We talk a lot about our failing public schools. But there is an enormous group of folks for whom the schools are doing anything but failing. Media mogul Rupert Murdoch gives a call out to these public education beneficiaries in today’s Wall Street Journal:
[W]hile the system is failing our children, it works very well for some adults. These adults include the leaders of the teachers unions. They include the politicians whom the unions reward with their cash and political support. They include the vast education bureaucracies. In business terms, we have a system that rewards the providers and punishes the customers.
This is an illuminating insight-and it’s something that seems to be dawning on more and more people. Have you seen the brilliant anti-education union ad that is running on DC TV? It sarcastically thanks the union for putting its welfare above that of the children. Murdoch quotes a telling exchange between outgoing (alas) DC School chancellor Michelle Rhee and American Federation of Teachers honcho Randi Weingarten who opposed Rhee’s firings of teachers the gutsy chancellor deemed substandard.
Murdoch writes:
We have tougher standards on “American Idol.” And so long as we refuse to measure success by what our children are learning, we’re going to have higher performance standards for pop stars than for public schools.
Whatever you think about Michelle Rhee-and this ink-stained wretch thinks very highly of her-she was holding teachers to standards. Which infuriated the unions.
Isn’t it time for some Rhee-thinking?