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July 2, 2009
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Abe Novick: Up, up, and aliya
July 1, 2009
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by Marialisa Calta: Get into the holiday spirit with these Star-Spangled desserts
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Caroline B. Glick: Ideologue-in-Chief
June 29, 2009
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by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Beware of 'Caveat Emptor'
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June 26, 2009
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Caroline B. Glick: Barack Obama vs. International Law
June 25, 2009
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Jordan "Gorf" Gorfinkle's strip:
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June 24, 2009
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The Kosher Gourmet by Andrea Weigl: Summer on a stick: Making frozen treats can be easy, creative and fun
June 23, 2009
Martin M. Bodek: 'On Surnames': And so, We Begin
Caroline B. Glick: The Obama Effect
June 22, 2009
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Working for a corrupt firm
N. Richard Greenfield : Where are American Jews?
June 19, 2009
Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: Emotion v. intellect
Caroline B. Glick: Israel's rare opportunity
June 18, 2009
Jonathan Rosenblum: Sometimes it is more essential to define the nature of evil than good
Jordan "Gorf" Gorfinkle's strip:
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June 17, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The Language of Confusion
The Kosher Gourmet by Linda Gassenheimer: Nothing pleases Dad more than a thick, juicy onion-smothered steak. Add home-Baked Potato Chips and …
June 16, 2009
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Career v. Careersism
Caroline B. Glick: Obama's losing streak and Israel
Richard Z. Chesnoff: Palestinians: Never Missing an Opportunity …
June 15, 2009
Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu: How Judea and Samaria can become 'Palestine'
Daniel Pipes: Where Netanyahu's speech failed
June 12, 2009
Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: Some big thoughts about not acting so big
Caroline B. Glick:
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June 11, 2009
Victor Davis Hanson: Our historically challenged President
Mitch Albom: Beware the True Believers
Lewis Grossberger: What we learn from the new Hitler photos
June 10, 2009
Mort Zuckerman: What Obama and his advisors won't -- or refuse to -- grasp about Israel and the Muslim world
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by Steve Petusevsky Lotsa pasta: Tips, techniques and (amazing) taste
June 9, 2009
Anne Bayefsky: Obama's stunning offense to Israel and the Jewish people
Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: America's first Muslim president?
June 8, 2009
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Merchant must take responsibility for careless shopper?
Mark Steyn: A superpower that feeds on mediocrity cannot survive for long on leftovers from the past
Richard Z. Chesnoff: How do you say 'kumbaya' in Arabic?
June 5, 2009
Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: In quest of spirituality
Caroline B. Glick: Obama's Arabian dreams
Charles Krauthammer: The Settlements Myth
June 4, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The War Comes to Little Rock
The Kosher Gourmet
by Judy Hevrdejs: Splash it on! Tap your inner jazz musician and improvise when stirring up a vinaigrette
June 3, 2009
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Q. Should terrible teacher be exposed?
Jonathan Rosenblum: The Israel Lobby: Missing in Action
June 2, 2009
Dennis Prager: The Speech President Obama Won't Dare Give in Egypt
Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: Pressure on Israel raises war risk
Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)
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Jewish World Review
March 8, 2006
/ 8 Adar, 5766
I'm sorry that union teachers are mad at me
By
John Stossel
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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
Teachers unions are mad at me. The New York State United Teachers demands I apologize for my "gutter level" journalism, "an irresponsible assault on public school students and teachers." This is because I hosted an ABC News TV special titled "Stupid in America," which pointed out:
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American fourth graders do well on international tests, but by high school, Americans have fallen behind kids in most other countries.
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The constant refrain that "public schools need more money" is nonsense. Many countries that spend significantly less on education do better than we do. School spending in America (adjusted for inflation) has more than tripled over the past 30 years, but national test scores are flat. The average per-pupil cost today is an astonishing $10,000 per student — $200,000 per classroom! Think about how many teachers you could hire, and how much better you could do with that amount of money.
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Most American parents give their kids' schools an A or B grade, but that's only because, without market competition, they don't know what they might have had. The educators who conduct the international tests say that most of the countries that do best are those that give school managers autonomy, and give parents and students the right to choose their schools. Competition forces private and public schools to improve.
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There is little K-12 education competition in America because public schools are a government monopoly. Monopolies rarely innovate, and union-dominated monopolies, burdened with contracts filled with a hundred pages of suffocating rules, are worse. The head of New York City's schools told me that the union's rules "reward mediocrity."
All that angered the unions. But when they criticize my "bias and ignorance," I don't hear them refute the points listed above. They don't refute them because they can't. It's just a fact that rules that insist an energetic, hard-working teacher who makes learning fun must be paid exactly the same as a lazy, incompetent teacher are rules that promote mediocrity.
Ironically, before I did "Stupid in America," the New York teachers union wanted to give me an award. The United Federation of Teachers' Social Studies Conference wrote: "Our organization, ATSS/UFT, would be proud to present you with the Hubert H. Humphrey Humanitarian Award for the outstanding work which you have done for social causes. ... Your development and generous sponsorship of In the Classroom Media provide students with the opportunity to enhance their civics education. This is the highest award that we can give to an individual. Past honorees have included Mario Cuomo, Shirley Chisholm, Charles Schumer, Dolores Huerta, Major Owens, Charles Rangel ... "
Wow! Chuck Schumer, Charlie Rangel and me! Alas, after my education special aired, they decided not to give me the award. Apparently my work with In the Classroom Media — which provides teachers with videos about the free market — only helps kids as long as I stay away from the "social cause" most relevant to them: their education.
Instead, teachers' unions announced that Wednesday (3/8), they will hold demonstrations against me and ABC in New York City, Chicago, Atlanta, Detroit, and elsewhere. One police permit suggests the crowd outside my office will number 750-1,000 people. It should be interesting.
"We want to make sure that ABC hears the voices of incredibly hard-working teachers," says the union website, quoting New York City's UFT President Randi Weingarten. "The network needs to hear how unfair and biased those of you in the trenches believe their broadcast to have been."
I'm sorry that union teachers are mad at me. But when it comes to the union-dominated monopoly, the facts are inescapable. Many kids are miserable in bad schools. If they are not rich enough to move, or to pay for private school, they are trapped.
It doesn't have to be that way. We know what works: choice. That's what's brought Americans better computers, phones, movies, music, supermarkets — most everything we have. Schoolchildren deserve the joyous benefits of market competition too.
Unions say, "education of the children is too important to be left to the vagaries of the market." The opposite is true. Education is too important to be left to the calcified union/government monopoly.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
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Give Me a Break
Stossel explains how ambitious bureaucrats, intellectually lazy reporters, and greedy lawyers make your life worse even as they claim to protect your interests. Taking on such sacred cows as the FDA, the War on Drugs, and scaremongering environmental activists -- and backing up his trademark irreverence with careful reasoning and research -- he shows how the problems that government tries and fails to fix can be solved better by the extraordinary power of the free market. Sales help fund JWR.
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JWR contributor John Stossel is co-anchor of ABC News' "20/20." To comment, please click here.
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