Wishy Washy Educators

My wife and I are believers in Christ. We are also parents of two girls, aged 10 and 13. We are also big proponents of public education. Although we could afford (with some stretching, like eating more cat food) to put our girls in nice, happy, private Christian schools, we do not, as we would like our girls to grow up in the "real world", and learn to deal with all the vagaries of real people, with real problems, joys, pains, and warts like we have. We feel that often, private schools can put kids into an artificial world. Anyway, that is for now. If one of our girls needs something special that only a private school might offer, we would reconsider.

All that said for this. Public education makes me crazy for its lack of virtually any moral instruction. Case in point is this post about a recent "situation" in Palo Alto, California.

This should cause us all to pause and pray (consistently) for our teachers and school administrators, both Believing and not. Also, I recently read an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal by Terry M. Moe, which says:

"If we really want to improve schools, something has to be done about the teachers unions. The idea that an enlightened "reform unionizing" will somehow emerge that voluntarily puts the interests of children first -- an idea in vogue among union apologists -- is nothing more than a pipe dream. The unions are what they are. They have fundamental, job-related interests that are very real, and are the raison d'etre of their organizations. These interests drive their behavior, and this is not going to change. Ever.
If the teachers unions won't voluntarily give up their power, then it has to be taken away from them -- through new laws that, among other things, drastically limit (or prohibit) collective bargaining in public education, link teachers' pay to their performance, make it easy to get rid of mediocre teachers, give administrators control over the assignment of teachers to schools and classrooms, and prohibit unions from spending a member's dues on political activities unless that member gives explicit prior consent.
These reforms won't come easily because the unions will use their existing power, which is tremendous, to defeat most attempts to take it away. There is, however, one ray of hope: that the American public will become informed about the unions' iron grip on the public schools and demand that something be done. Only when the public speaks out will politicians have the courage -- and the electoral incentive -- to do the right thing. And only then will the interests of children be given true priority."

Food for thought.