Your posts always just grab hold of me and won't let me go softly into that good night. I may pick up more in the comments where there's an interaction between you and the commenters that just expands on your original post.
You may add twice as much in your replies than you had in your original post.
I had to look and see if the Teachers Unions grew along with the creation of the Dept of Ed and here's what the American Federation of Teachers web site says:
The 1980s saw a concentrated movement toward education reform and teacher professionalization, which was led by the AFT and its more than 600,000 members. The AFT worked to tear down the artificial barriers between contract bargaining matters and other professional issues, and reframed the education reform discussion to include teachers and paraprofessionals as decision-making partners.
English translation , "We latched on to that government teat and haven't stopped sucking yet."
Neither literally nor figuratively, they suck big time.
In my opinion, that's also a huge barrier to education reform, the cash cow that is the teachers union.
Add to that the idea that it's not about education, it's always been about indoctrination for the masses and it all makes sense. It's wrong but there's a logic to it.
There is a documentary out there I think called "Waiting for Superman" or something like that and it was about education and problems with it. The things that are happening in some states due to unions is ridiculous.
I had totally forgotten about that.
All I kept asking myself as a parent was "Was it this bad when I was in school? I don't remember it being this bad". I graduated from High School in 1989. The Department of Education didn't exist until 1986.
So when people like Ron Paul are calling for getting rid of the department of education. People scream like he is crazy. How many of them know that it didn't exist prior to 1986 and we did just fine, perhaps even better than now?
When he calls for the end of the IRS and income tax, how many of the people don't know that prior to 1913 such a thing didn't exist?
They act like it is crazy before they even look into the history.
How many people think the pledge of allegiance always had "one nation under God" without looking into it and finding out that it was added in 1950s (54 I think, I didn't go google it)? It was added with the idea that it was fighting communism, or at least that was the excuse.
How many people see someone hold their hand out like a Hitler style Zeig Heil type salute and call that persons Nazi's without realizing that we used to hold our hand very similar in the U.S. when stating the pledge to the flag. We only changed it AFTER the Nazi's in an attempt to avoid the stereotypes.
There are a lot of things people think are crazy and nuts, yet they just are having kneejerk reactions without stopping to think, research, etc.
They have drunk from the everlasting spring of kool-ade (and I understand the Jim Jones connotation) and gone back for refills.
I'll hold out hope.