Tag Archives: Teacher Union

Podcasts

Wayne Grudem explains what the Bible says about parents and schools

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This is a must-listen, especially for any single Christian woman who would like to get married and have children. If you want to marry a Christian man, you should listen to this lecture and also the Dr. Morse lecture on marriage Every Day.

In fact, the only reason why single men play video games and don’t want to marry is because women don’t know how to talk about education policy. We try to talk to you about school choice and you can’t, so we play video games instead. Your fault. Not our fault. We also like talking about tax policy and foreign policy, but education policy first. If a woman doesn’t know what a voucher is, then she might as well be a giant lobster. And men don’t like to talk to lobstrosities.

(I am totally kidding in that last paragraph)

With that introduction, here is the MP3 file on education policy.

And there is a PDF outline for all that.

Note: public schools = government-run schools.

Topics:

  • Does God care whether we people marry and have children?
  • Does God care whether Christian parents raise their children to know him?
  • Should government promote bearing children?
  • What are some effects of declining birth rates in other countries?
  • What are the economic effects of declining birth rates?
  • Who has the right to decide how children are trained: government or parents?
  • What does the Bible say about parents having to raise children to know him?
  • Does the government have the responsibility for training children?
  • What do educational bureaucrats think of parents training children?
  • What do school boards think of parents training children?
  • Should school boards be elected by local, state or federal government?
  • Should Christians be opposed to government-run education? (public schools)
  • How should schools be viewed by parents? As a replacement or as a helper?
  • How are schools viewed by those on the left and in communist countries?
  • How can you measure how supporting a government is of parental rights?
  • How is parental authority viewed in left-wing EU countries like Germany?
  • How is parental authority respected in the United States?
  • Should parents have a choice of where their children go to school?
  • What is a voucher program? How is it related to parental autonomy?
  • How does competition (school choice) in education serve parental needs?
  • Why do public school teachers, unions and educrats oppose competitition?
  • How well do public schools do in educating children to achieve?
  • Does the government-run monopoly of public schools produce results?
  • Does paying more and more money to public schools make them perform?
  • How do teacher unions feel about having to compete in a voucher system?
  • Does the public school monopoly penalize the poorest students?
  • Does the public school monopoly penalize children of certain races?
  • Does the public school monopoly cause racial predujice?
  • What else should parents demand on education policy?
  • Is it good for parents when schools refuse to fire underperforming teachers?

This podcast is just amazing! This is what we need to be teaching in church. Church should be the place where you go to learn and reflect about how to tailor your life plan based on what the Bible says. And I think that this whole notion of free market – of choice and competition benefiting the consumer (parents) – applies to everything that government does, especially education and health care. Go Capitalism!

(Note: I am not a Calvinist! But Grudem is the best theologian!)

Related posts

News

Obama wants 23 billion more from taxpayers to bailout teacher unions again

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Story from Fox News.

Excerpt:

Despite President Obama’s pledge for honest budgeting and billions of dollars in stimulus money spent to save teachers’ jobs, the Education Department is asking for off-the-books emergency funding to keep local districts from laying off school teachers next school year.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan sent Democratic lawmakers a request Thursday to pass a $26 billion emergency supplemental to fund up to 300,000 teachers’ jobs that he says will otherwise be lost in the fall.

[…]The request comes just a year after an unprecedented $100 billion in federal stimulus money was allocated to school districts as part of the $863 billion recovery act. Of that amount, $48 billion was designated for saving teachers’ jobs and investing in educational programs. Another $31 billion in stimulus funds were sent to states for Pell grants, competitive funds and programs helping disadvantaged students.

[…]An Education Department spokesman acknowledged that the stimulus funds have already saved roughly 300,000 teachers’ jobs once, but an additional $23 billion more is needed to preserve education jobs, along with $1 billion in funds to save early childhood education jobs and an additional $2 billion to support public safety.

Yet another bailout from productive private sector taxpayers, for yet another unproductive Democrat special interest group.

Oh well, at least the teacher unions are happy with their bailout. And the Wall Street bankers are happy with their bailout. And the auto unions are happy with their bailout. And the public sector unions are happy with their bailout. And so on, and so on, and so on.

I would expect that the left-wing media will getting a bailout soon. And then the left-wing trial lawyers. And then the left-wing illegal immigrants. And then the left-wing prisoners. That should about cover it, I guess.

Who else is left?

Hey Obama! Where's my bailout?

Oh. Of course.

News

Democrats propose 23 billion bailout for teacher unions

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Story here from the leftist Washington Post. (H/T Ace of Spades via ECM)

Excerpt:

As public schools nationwide face larger class sizes and cuts in programs, the Senate’s leading Democrat on education issues proposed a $23 billion bailout Wednesday to help avert layoffs of tens of thousands of teachers and other school personnel in the coming academic year.

[…]Education Secretary Arne Duncan estimated that school layoffs could total from 100,000 to 300,000 unless Congress acts.

“It is brutal out there, really scary,” Duncan told reporters on Capitol Hill. “This is a real emergency. What we’re trying to avert is an education catastrophe.”

Duncan stopped just short of endorsing Harkin’s bill. But he said efforts to improve schools will suffer if class sizes rise, summer school is cut and other programs are jettisoned.

Harkin, chairman of the Appropriations Committee’s panel on education and of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, said time is running out because states are starting to issue layoff notices. “We must act soon,” he said. “This is not something we can fix in August. We have to fix it now.”

[…]Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) said he worried about where the government would find $23 billion for a bailout in a time of growing federal budget deficits. “I wonder from whose schoolchildren we are going to borrow this money, because we have a looming debt crisis in this country and we’ll need to debate this,” he said. “We all want to help our children and our schools, but that is a deep concern.”

A fitting follow-up to today’s earlier education policy post. This is why you don’t put silver spoon liberals in charge of the country – they just keep spending and spending to bail out their greedy special interest groups.