Quote of the Day: In an interview with Karen Lewis, President of the Chicago Teachers' Union:
CF: In the just-published Steve Jobs biography, Walter Isaacson writes that Jobs met with President Obama and told him that the American education system was “crippled by union work rules. Until the teachers’ unions were broken, there was almost no hope for education reform.” Jobs also told Obama that principals should be allowed to hire and fire teachers based on merit.
KL: I know. Most business people feel that way.… Unions are pesky. And god forbid there be some democracy. The problem is that public education is the last of… any part of democracy in this country because rich people have bought everything. They bought access to the politicians, … to government, on a level that’s unprecedented…. When people talk about merit, what are they talking about? They’re talking about whether I like you or not; whether you are my friend…. Principals have the ability to hire, and they utilize [it] as a way of controlling people. They’ll say, “If you’re not happy here, you could always go here.” The fact is that unions are demonized because the people that really run this country would like nothing more than to have complete and total control over everything.
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