This week we saw another illustration of the hidden costs of public education. As the young people of America have absorbed the liberal doses of socialist propaganda disguised as education dispensed by union controlled drones, they have been robbed of the fundamental skills required to understand basic economics.

The March 4 Day of Action to Defend Public Education saw hundreds of students, parents and faculty coming together to protest increasing tuition and budgetary cutbacks. From Berkeley to Milwaukee to Austin and points in between, the protestors were on the march.

The Associated Press reports that Berkeley protestors closed the interstate near downtown Oakland while 15 people were arrested when they tried to enter the administrative building of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Protests also broke out at UC-Santa Cruz where the administration warned students and employees to avoid the campus due to "safety concerns."

The protestors included students who have been taught to believe that we should pay for their "right" to a college education and educators who believe that no matter how difficult life becomes for the taxpayers they should continue to lead their privileged and protected (tenured) lifestyle. The protests have featured violence, destruction of property and arrests.

Isn't it ironic that the much maligned tea party protests have been so very peaceful? Isn't it ironic that the tea partiers are protesting the crushing tax and deficit burdens that will destroy the future of the students who are protesting for increased government spending?

In the private sector there have been massive job loses, reductions in services, compensation and benefits. Unemployment remains at 9.7% (if anyone really believes that figure), underemployment hovers around 16% and all of us in the private sector have had to make do with less. The much abused private sector is where real job creation takes place, the jobs that employ decent hard working Americans who then pay taxes to support the burdensome public sector.

Our friends in academia and those whom they mislead with their tenure protected social theories cannot survive without a vibrant private sector hard at work producing the wealth from which they derive their sustenance. As the stimulus money dries up and the temporary benefits to public education disappear, perhaps the "educators" should ask themselves where the stimulus money came from and what may have been if stimulus come in the form of permanent tax cuts which would have created actual jobs and real economic growth.

Here's a thought for those who teach history, economics and political science; study Ronald Reagan, learn Ronald Reagan, teach Ronald Reagan.


Phil Boehmke