No Doubt, You've Heard This Before...

Mark Twain once said "In the beginning, God made idiots. This was for practice; then He made school boards."

This is true, as you've no doubt realized from the dozens and dozens of stories over the last few decades in the news of school boards and their associated idiocy.

This isn't one of those stories.

*Pause for gasps of shock*

Oddly, in this story, the school board was the hero until this last election.

See, across the board, all over the nation, our public schools suck. The educational policies of the last two generations have resulted in schoolchildren who are expected to require a $150 graphing calculator in the eighth grade, and yet cannot pass acceptable basic standards tests in - as the older standards used to say, "readin', writin', and 'rithmatic."

Finally, Little Rock, Arkansas, a state renowned for its poor schooling and Billion Dollar Bill, decided to do something about it.

Overturning the new in favor of the old, the school board created a program in which, instead of lowering standards when students failed, they paid teachers a bonus if students did well.

Five schools were the initial test; and in those five schools, students' test scores have risen by -

wait for it -

TWENTY-NINE PERCENT.

Oh, the horror.

The calamity.

The absolute calumny and injustice of a school system under which teachers are paid better for doing their jobs well.

Oh, the humanity.

...Or, at least, that's what the teachers' union says. And they're pulling out all the stops to try to get the program shut down, because it allows teachers who do better at their jobs than others to earn more money, which is obviously unfair.

Now we see it. Despite my saying so many times before, you may not have believed that the unions were simply a force for communism.

This is proof, folks. What could be more communist than paying people the same despite their performance? Taking the efforts of those who produce, and using it to feed those who don't?

"From each according to his ability, to each according to his need."

That's the communist doctrine. That's also, not coincidentally, the unions' doctrine.

The surprising part of this, at least to me, is that the unions are willing to so openly defy a program which so obviously benefits the students. I hope most sincerely that the people of Little Rock catch on to this, and treat the unions' attempts with the utter contempt and derision that they deserve, and that those efforts fail magnificently.

In this day and age, our students need help desperately. Any program that results in significant improvements in our school system deserves at least serious scrutiny.

And despite the unionists' cries of injustice, I ask you this:

What could be more FAIR, than paying MORE to people who WORK HARDER?

Certainly not a doctrine which has never worked for the betterment of its citizens anywhere it's ever been tried in all the history of the world.