That is the only reply the American Left has when the topic of why American schools are failing not only to educate the students properly, but society in turning out a substandard product.
Other than the nose-high world of “Art”, I know of no other industry where you can produce a horrible product, ask for more cash, and actually get it (other than just about every other government agency, of course).
It is the same here in Washington as it is everywhere else. Give students who are functionally illiterate a diploma and kick them out into a world they can’t function in = more money for schools.
And not just money, but special benefits for teachers who are untested as to skill, unproven in ability and products of their own educational system.
Take the Teacher Home Loan Program in Seattle. If you are a teacher at any of the Seattle Public Schools, you automatically qualify for assitance to buy a home within the outrageously expensive district (median home price: $400K).
How odd that, in a market that is artificially inflated, and if you ask me, nowhere near worth the cost, the reason the program, has only helped a grand total of five teachers in nine months buy homes in the district isn’t because they don’t make enough, but because they make too much.
Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels announced last November a new loan program to help public-school teachers buy a home.
Nickels said the program would “bring homeownership within reach for many teachers,” and his office sent out a press release proclaiming it would help as many as 70 teachers in the first year.
Nine months later, only five teachers have received loans.
Why? Many teachers make too much money to qualify for the loans, and those who qualify can’t find many houses or condos in Seattle they want and can afford. The low number of loans seems to show just how hard it is for young professionals, particularly singles, to become homeowners in Seattle’s hot housing market.
“I don’t know anybody my age that owns a home in Seattle unless they have a spouse that made it possible,” said Kim Christiansen, 32, a science teacher at Ingraham High School in North Seattle, who recently used the city loan program to buy a $199,500 West Seattle condo.
Yes, you read that correctly, $200,000 to own AN APARTMENT in hipster-ville.
So much for the “Overworked and Underpaid” spiel that the NEA and the WEA are always lying to us about.Â
By the way, for those not familiar with Seattle’s geography, her new West Seattle home is not only at nearly the opposite end of town from where she teaches, before she can even enter downtown Seattle, she has to cross a bridge famous for its horrific traffic snarls just to get to downtown. After that, she can either hop onto the crumbling viaduct, which is again, usually jammed up, or take the surface streets through downtown to try and bypass the viaduct, or just say screw it and get onto the stretch of I-5 that goes through downtown which, more often than not, is moving at less than 30mph (if not stopped completely) from 5am to 8pm.