To My Grandchildren

Dear Logan, Blake, Tori, Scot, Addison and Sam,

I want you to know when you are facing the problems of runaway government spending, hyper-inflation, a dollar not worth the paper it is printed on, and record high unemployment that I am sorry. I tried to get people motivated to fix our education system so that you could be well prepared for the rising global meritocracy I saw coming. However, I was ineffective in rallying support for you and your peers. The educators and all of their support entities were just too strong in their resolve to prevent any change in the education process that might force them to really teach you what you needed to know to compete and have a decent life.

The teachers unions were particularly effective in “buying” votes of politicians by spending heavily on their campaigns for office. With their national presence they were able to throw large sums of money into specific political races where they saw a threat to the continuation of their “we are overworked and underpaid” scam on the American public. And the Administrators were more than happy to let the unions do the heavy lifting to protect all educators’ place at the government trough.

I am sorry that I was unable to discredit the false propaganda from the educartel that gave the impression that our K-12 education system was performing well. I tried to point out the abysmal failure of our education system and the fallacy of educator beliefs taught to them like a theology, catechism style. I tried to educate people on the huge gap between what your competitors in other countries were learning and what American kids were being taught. However, the educators insistence that civility be observed at all times effectively suppressed the truth of their poor performance in preparing you for the stiff competition represented by your international peers who consistently were getting better educations.

I tried to rally your parents to get more involved but it was easier for them to be too busy, involved in work and play to take the time to help sound the alarm. I learned too late that talking rationally to the educators was doomed to failure. They had practiced for decades ways to delay any needed change. They just didn’t care about you and other kids especially if any harder work or better performance or more subject knowledge were required of them. They talked a good line but that was as far as it went. Tragically that was enough to convince most of the public that while that other city or state’s schools might be in trouble, their local ones were doing fine.

The educators were especially effective in their ability to sidetrack any board of education scrutiny by keeping their meeting agenda so full of administrivia that they were too busy to look at the truth of performance and do anything to correct it.

I realized too late that it would take marshalling enough political power to force educators to change because they were not motivated by your need for better schooling if any pain were required on their parts. Please learn from my experience as you work so hard to pull yourself and the country out of the hole your parents and grandparents allowed to be created.