The Teacher's Union Bailout Bill

This thing must be pretty bad if even the Washington Post is opining against it:

TO GOVERN is to choose, and nothing lays bare a government's true priorities like the choices it makes about spending taxpayers' money. In that regard, theSenate's decision to spend $10 billion on education jobs this week is revealing -- and deeply discouraging.

The crusade for an education jobs bill, led by the Obama administration and Democratic leaders in Congress, has always struck us as more of an election-year favor for teachers unions than an optimal use of public resources. Billed as an effort to stimulate the economy, it's not clearly more effective than alternative uses of the cash. Yes, school budgets are tight across the country, but the teacher layoff "crisis" is exaggerated. In fact, as happens each year, many teachers who got pink slips in the spring have been notified that they'll be hired after all. Many layoffs could have been -- and indeed have been -- avoided by modest union concessions.
As of last school year, the money for 5.5 percent of the 6 million K-12 jobs nationwide came from Washington through the 2009 stimulus; the new money reinforces this dangerous dependency.
Nor does the legislation target areas with the most projected teacher layoffs; Maryland, for example, is slated to get $179 million, yet officials have no estimate of layoffs for the school year that begins in a few weeks. The Baltimore Sun noted in May that "most of [the state's] school systems are not planning to lay off teachers," and that several were hiring new ones. No matter: The bill allows school systems to use the money to expand their teaching staffs or even to raise teacher salaries.

When I was in Washington five years ago I remember seeing the Department of Education building, a huge edifice that must have housed thousands of "workers", and I wondered at the time what those people do all day? Education should not be run from Washington and certainly education unions should not be bailed out by Washington. I'll vote for the first candidate from either party who says when he or she takes office they'll immediately close the Department of Education.