Schools are bloated with administrators.
Via The Federalist:
In the Chinese zodiac, 2018 is supposed to be the Year of the Dog, but a more suitable name might end up being the “Year of the Illegal Teacher Strike.” Hundreds of thousands of students in Kentucky and Oklahoma had no class Monday while their public-school teachers protested at state capitols during strikes for higher pay. Oklahoma’s teachers union is demanding $10,000 pay increases phased in over the next three years.
West Virginia teachers recently concluded a statewide walkout after illegally leaving their classrooms for nine days. Teachers in Jersey City, the Garden State’s second-largest metropolis, also illegally walked off the job for a day in mid-March. Teachers in Arizona are gearing up for illegal statewide strikes of their own, demanding a 20 percent pay hike.
Unions Have Parents By the Throat
Teacher strikes are firmly in the National Lampoon “if-you-don’t-buy-this-magazine-we’ll-kill-this-dog” school of negotiating. Unions know just how seriously disruptive these strikes can be to parents’ lives, so they use helpless children and their put-upon parents as pawns for more money.
This “pay us, or else” strategy works. When teachers walk out on kids, parents have to make alternative arrangements for them. “Can I bring the kids to work? Can I leave them home alone? Can I drop them off at the grandparents’? What about a babysitter? What about daycare? Can you get daycare for just one day? What about a week? How much is that going to cost? Can we afford it? How long is this going to go on?”
These questions and more are precisely why when these strikes happen then drag on, it’s not long before frazzled parents are ready to say, “Pay them whatever! Just get my kids back in school!”