If teaching is such a sweet deal, why isn't everyone doing it?

Tom Breuer:

There's a certain childlike innocence that goes along with the popular modern sport of teacher bashing. I say this because most people get over the idea that teachers are ultra-powerful beings who live unattainable lives of luxury at around the age of 7, when they realize that rumpled, coffee-stained JC Penney office apparel is not haute couture. Many critics of teachers, however, manage to hang on to this silly notion way past the time when their skulls have fully hardened.
Call me a fuzzy-headed liberal, but I just don't see the point in bashing people who help train our future workforce.

Of course, the tired old canard that teachers are remorseless, mustache-twisting budget-drainers has been resurrected in the past few months - first when the governor's budget repair bill touched off mass protests among public employees, and most recently when the Wisconsin Supreme Court removed the final barrier to the bill's enactment.

Some have reacted to teachers' and other public employees' reluctance to lie down and simply accept significant cuts in compensation and the stripping of their collective bargaining rights with everything from derision to rancor.

For example, some local wags took to calling Walkerville - the protest village near the Capitol that was inhabited by disgruntled public employees and their supporters - "Entitledtown."

Posted by Jim Zellmer at June 24, 2011 1:27 AM
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