Ohio governor and Republican presidential candidate John Kasich spoke at an education summit in New Hampshire this morning where he expressed his desire to ban spaces where teachers congregate and speak to each other.
"I’ll tell you what the unions do, unfortunately too much of the time. There’s a constant negative comment, ‘They’re going to take your benefits, they’re going to take your pay,'" Kasich said. "So if I were, not president, but if I were king in America, I would abolish all teachers' lounges, where they sit together and worry about, 'Woe is us.'"
Yeah. Damn those teachers' lounges. If we get rid of those, everything else will sort itself out.
As someone with close relationships with current and former teachers, I can tell you it's not their benefits or pay they worry about it. They're worried about their entire school system having their budget cut, forcing them to stretch minuscule amounts of funding for classroom supplies and materials over an entire school year. They're worried about their students losing access to food and medication and having no safe space to go home to.
Teachers are worried about poverty. They're worried about school administrators on power trips and conservative school boards and legislators who want to teach the controversy and micromanage their curriculum.
If you're a teacher in Kansas under the supervision of Governor Sam Brownback, you may be worried about your school system even remaining open for the entire year.
I can only imagine the conservative media reaction if President Obama openly fantasized about becoming the King of America.