Lindsey Burke of The Heritage Foundation provided some very interesting facts about the upcoming $10 billion "public education" bailout, which will probably be finalized any minute. She posted the piece on The Corner on National Review Online.
Forget Your Vacation, Come Bail Out Public Education - The Corner - National Review Online
Do teachers need lawmakers to leave the beaches and head back to Washington? Not if we’re to believe reports from school districts about their summer hiring. Mike Antonucci of the Education Intelligence Agency reports that schools have begun rehiring teachers despite the pink slips doled out earlier this year (and despite cries from the teachers’ unions and the Obama administration of catastrophic teacher layoffs if the bailout fails).
Teachers’ unions, members of Congress, and the Obama administration claim that the $10 billion public-education bailout would save 100,000 teaching jobs. That means taxpayers will be paying $100,000 per job — nearly double the national average for teacher salary, $54,000. Moreover, the U.S. Census Bureau estimates that about 57 percent of teachers are unionized. Using a conservative estimate of $300 in annual dues paid, the NEA and AFT have a minimum of $24 million in dues at stake.
Congress and the Obama administration have lobbied nonstop for increases in education spending since they came into office, and this $10 billion bailout is their latest attempt. Yet the tiny $13 million D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, which is successfully providing vouchers to low-income children in the nation’s capital, is being phased out.
Anyone who doubts the power of organized labor in education should just follow the money trail.
