Legislative task force represents foes of public involvement
A headline in today’s Pioneer Press announces “Lawmakers ready to listen to new ways to fund schools”.
What it should read is “Democrat lawmakers ready to unveil laws to fortify the status quo”
According to the story, by Paul Tosto and Doug Beldon, the agenda is being driven by “PS Minnesota” which the story introduces as “a statewide coalition of education groups and parent groups”.
However, a quick check of their website reveals the membership of "PS Minnesota" is predominately made up of groups with a heavy financial stake in maintaining the status quo in public education. To seal the deal, the legislative “task force” is being co-chaired by one of Education Minnesota’s most reliable legislative minions, Representative Mindy Greiling.
Greiling is well positioned for this fight, having made her bones with the union by actively battling each and every piece of legislation that has in any way diminished the government\union monopoly on public education or God forbid, put any meaningful accountability measures in place.
In recent years though, despite Greiling's best efforts, some small measures of accountability have made their way into the Minnesota public school industry.
And so at its core, accountability, or more correctly defined removing the impediment to the continuation of the current hegemony that accountability represents, is what this latest skirmish is all about.
Union officials, public school administrators and their supporters have wearied from having to appear before the public that they supposedly serve and explain where the generous funding they receive has been spent while simultaneously passing the hat for more.
Clearly, providing adequate explanations of why over 40% of the states bi-annual budget is so woefully inadequate to satiate the public schools hunger for ever increasing funding has gotten to the point that too many taxpaying stake holders are becoming much too informed for the defenders of the status quo’s comfort.
And so to the attack.
But this needn’t be the death knell for public school reform. An enlightened public can, and should demand that legislators turn this cynical usurpation of public involvement into a referendum on reform; real, meaningful, lasting reform.
The time is now to contact your legislators and demand that the financial focus take a back burner to a whole sale investigation into alternatives to the status quo in public education.
If we do not immediately take the lead on this issue, all of the gains that have been made by supporters of academic excellence, small though they are, will be lost in a tidal wave of new legislative protections and firewalls designed to make Government Schools, Inc. proof against any future public input.
There is no time to waste.
What it should read is “Democrat lawmakers ready to unveil laws to fortify the status quo”
According to the story, by Paul Tosto and Doug Beldon, the agenda is being driven by “PS Minnesota” which the story introduces as “a statewide coalition of education groups and parent groups”.
However, a quick check of their website reveals the membership of "PS Minnesota" is predominately made up of groups with a heavy financial stake in maintaining the status quo in public education. To seal the deal, the legislative “task force” is being co-chaired by one of Education Minnesota’s most reliable legislative minions, Representative Mindy Greiling.
Greiling is well positioned for this fight, having made her bones with the union by actively battling each and every piece of legislation that has in any way diminished the government\union monopoly on public education or God forbid, put any meaningful accountability measures in place.
In recent years though, despite Greiling's best efforts, some small measures of accountability have made their way into the Minnesota public school industry.
And so at its core, accountability, or more correctly defined removing the impediment to the continuation of the current hegemony that accountability represents, is what this latest skirmish is all about.
Union officials, public school administrators and their supporters have wearied from having to appear before the public that they supposedly serve and explain where the generous funding they receive has been spent while simultaneously passing the hat for more.
Clearly, providing adequate explanations of why over 40% of the states bi-annual budget is so woefully inadequate to satiate the public schools hunger for ever increasing funding has gotten to the point that too many taxpaying stake holders are becoming much too informed for the defenders of the status quo’s comfort.
And so to the attack.
But this needn’t be the death knell for public school reform. An enlightened public can, and should demand that legislators turn this cynical usurpation of public involvement into a referendum on reform; real, meaningful, lasting reform.
The time is now to contact your legislators and demand that the financial focus take a back burner to a whole sale investigation into alternatives to the status quo in public education.
If we do not immediately take the lead on this issue, all of the gains that have been made by supporters of academic excellence, small though they are, will be lost in a tidal wave of new legislative protections and firewalls designed to make Government Schools, Inc. proof against any future public input.
There is no time to waste.
Labels: government schools, greed, teachers unions
posted by Swiftee at 1:13 PM
4 Comments:
As part of my new mayoral duties, I am trying to help reform spelling in the MOB. Therefore, let me point out that it is knell, not nell.
Yours with Tofurky,
The Mayor
P.S. Good post.
Thanks King.
I have been dealing with public school apologists for so long that I've forgotten my solid parochial education.
However I think that given the choice of rapping my knuckles for misuse of the English language or your misuse of the USDA approved food groups if Sister had anything to do with it, you’d be sporting a cast by now ;-)
Hey, maybe we'll get a statewide property tax just like I had in Vermont! That worked out oh so well after being sold as a way to "share the wealth."
Somebody's law states: "When they say it isn't about the money, it's about the money."
I saw Greiling interviewed on a public access channel earlier this year, with about half the time on education. Even by DFL standards, she appeared to be as dumb as a post, incapable of independent thought.
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