Who will pay us more

Virginia just had an historic election and I am still mulling over the experience.  I have written about this campaign season before and I will continue to relate stories from my time on the porches or on the telephone with my fellow citizens. 

I knocked on a door the other day in a pleasant community of single-family detached homes.  A nice looking young lady answered the door.  She was probably 28 and she was struggling to hold back a puppy.  I was walking for our Republican candidate for the State Senate.  I went into a short pitch and ended with “ . . . can we count on your support?”  She frowned a bit and responded “My husband and I are both teachers and we have to vote for . . . . . “ I filled in the name of the democrat opponent for her.  “Yeah, we have to vote for the person who will pay us more” she said.    

I was floored.  This should put to rest the ridiculous claim that “It’s all about the children” from the union thugs that control our public school system.  Of course the odd thing is that Republicans have repeatedly floated plans to reverse the tide of straphangers and excess bureaucrats that school systems have hired exploding school budgets.  The Republican candidate that she probably voted against had floated a plan to make sure that 65% of the school budget would be spent in the classroom which would directly benefit teachers.  Right now our school system operates a huge fleet of vehicles and they have the fanciest building in the county to house bureaucrats – no student ever need enter that building.  We have 81,000 students and 10,000 school employees a ratio of 8.1:1.  Of those 10,000 employees roughly 5,700 are teachers or teaching assistants – or slightly more than half of the employees are actually teaching. 

She and her husband probably voted to maintain a lopsided system that focuses on everything but teachers and students.  Very sad.  The union will steer our teachers wrong every single time.