Letters to John Leopold

Dear Mr. Robey,
Please see that Mr. Leopold gets the following message:
Thanks.

Dear Mr. Leopold,
The following is a rough idea of what my 10-year-old daughter along with most of the 4th-Graders from Oak Hill Elementary School wrote to you recently at the request of her teacher.

"If there were less teachers there would be bigger classes and it would be harder to learn..."

After counting to 10, I calmly asked her how she knew that it would be harder to teach. She said her teacher told her. I wondered how much time the teacher spent indoctrinating her pupils in the politics of the teachers union. I then lectured my daughter on the difference between a scientific fact and the driving force behind a union.

I told her that it is was not a scientific fact that smaller classes lead to more learning. However, I said, it is indeed a scientific fact that if you divide a single class into two you will have created a new teaching position. And what does this mean? I asked her. "More money for the teachers?" No, I said. The teachers will make the same union scale whether there are one or one thousand of them. It will mean more money for the Union. So you see dear, I continued, It doesn't really matter what the kids learn. What matters is how many dues-paying teachers there are in the union.

Now, I find it disturbing that the teachers union, once again, is using the children to gain a political advantage for itself. I wouldn't mind so much if they were truly interested in the children's education. But as I explained to my 10 year-old, and as I have explained to many an adult, this is simply not the case, and anyone who believes it is is either an officer of the Union or has been so deluded by union propaganda as to be incapable of thinking for themselves anymore.

So please ignore these letters you are receiving from elementary school children such as my daughter. And please strenuously object to the teachers spending time on the taxpayers' dime, to spread union propaganda to our impressionable kids.

Thank you.

Mike Netherland
Severna Park