Illinoisans have been snookered by educators

The following piece appeared in the Daily Southtown and also Students First. Click on the title above if needed.

Illinoisans have been snookered by educators

6/23/2006

By Jeff Grigoletti



Daily Southtown


This is a response to "Gambling to save education: snookered or hypocrisy?" by Bert Docter (Southtown, June 13).

I vote Illinois citizens were snookered, and not only by the recent lottery drama, but by the whole Illinois education establishment.

Failing to acknowledge that decades of massive educational funding has not increased general education standards or students' knowledge base, the Illinois Department of Education is as inept as it is monolithic. It should be scrapped in its entirety, and an independent investigator should investigate the collusion between teacher unions and the sycophant Democratic machine that keeps raising the cost of education with no discernable results. Can anyone say RICO?

How about this: Attach $10,000 to a pupil's over-stuffed backpack and let their parents decide which school is best. Let dedicated teachers and aggressive-learning schools fight for those dollars by being the best educators possible.

Given the choice between a corrupt bureaucracy with a proven track record of failure and accountable educators, driven by parents who actually have a choice in their children's education, snookery can be a thing of the past.

Jeff Grigoletti lives in Tinley Park.