More Obama Money Tied to Union Approval

It is truly the era of union labor. Forty-one states competed for a piece of $4 billion available to reform-minded schools. Of those 41 states, only two were awarded money. And those two states were the only ones claiming unanimous union support. As reported on ABC News:

Experts believed Florida, Georgia, and Louisiana all had strong -- if not stronger -- applications, but what they lacked was the nearly unanimous support from local unions and school districts obtained by Delaware and Tennessee.

"I think this is a win for the unions. What it shows is they have veto power over state application. If they don't sign on, their states are unlikely to get funding," said Michael Petrilli, vice president for National Programs and Policy at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute.

What was that quote by Adam Smith?

"People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public."

This is a great time to be in a union or on the government dole--especially while the rest of the economy collapses.

Detroit Public School Graduates are Scarce

When you look at the latest batch of native Detroiters, it's no wonder the city is in such a huge mess. Latest of many cases in point: Detroit schools rank last in graduation rate.

Having graduated from a decidedly average California high school, I'm guessing that maybe 5% of my class didn't make it. In Detroit? That number is nearly 70%.

That makes the remaining 30% the best and brightest of the city. The leaders. The councilmembers. The movers and shakers. The next hip-hop mayor.

The future looks bleak for Detroit. And the ailing auto industry is the least of its worries.

Quit Your Griping, the World is Fine

I just ran across an article that hasn't made any headlines, nor been played on the evening news. No, of course not--it's hard to point fingers at a villain there's no villainy to report.

From the WSJ opinion article:

But here they are: World-wide illiteracy rates have fallen by half since 1970 and now stand at an all-time low of 18%. More people live in free countries than ever before. The average human being today will live 50% longer in 2025 than one born in 1955.

To what do we owe this improvement? Capitalism, according to the U.N. Free trade is rightly recognized as the engine of global prosperity in recent years. In 1981, 40% of the world's population lived on less than $1 a day. Now that percentage is only 25%, adjusted for inflation. And at current rates of growth, "world poverty will be cut in half between 2000 and 2015"--which is arguably one of the greatest triumphs in human history. Trade and technology are closing the global "digital divide," and the report notes hopefully that soon laptop computers will cost $100 and almost every schoolchild will be a mouse click away from the Internet (and, regrettably, those interminable computer games).

So the next time you hear someone's anti-capitalist, anti-corporate rant, recall that it is the corporations, supported by free trade and capitalism, that are the ones making the world a better place for everyone. And you can tell them to shut their yaps.

You can get the grades out of the ghetto, but...

...you can't get the ghetto out of the grades.

Yeah. That whole thing about "school of choice" and putting inner-city students in nicer schools and neighborhoods to help boost grades and make better citizens? It's been officially debunked.

Unfortunately, the Washington Post article is mostly full of quotes from people trying to dream up ways to save the politically correct theory, who basically say that the students didn't move to good enough neighborhoods.

I do agree with this snippet, however:

...Many of the parents had little faith that better teaching in better schools would help their children. They felt it was up to their children to make education work.

My opinion? It's not a child's environment that affects his or her achievements. It's the culture of the home. Does the child's family value studying, hard work and independence? If not, that family is only awarding the child all the benefits of ghetto living. And not all cultures are created equal.

Steve Jobs and Unions: Without the Fluff, For Once

Steve Jobs just got a big, giant happy sticker from me. And it didn't require an act of God, surprisingly enough. All it took was the common wisdom and guts to call unions for what they really are: poison.

Unions are bad enough for the auto and other industries. They're even worse for public schools--where economic realities do little to prevent sub-par performance among teachers. And where the ones who suffer the greatest consequences are the children.

In Jobs' words:

"I believe that what is wrong with our schools in this nation is that they have become unionized in the worst possible way," Jobs said.

"This unionization and lifetime employment of K-12 teachers is off-the-charts crazy."

Read the entire story here.