A day after teachers unions blasted the rhetoric Gov. Bobby Jindal used in rolling out his plan to overhaul the state education system, the governor fired back and said he was offended by a comment a union official made about school vouchers. The comment, by Louisiana Association of Educators Executive Director Michael Walker-Jones, suggested that parents may not have the resources to make informed decisions about their children's schools.
He's not the only one.
What bothers me though about Jindal is his not-at-all-subtle attack on teachers. Consider his rhetoric. In rolling out his plan he made the following two statements about teachers:
1. "Short of selling drugs in the workplace or beating up one of the business's clients, they can never be fired."
2. "We are going to create a system that pays teachers for doing a good job instead of for the length of time they have been breathing.
Ugh. First teachers are easily fired. In fact, every teacher in New Orleans was fired after the flood. And my principal friends tell me all one needs to do is document the poor performance in yearly evaluation forms and the contract will be terminated. And notice in his business model he calls students "clients." Second, my wife is a public school teacher and I find this idea about her pay being based on simply living to be very offensive. My outrage is influenced by that fact that my kids and I all suffer due to the incredible work load placed on her shoulders. Ask anyone married to a public school teacher. Some of us call ourselves "teacher widows" and "teacher widowers." It's a major sacrifice. I look forward to June when I can have a wife again.
The Obama-Jindal-John White "school choice" plan will eventually widow us all from the very concept of universal public education. But God forbid anyone offend the Governor's sensibilities by pointing that out.
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