Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:
Teachers say they’re striking because the schools are unsafe, not just for money. But the solutions they propose don’t address the root causes of the problem.
Society painted itself into this corner a little at a time, each new initiative sounding good but each one sacrificing a little, too. In every aspect of life, when there isn’t enough to go around, society must practice triage, must decide who gets the scarce commodity and who is robbed of it. I suggest we’ve been making the wrong decision.
Child 1 has autism. He needs special education, extra attention from teacher, additional time on tests but we’ve mainstreamed him in the classroom with average and smart kids. While teacher is working with him, the other 29 students are bored, learning nothing.
Child 2 doesn’t want to be in school but is lumped with students who do. He acts out, picks fights, talks back, disrupts class but we can’t remove him because of his race. While the teacher is dealing with him, the other 29 kids are bored, learning nothing.
Child 3 has mental health problems. You get the idea.
Two kids might have better lives, the disruptive one probably will drop out soon. 27 kids fail the reading and math test for their grade level. Which is understandable, since they’ve been sitting in class learning nothing all year.
The solution may not be hiring mental health counselors in the main office or racism monitors in every building. The solution may be removing the three who need special attention so the 27 can thrive. No amount of teacher salary raises will solve that problem.
Joe Doakes

All very true – if the goal is to actually educate children.
And for many, probably most, teachers that is the goal. But for the administrative class, and a public employee unions that really control the whole situation, it’s really about power and transfer of wealth. If any children actually get educated, chalk it up to collateral benefits achieved by pure happenstance.
My stepson attends a suburban middle school. He’s one of the 27. Last year he reported weekly acts of violence committed by students allowed to roam the halls at will. Last week a student threatened to bring a gun to school and shoot it up. Police were called and the kids sheltered in place. Not for the first time. Parents got an email after the fact. Due to privacy concerns we don’t know anything about the outcome. Last year a student tricked the principal into saying n****r on camera and you would have thought she had kidnapped and sodomized the punk. Big school meeting. Principal publically shamed, in tears. My kid never has to bring work home. He’s coasting through. I’m not sure he’ll be able to handle what I went through as a college student given he has no experience doing homework.
As long as Education Minnesota runs the DFL and the DFL runs the state, expect more of the same.
Look to Chicago to view the end game/
Greg, Chicago is not only the end game, SPPS is following CPS game plan almost exactly; it’s eerie.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/opinion/editorials/ct-cps-enrollment-decline-teachers-strike-vote-edit-20160929-story.html
It shows beyond all doubt that degenerate teachers and their blue collar, trade labor union have zero f*cks to give about the students.
The solution is obvious: set minimal curriculum standards at the state level, and put school administration under control of a board made up of parents of children who attend the school.
This is essentially what we had until WW2, but the rot started setting in just after the Civil War. That was when the Feds started to view children as its property, and saw the job of public schools as producing American citizens who would make good factory workers & soldiers.
Covid-19 is closing schools on the West coast – with some moving to a remote ‘on line’ model. It’ll be interesting to see what happens to the educational-industrial complex when/if the institutions and most of the staff become superfluous.