Oklahoma, my state, has a piss-poor track record on education, and I'm not talking just about the final reading scores. The state, probably as much or more than any other state in the union, has a history of just expecting that if there are school buildings and a mandate that children attend then all the rest will magically work itself out on a minimal budget. And even now that people are realizing just what damage that has done, the charge to fix it is led by a woman who thinks it will all be magically fixed if we close down small-town, low-income schools and divert funding instead to charter schools. (Charter schools are great, but not so great that you can close down the schools where they are actually needed.) She's rigged the newest school grading system to produce exactly this effect.

I saw the early gearing up of the unions once more, and I wouldn't be too surprised if they rally within the next one or two years. No teacher in this state likes strikes -- we're Oklahomans: unions aren't really our thing -- but so far that's been the only way to actually get our state government to wake up and do the right thing now and then. Unfortunately, that too is part of the culture of education here: they assume that if we aren't striking, then everything is A-Okay, no matter how much we tell them it's not.

So, while you may or may not have a point that teacher's unions can be a problem, I'm inclined to disagree in practice simply because from my experience the union has been the one organization my state can count on to set things right. While it is a machine for pulling money into the system, it's been a very necessary machine, and hardly one that just keeps growing like the heartless cancer of gears that the video envisions.

One fine point on all of this is that in my state joining a union is not mandatory. Most teachers here join voluntarily because it is the cheapest way to get the teachers' equivalent of malpractice insurance. I probably would have joined if I'd decided to continue being a teacher for another year.

HOWEVER, all that means, if you take me seriously, is that you shouldn't be against public unions, but rather for right-to-work. Killing the union isn't the answer.