Last week I wrote an article on the job situation in Texas. New statistics show our state far ahead of others when it comes to expanding employment opportunities. One of the categories showing growth in the Dallas, Ft Worth metroplex, was health and education, and not so much general education, but specifically private education. Well, Texas school teachers are holding protests in the capital in Austin demanding the legislators reverse planned cuts to the school system in Texas.

As a teacher myself I never like to see other teachers out of work. I do agree that the public school system has a history of making cuts on the wrong end. It’s never the assistant administrators, (or rather assistants to the administrator), who end up getting laid off. Too often the public system becomes so top heavy because the existing bureaucracy protects its own. But beyond that, there are a number of reasons for me to support these cuts. First off, the teacher’s union; as a successful (albeit private school) teacher I’m just not willing to tie my employment to teachers who are unable to make the cut. I know that sounds callused. I’m not some kind of hardnosed control freak, but I’m just not willing to put my own career at risk for those who would otherwise be weeded out to make room for a good teacher. Look, I know some terrific teachers in the public system. Some of them have jobs endangered by the cuts. But these are teachers who should be able to rise through the system on their own merits, without the need for joint bargaining.

Another reason to support the cuts is that there simply is not enough money! We can’t afford it! Some of these protestors are insisting that the state break into its “rainy day fund” in order to support their government funded lifestyle. This is the same approach that has put other states on the path to insolvency! How can these teachers insist that the state bring itself (and its citizens mind you) to financial ruin, for their sakes! Ironically we saw examples last week of schools that are not only growing, and being successful, but also hiring new faculty. Where are these schools, and what is the key to their success? They’re all over the state, and they’re succeeding in the private market by virtue of their merits! But the teachers union insists that we as a state continue to prop up a generally failing product, when success is on full display at the church school just up the street.

The protests scheduled for today are intended to frighten lawmakers with the prospect of losing their jobs in the coming election. What the protesters and the legislature need to understand is that, while there may be a fair number of people in the capitol today, there’s a much larger electorate in the state overall who supported this agenda, and refuses to be taken to the financial cleaners because the teachers union wants to retain its inflated powers of negotiation. As a state we just can’t afford to continue dumping funds into a failed system. It’s a road that will lead us to the same end as states like California. The Texas voters spoke in favor of financial responsibility, and the NEA can kick, scream, carry signs, stage naked protests, and cram people into the capitol building like college students into a VW bug, but at the end of the day we won’t be blackmailed into watching our state sucked down the financial drain for them.