his bff this morning to address a dozen or so people boardroom style.

I wonder if he uses Tele when he whispers sweet nothings to Michelle…

Update:

According to this article, Obama did not use the telepromter to address sixth graders.  He used it to address news photographers that were sitting in the child-sized chairs.  ”You guys look really cute in those chairs,” the President quipped.  Personally, I think it says something about his overuse of the thing that no one was really shocked by news that he had used it to speak to 12 year olds.

Have you seen the video yet?  The one of elementary school children, in an organized activity, during school hours and on school grounds, singing what can only be called an Ode to Obama?  Check it out.

School Children Taught to Praise Obama

Here’s a sample of the lyrics-

Hello, Mr. President we honor you today!
For all your great accomplishments, we all do say “hooray!”
Hooray Mr. President! You’re number one!
The first Black American to lead this great na-TION!

The superintendent of the school district issued a statement in response to the video:

“Today we became aware of a video that was placed on the Internet which has been reported by the media. The video is of a class of students singing a song about President Obama. The activity took place during Black History Month in 2009, which is recognized each February to honor the contributions of African Americans to our country. Our curriculum studies, honors and recognizes those who serve our country. The recording and distribution of the class activity were not authorized.”

The recording was not authorized?  How about the activity itself not being authorized?  There is absolutely no excuse for this.  Teachers are not supposed to indoctrinate children with their own personal beliefs and convictions.  If grown-ups want to worship President Obama, that’s their own (lame) decision.  If they want to teach their own children to praise President Obama, that’s their right as parents, and it’s none of my business.  But keep it out of the classroom.

No doubt about it. Our current educational system has cultivated a generation of self-important and politically correct young adults that can barely read, write, or add, but gosh darnit, don’t they feel good about themselves? Oh wait, according to some in the new administration, (*cough* Eric Holder *cough*), only black students should feel good about themselves; white students are cowards because they don’t talk enough about how cool it is to be black. (Can you see me rolling my eyes from where you’re sitting?)

Our children are being dumbed down in government run schools. Study after study after study show that American students are falling further and further behind their foreign counterparts. Teachers are limited on how much work they may assign their students, social awareness trumps personal responsibility, school nurses can’t hand out aspirin but can direct pregnant teens to an abortion clinic, and students incapable of constructing grammatically correct sentences or adding two three-digit numbers together without a calculator keep on donning those caps and gowns to receive their diplomas.

What’s our new prez going to do to improve our educational system? With $100 billion set aside in the latest “stimulus” package for education, you’d think the government could improve education drastically. Unfortunately, as history has shown, throwing money at a problem rarely makes that problem go away. It’s sort of like using a pail to dump water out of a leaky rowboat… sure, you can keep the boat from sinking (for awhile) but if you don’t plug the leaks, it will keep filling back up and your arms will get very, very tired.

I’m not sure Obama really wants educated, critically thinking adults in his audience anyway. Afterall, it was the idiotic youth vote that got him elected (although not this 26 year old youth, you all know I voted for Sarah Palin ). Imagine if all of those young people had stopped to think about the ramifications of electing a power hungry socialist that attended a black supremist church for 20 years, kicked off his political career in a domestic terrorist’s living room, had a wife that was ashamed to be an American until her husband was nominated for the Presidential ticket, and wants to sit down for milk and cookies with Ahmenajad (you know, that Iranian leader with nukes and a desire to obliterate the US from the map). A well educated audience might have questioned his double speak, even to the point of telling two different cities that he was rooting for their team to win the world series! Seriously, is that important enough to lie about?

Besides, Arne Duncan, the former Chicago schools chief, is now heading up the Department of Education. And we all know how great the schools in Chicago are (again with the eye rolling! I just can’t seem to help myself).

So what’s a parent to do in these dire educational circumstances? Sit back and relax while the government tells you what’s best for your child? Not this parent, that’s for sure! As our eldest daughter neared schooling age, my husband and I took stock of our options. We could put her in a government run school, and supplement at home. We could put her name in the lottery for a coveted spot at a nearby covertly Christian charter school. I could homeschool her, but that would’ve involved too many prescription drugs (no, not Ritalin for her,

The philosophy-

The Cambridge School employs a classical, Christian approach to learning, which is a time-honored approach to learning used throughout the Western world by the 16th century, and which remained the norm until at least 1850.The method is known as the Trivium, which imparts the basic tools of learning to the student and introduces them to the life of the mind. The Trivium is applied to every academic discipline, meaning every subject has its grammar, logic, and rhetoric.Becoming educated in any subject involves knowing its basic facts and principles (grammar), ordering and analyzing relationships concerning those facts (logic), and communicating conclusions in a clear, persuasive, and winsome manner (rhetoric). This three-phase model works because it focuses on the way children learn best at each stage of life and builds on the foundation of previous stages. Thus, it prepares students to become life-long learners who can think for themselves. And in today’s culture, such skills are increasingly valuable precisely because this educational model is the exception rather than the rule.

Now everyone knows the major downside to private education: the cost. It eats a substantial chunk of our monthly income, but it is a sacrifice that we are willing to make. Although the Obamas practice school choice (their elementary age daughters attend the prestigious Sidwell Friends to the tuition tune of $28,442 per year, per girl), it’s a case of, “What’s good enough for thee isn’t good enough for me.” Obama does not support the use of vouchers, which would allow parents of school aged children to take a portion of the money that the state has allocated for their education and spend it at the school of their choice.

I know we are blessed to send our school aged child to a fantastic private school at this point in time. We don’t take fancy vacations, we don’t go out on fancy dates, I clean the house, cook the meals, chauffeur the kids, and shop frugally. Heck, right now I’m writing this piece on a three year old laptop with a screen that blinks out if I don’t keep a clothespin on the upper left hand corner. Life would be much easier financially if we didn’t pay for our daughter to attend private school, but we get by just fine.

There are many that cut every corner, but still can’t afford to participate in school choice. These are families with hard working parents and eager to learn kids, who just want to be given the opportunity to attend the school of their choice.

Just like the Obama girls do.

Earlier this year, Obama’s campaign issued a statement that said, “Senator Obama has always been a critic of vouchers…Throughout his career, he has voted against voucher proposals and voiced concern for siphoning off resources from our public schools.”

Vouchers would allow parents to take part of the money allocated for their child to attend the public school that they are districted for, and use that money at the school of their choice, including private schools. The concept of school choice is essentially a free market for education, where teachers and administrators would be forced to provide an excellent education to their students, or risk losing them (and the funds that come with them) to the school down the street. Obama is concerned that by allowing parents to make the best decision regarding the education of their children, they will do just that and yank their kids out of under performing schools and put them into ones where teachers have to rely on job performance rather than tenure if they want to keep that paycheck coming.

By Obama’s thinking, a much better plan would be to pour endless amounts of cash into schools where teachers are tenured and receive automatic pay raises, providing little incentive for them to work hard and do their job well (after all, why bother trying if there’s no motivation?), and where unruly students often disrupt their classmates learning because it’s practically impossible to discipline these days lest we hurt that student’s precious self-esteem. No wonder our current education system is such a mess!

I’m so glad to hear that Obama, a self-proclaimed man of his word, is going to enroll his two elementary aged daughters into the DC public school system, one of the worst in the nation. Hopefully, by not taking funds away from the public school system, he will lead the way to show our nation that vouchers are not needed because school choice is not needed. The government is much more knowledgeable than parents in deciding which school their children should attend, and if we could all just head to that government advice, the system would be fixed, right?

Wait, what’s that? The Obama girls will be attending an exclusive private school? Huh. I thought that public schools were good enough for American children. I guess just not good enough for Obama’s children. If only we all had the means to practice school choice, something that the Obamas themselves have chosen to do.