Common Sense

A number of years ago I clipped an article “Too Many Rights Make a Wrong” written by Phillip K. Howard, an author and a lawyer and Author of “The Lost Art of Drawing the Line” and “The Death of Common Sense”. He writes “In his first day as a teacher, John Pager attended a meting with the principal of his school. He sat there, interested in hearing the principal lead a discussion of school goals. Then, right in the middle of the meeting, half of the teachers stood up and left. Even more surprising, no one seemed surprised. The principal kept on talking as if nothing had happened. It seemed so strange.
Later, Mr. Pager learned that under their union contract, teachers had the right to spend no more than 40 minutes a week on staff meeting. Once the allotted time was up, off the teachers went even though the discussion was far from concluded.”
Mr. Howard continues “A young principal, brimming with ideas on how to revitalize an elementary school in Boston’s South End, was cornered on her first day by a group of unionized teachers who warned her, don’t try to change the way we do things. We know the rules. We know our rights.”
In his book, “The World We Created at Hamilton High”, Gerald Grant describes the frustration of a teacher who catches a student cheating: “I saw the kid cheating. I saw him with his open book on his lap during a test. Administration wanted documentation. “How can you prove it?” “We’ve heard John’s side of the story, what’s yours?’ Somehow it felt like I was part of the crime.”
Psychologists tell us that children need more affection. But in America, hugging or a pat on the back is now considered so dangerous that the National Education Association urges teachers to do no more than briefly touched a child’s arm or shoulder. Michigan passed a law that forbade teachers to touch a child for any reason..
A huge glob of mucous was dripping down the window of a classroom at Walton High in the Bronx but when the teacher, Nancy Udell, called in a custodian, he explained that the union contract requires window cleaning only on a set schedule. “Actually cleaning the window was furtherest from his mind. What interested him was how I could be so naive as to ask him to do it.”

We have reached a point of nonjudgmental at odds with common sense and a point of group-entitlement that that leaves us in a sea of confusion of what we make as the right judgmental call at the time will be considered wrong by the politically correct left wing of many of our militant union members and leaders. Much of this confusion can be blamed on militant unions who are more interested in the individual rights of the person they represent than the rights of the organization these individuals are supposed to be representing.

My opponent in Tuesday’s election is described as a militant teacher’s union bargaining agent. She has shown her ability to prefabricate when she mails out a flyer showing paint, oil, poisons and organic material being dumped in what she insinuates to be the environmentally controlled Peoria Disposal Solid Waste disposal area. She says she would have voted “no” on the PDC Application without every hearing or reading a paragraph of 2200 pages of testimony. She said she made her decision based on “Letters to the Editor:.” She would have disobeyed the law she swore to uphold by reaching a guilty decision before the jury (County Board) heard any of the evidence, testimony and cross-examination as the County Board was instructed to do by the Peoria County States Attorney.

For those of you who are buying into the “garbage” she is distributing in this election may want to be careful of what you asking for. You might just get it.
Her mailers attack me with prefabrications without mentioning her background as a teaching, volleyball coaching and union employee. Not the right combination to keep the County Board on the right track where my leadership experience has moved the county in the right direction to attain our fiscally responsible goals with increased service to the community.

I ask you to contact your acquaintances and friends who live in my district to support me on Tues.

Thank You