Teachers teach

While I agree in principle with protests,( how can I not, being a child of the 60's) I can honestly say that to protest when your career is on the line is not only stupid but reckless.

I have been following the protests in Madison, and find that while I am a state resident, I do not support the unions in this. There are a number of levels that this issue bothers me on.
1 Who is teaching out children? Political activists or professional teachers? I find that taking time off of your job to protest is not what You are hired for? Teaching is, and with our general test scores being in the bottom I really think that you are failing on both issues. You are not political activists, you are now acting like union flunkies. Did you not learn to reason and think through issues while in college, or were you trained to follow the lemmings to the sea and not think independently?
2 Who are you protesting for? Are you protesting for yourselves, or for your union bosses? Do you honestly believe that making 53,000+ a year is mediocre? I beg to differ with you, barely getting by hard, not having insurance is hard, denying your child something they need is hard. I have never had a job that gave me insurance and retirement benifits, I owned my own busisness, and due to the economy, I lost my insurance,then my retirement,then my childs college fund. So I really can't understand why you are whining!
3 By allowing your bullying tactics to be effective, you are allowing the union to thumb it's nose at the election results, the DUELLY elected officials, of the state want to close the largest budget shortfallin Wisconsin history, having to choose between laying off teachers, aides, and adjunct personell or making you do what is done by thousands of people who work in the real world.
4 Pay your fair share, not expect others to pay our way. That is socialism and it's been proven to be a social killer.
5 Honestly are you that selfish and shortsighted that you would be willling to see your fellow teachers let go rather than pay what is not the worst options available? Would you allow the bullies in your schools to shut down the school because they can?