It's For the Children!

How many times in your life have you heard the cry by a politician, union official, or general busybody that the passage of a certain law (usually involving a tax raise) or spending measure (usually involving a tax raise) that the bill or measure was, "for the children." The issues that "are for the children" range from free medical care, government paid pre-school, midnight basketball, computers for schools and on and on and on ad infinitum.

The current administrations of both the United States and the State of California are pulling out the "for the children" card in a big way. And if one were to look closely at the matter, what both those entities are creating for the children is a big. big debt. Some one has to pay for these programs and there is just not enough money flowing now to pay for them. The result is that the payments for programs "for the children" will be paid for by the children and their children and perhaps their children.

In California, because of the budget deficit, there is a movement afoot to raise taxes to pay for educational programs and give teachers (California teachers are the highest paid in the nation) a pay raise. They seem to get a pay raise every year while people in the private sector are now lucky to get one every two or three years. In Los Angeles a number of teachers mounted a demonstration protesting projected lay-offs by the school district crying that the demonstrations were "for the children." It should be noted that the demonstration was organized by the Los Angeles teachers' union (United Teachers of Los Angeles). In other words, the action as a union action and not a grassroots action.

Years ago the president of the Associated Federation of Teachers (a nation-wide umbrella union for teacher), Albert Shanker, said that everything he did and every action he organized was not for the children. It was for union members. He said, "I'll start representing the concerns of students when students start paying union dues."

Remember that. Remember it well and expand the thought. Most of the cries of programs and concerns "for the children" are really actions benefiting those who work with children.

In Japan the cost of educating students is much less than it is in the lowest spending district in the US, but the Japanese educational system produces a better product than the average American school district. If the rulers of this nation had any damn sense at all they would outsource education to Japan instead of putting up with the nonsense that the airy-fairy pedagogues that determine educational policy here.

When you hear the cry, "It's for the children!" just reply, "Who cares? It's not my kid. I take care of my kid and don't expect the stated to do it."