Contrasting an America that can versus an America that can’t, Gingrich compared America’s speed and might in winning WWII versus her current inability to seal its own border. In a lighter moment, the former Speaker contrasted the efficiency of package tracking by Federal Express with the government’s inability to track illegal immigrants, suggesting sending each one a package may be the best way to apprehend the latter.

He also mentioned repealing Obamacare, Dodd Frank, and Sarbanes Oxley on his first day in office. He stated his desire to be a “paycheck president” versus a “food stamp president,” a term he used to denigrate Barack Obama.

Calling for a Fall campaign focused on substance, Gingrich also mentioned eliminating the Capital Gains tax and implementing 100% expensing for all new equipment written off in one year to help get the economy growing. Additionally, he called for a modernization of the workforce, proposing that unemployment compensation be linked to business training programs to avoid paying people for 99 weeks “for doing nothing.”

The solutions were bold but would obviously involve more than giving one speech. He called for the elimination of the EPA, replacing it with a new agency that would take economics and business interests into account in all decision-making. On tax policy, Gingrich called for a 12.5% corporate tax rate, abolishing the death tax, and the option of a 15% flat tax for individuals he called a tax cut.

Citing the need to shrink spending to meet revenue levels and the replacement of the current Civil Service system with a new modern personnel management system, his remarks appeared to be well received. Gingrich also cited abolishing the Dept of Energy (DOE) and a task forced to be headed by Texas Governor Rick Perry focused on the 10th amendment to return power to the states, as appropriate.

Gingrich also called for an audit of the Federal Reserve and an end to Ben Bernanke’s term as Chair of the Federal Reserve. The former Speaker also called for a more honest foreign policy, one acknowledging the dangers of radical Islamists intent on doing America and Americans harm.

Debbie Squires, associate director of the Michigan Elementary and Middle School Principals Association, explained to members of the House Education Committee why her association opposed allowing more cyber (or online) schools to operate in the state.

“Educators go through education for a reason,” Squires said. “They are the people who know best about how to serve children. That’s not necessarily true of an individual resident. I’m not saying they don’t want the best for their children, but they may not know what actually is best from an education standpoint.”

Committee chairman Tom McMillin, a Republican, seemed taken aback by Squires’ comments.

“Wow … Parents don’t know what’s best for their child?” McMillin asked.

“I said they may want what’s best for their child (but) they may not know,” Squires replied.

Squires’ comments are noteworthy because they give parents and citizens a window into the minds of the nation’s self-proclaimed education experts. Despite their talk of “collaborating” with parents to reform public education, the establishment honestly believes that parents are too ignorant and ill-informed to choose the best learning option for their child.

Not only that, but they believe charter schools and cyber schools are consuming tax dollars that rightfully belong to the government-run public schools. They argue that the only thing preventing traditional public schools from producing amazing student results is a lack of money.

They claim to “know best about how to serve children.”

The facts suggest otherwise.

According to the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Services, per pupil spending increased by 82.5 percent – in constant dollars – from the 1980-81 school year to the 2008-09 school year.

What did taxpayers get in return for their increased investment? From 1980 to 2010, Scholastic Aptitude Tests (SAT) scores in critical reading dropped one point (from 502 to 501), while the average math SAT score increased a meager 24 points (492 to 516). (A score of 500 is considered to be average.)

The experts have had 30 years and untold billions of dollars to turn things around, and they haven’t.

It’s difficult to see how parents could do any worse.

South Carolina is no different. During the current legislative session, state lawmakers are expected to consider a number of education reforms, including the possibility of increasing the number of charter schools in the state, linking teacher pay to student learning, and giving principals the power to fire ineffective teachers.

What distinguishes the Palmetto State’s K-12 reform debate from all the others is that it’s being led by an outspoken, retired Army brigadier general and former college president who is eager to take on the “liberal education establishment.”

State Superintendent of Education Mick Zais, a Republican, won election in 2010 by a huge margin of 108,000 votes. He has been in office for just over a year, but he has rankled lawmakers of both political parties by refusing to accept federal education dollars from President Obama’s Race to the Top initiative that gives states money in exchange for approved school reforms.

While other states are eager for the federal assistance, Zais argues that the one-time handouts come with strings attached and quickly turn into unfunded mandates, ultimately driving up education costs and stripping local communities of control over their schools.

“We don’t have a shortage of dollars in South Carolina’s schools, we have a shortage of accountability, competition and incentives,” Zais told EAG.

South Carolina spends $11,700 per student, slightly above the national average.

“If South Carolina had accepted its slice of the Race to the Top pie, it would equal $2.22 per student per year, for four years,” Zais said. “The idea that $2.22 would make a big difference is just nonsense. That’s not even a rounding error.”

Such views have drawn the ire of the “education industrial complex,” Zais’ term for those who place the interests of adult school employees ahead of the needs of students, and who claim failing public schools can be fixed with a checkbook.

“Traditional proposals for improving education – more money, better facilities, improved curriculum and smaller classes – will not work. We’ve tried that. We’ve tried that for 40 years,” Zais recently told an audience, according to the IndependentMail.com.

Zais told EAG that while the nation’s teachers unions – the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers – comprise the heart of the “education industrial complex,” they are enabled by weak-willed Republicans.

“The education industrial complex is bipartisan,” Zais said. “We have RINOs – Republicans in Name Only – who are intimidated by the lobbying groups that get the public and the teachers all excited that we’re trying to destroy public education. In reality, we want to make it better and more accountable.”

To achieve those ends, he believes local schools must be given more authority and responsibility.

“There’s too much control coming out of Washington and Columbia,” Zais said.

‘Our traditional schools have a monopoly’

The quality of South Carolina’s public schools spans the spectrum, from one of the nation’s best – Academic Magnet High School in North Charleston – to some of the worst.

According to Zais, a lack of competition and accountability has made too many traditional, government-run schools complacent and ineffective. And the students are the ones to suffer.

“Our traditional schools have a monopoly,” Zais said. “And monopolies have little incentive for improving or controlling costs. Accountability, competition and incentives have the power to transform the system.”

Zais’ education reform proposals are designed to break that monopoly.

Central to his agenda is allowing public universities to authorize charter schools, a practice that occurs in 12 states. The measure passed the state House of Representatives last year, but is still awaiting action in the state Senate.

Currently, the power to sponsor a charter school rests primarily with South Carolina’s local school districts, most of which don’t want to lose students or the funding that comes with them. This aversion to competition explains why only 34 district-sponsored charters exist in the state. Only one percent of South Carolina students attend the alternative public schools, according to the Center of Public Education.

Zais also favors linking compensation for teachers and principals to students’ academic growth, rather than basing pay on an employees’ level of college education or years of service. Bonuses would be given to educators who teach “hard to staff” subjects such as math and science, or work in schools that have difficulty attracting top talent.

He advocates giving superintendents the power to hire and fire principals, and giving principals the power to hire and fire teachers.

“If we’re going to hold principals accountable, we must give them flexibility in how they do their job,” he said.

“I like to use the example of a football coach. He has got to be able to hire his assistant coaches. You can’t hold the coach accountable if the athletic director is hiring assistant coaches and recruiting the players.”

Other elements of Zais’ education reform plan include the Teacher Protection Act, which shields school employees from frivolous lawsuits stemming from student discipline issues.

He also wants to remove “onerous hiring obstacles” that keep highly qualified professionals – such as nurses, engineers and doctors – out of the classroom, simply because they don’t have the conventional teacher credentials.

“We’re closing the door to a lot of highly qualified people,” he said.

A closer look at the ‘education industrial complex’

While state superintendents such as Zais have the power to advocate for education reforms, the decision-making power rests with the state legislators. South Carolina is a politically conservative state, but that doesn’t mean Zais’ reforms will be warmly embraced.

His strongest opposition will likely come from local school officials, who wield a surprising amount of political power in the state.

South Carolina is a “right-to-work” state, which means teachers are not required to join their local union. That renders the South Carolina Education Association and the Palmetto State Teachers Association politically weak.

However, the state’s superintendents all belong to the South Carolina Association of School Administrators, and every school board member belongs to the South Carolina School Boards Association. The SCASA and the SCSBA fill the left-wing power vacuum created by the anemic teacher unions.

Neil Mellen, communications director at South Carolinians for Responsible Government, said these associations provide a variety of services to schools, such as consulting, professional development, and insurance.

“The state department of education is required by both state and federal law to do a certain amount of training and SCSBA/SCASA … are the only ones who can (or will) bid to complete the training within the terms of the law,” Mellen said.

Given the groups’ unique role in South Carolina’s education system, school districts pay for their school board officials and superintendents to become members of these organizations.

As a result, the two associations have multi-million dollar budgets, which allow them to hire a number of lawyers and lobbyists to represent their interests.

The local public school is typically the largest employer in a county, and the schools’ quality helps determine property values, Mellen said. So when district officials say a proposed reform will cost jobs or diminish the quality of the schools, voters pay attention.

“School board members and superintendents have a huge amount of political influence,” Mellen said. “These organizations are complex, well-funded, efficient political machines that can stop state reforms.”

And that’s exactly what they’re trying to do. They’ve attacked Zais’ agenda by opposing any expansion of charter schools and supporting legislation that would force him to accept federal education funds.

“Zais has a lot of institutional and systemic resistance, but he is popular with the people,” Mellen said. “But for the first time, the state superintendent office doesn’t serve as the de facto headquarters of the SCSBA or the SCASA.”

On Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, Cass Elementary School in Livonia, Michigan aired a video of still images of Obama, with a speech by King and – strangely – a Bob Marley song playing in the background.

The students looked about as interested as if they were watching paint dry.

It’s unclear how long the song actually was, as the citizen journalist video is 1:20 long and the song was clearly longer.

But why do these examples keep popping up?  Why is he routinely portrayed in a mythical context?  While it’s important to honor our president, these examples border on propaganda fit for a dictator.

It’s obvious the teachers unions love Obama.  Many of their members do, too.  After all, both national unions – the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers – have both already endorsed him for re-election.  They didn’t even bother to wait to see who his eventual opponent will be.

But the indoctrination campaign for our dear leader is on, and thankfully parents or teachers or whoever they are – keep recording the incidents and posting them for all to see.  Perhaps eventually, the propagandists will be shamed into stopping.

If Midwestern voters see the benefits of free-market reforms at the state level, it’ll be bleak news for Barack Obama’s 2012 class warfare roadshow.

Early results for Walker and Kasich have been mixed, as they’ve both been demonized relentlessly by Big Labor. Wisconsin Democrats fled to protect their union financiers, but Walker and the Wisconsin GOP prevailed. How’s that working for taxpayers?

According to a report by the MacIver Institute, as of September 1, “at least 25 school districts in the Badger State had reported switching health care providers/plans or opening insurance bidding to outside companies.” The institute calculates that these steps will save the districts $211.45 per student. If the state’s other 250 districts currently served by WEA Trust follow suit, the savings statewide could reach hundreds of millions of dollars.

If Big Labor’s failure in Wisconsin Senate recall races is any sign, voters can do the math.

The Walker budget has caused what any sensible observer would expect: freed of suffocating union control, Wisconsin schools are saving money and avoiding layoffs.

In Ohio, Democrats dug in their heels, demanding higher taxes to fix the state’s estimated $8 billion budget deficit – which, to their dismay, Kasich balanced while phasing out Ohio’s death tax and raising no taxes. Several months and more than $30 million later, leftists killed a union reform bill whose effects voters never got a chance to see.

One result of Big Labor’s Ohio victory? Widespread public employee layoffs – hooray for blind obedience to union bosses!

With Democrats kicking and screaming (hardly a bill has passed in Ohio that Democrats haven’t brought a referendum or lawsuit against), Kasich and Walker seem intent on staying their respective courses set last year. Fortunately, union reform isn’t the only item on the agenda.

Aggressively courting job creators, both governors have trimmed senseless bureaucracy and focused on incentives for employers. Ohio and Wisconsin have started on the long road to recovery; from 2000-2010, Ohio ranked 50th and Wisconsin ranked 40th in private-sector job growth.

Governor Walker and Governor Kasich each spoke of the need to control public spending, streamline job training programs, and reform K-12 education in their 2012 State of the State addresses. Wherever they go – including official state speeches – both governors are smeared as corporate lackeys by useful idiots reading from Big Labor’s script.

It’s no coincidence Scott Walker and John Kasich are attacked by the collectivist agitators who compose President Obama’s base. Competition vs. collectivism is the battle of the hour. Thanks to governors in Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan who understand the centrality of competition to the American idea, millions of voters in America’s heartland will have tangible evidence to weigh against the federal dependency peddled by Barack Obama!

Some of his former students, however, describe their experience in his class a little bit differently.

“This man is a socialist and proud of it. Not someone I wanted to learn from and I feel that I was not taught the truth,” a former student wrote on the popular website RateMyTeachers.com. “I was only taught the propagandized version of the truth. This man is a danger to American society.”

Another student described him as “a wolf in sheep’s clothing,” and advises parents, “do not allow your kids to attend his class.

“He is the reason our high schools/colleges have become so progressive and this type of influence just solidifies our entitlement society.”

Levie, a social studies teacher at Racine’s Horlick High School, generated an online firestorm recently when he publicly rejected a humanitarian award from Congressman Paul Ryan during a local ceremony honoring Martin Luther King, Jr.

A video of the incident, and Levie’s lame excuse for his actions, has generated over 36,000 hits on YouTube.com. “Paul Ryan is a lackey for the one percent,” Levie contends.

The snub is the latest in Levie’s long history of political pandering for liberal causes, a passion that often involves public antics with his students and spills over into his classroom. He recruits high-schoolers to his student group – Youth Empowered in the Struggle (YES) – to fight immigration laws, picket legislative offices and turn out voters for liberal politicians.

“By engaging students in real-life issues and encouraging them to act on a political level, we will transform schools into places where authentic learning takes place,” Levie wrote in his union’s magazine, NEA Today.

Unfortunately, Levie’s social justice curriculum isn’t working out as well as planned. Only 57 percent of Racine high school students are proficient in social studies. Yet we would be willing to bet that most of them could quickly identify Marx’s “Communist Manifesto” or tell you the life story of Fidel Castro.

That reality has parents and community members fuming over Levie’s lop-sided, politically biased approach to teaching, with the public reaction to his most recent stunt hitting swift and hard.

The backlash

The immediate response to Levie’s snub of Ryan was caught on video. Audience members booed loudly as the so-called teacher walked away from the award.

Others yelled: “Come on, it’s for the kids!”

But that was just the beginning.

Hundreds have posted comments on message boards at YouTube.com, BigGovernment.com, the blog Free Racine, Glenn Beck’s The Blaze, RateMyTeachers.com, PublicSchoolSpending.com, and sent letters to Racine’s Journal Times newspaper. Local radio stations have also hosted callers who were outraged by the incident.

Here’s a sample of what some are saying:

“ … (W)hen Al Levie, a Horlick High School teacher, got up to receive his Humanitarian Award, he asked if he could say a few words. Most of us were thinking he would speak of the unfinished work that Dr. King would ask us to continue today. Be kind to one another, love one another, be civil to one another,” Burlington resident Chris Weidert wrote in the Journal Times.

“But instead, Levie got up on his soapbox to trash talk the governor of Wisconsin. How inappropriate, disrespectful and, to use the words of others, how ‘shameful’ it was for this to happen. This day was meant to honor the students, but instead, he turned into a circus.”

Several online message boards posted Levie’s snub video and several forums quickly shifted focus from the incident itself, to a broader discussion on political activism and “social justice” lessons in the classroom.

“I really wish you would stand down from ruining our children with your moronic leftist social propaganda and just let real teachers stick to teaching math and science without injecting their own political agenda,” one person commented on the YouTube video.

“This man is not teaching. He is propagandizing and should be dismissed. He is an embarrassment to the community and to the teaching profession as a whole,” wrote a parent on RateMyTeachers.com.

“Levie should be fired. You want to know why our kids cannot compete in today’s world. He is the reason,” another poster added.

Others took offense to Levie’s compensation as a public school teacher – more than $90,000 in salary and benefits – and alluded to the hypocrisy of his call for “economic justice” while he earns far more than the average taxpayers who fund his salary.

The local Latino newspaper, El Conquistador, acknowledged the teacher’s work with the area’s Latino population, but criticized Levie and Voces De La Frontera, a radical group which supported his public snub. The stunt was unprofessional and an affront to Martin Luther King, Jr.’s dream, the paper opined.

“A plot to embarrass a sitting U.S. Representative for political points doesn’t change immigration policy, and it certainly doesn’t heal a partisan divide. It would be difficult to believe that if Martin Luther King Jr. were alive today, he would mock the Congressional guests of events meant to honor humanitarians,” the El Conquistador editorial read.

Unintended consequences

In news interviews after the incident, Levie acknowledged that he never intended to accept the award from Ryan, and, if given a chance, he’d reject it all over again.

But we believe that his childish antics could have some unintended consequences. After the story broke, conservative radio talk show hosts and other pundits started focusing on the far too common problem of extremely liberal public school teachers peddling their ideologies to students.

“This guy has a history of trying to indoctrinate his kids into being activists for the liberal cause. He should be fired,” said Jerry Bader, with News Talk 97.5.

Bader went on to discuss how Wisconsin parents have “gritted their teeth” and refrained from criticizing educators who teach from a political slant, largely because union protections made removing such teachers nearly impossible. Thanks to Governor Scott Walker’s budget repair legislation, Act 10, that is no longer the case, Bader said.

“Now that the collective bargaining protections that they had have been largely removed, when this type of stuff happens, parents need to demand that they be fired. Maybe one warning, maybe two, but when there’s a pattern, this guy shouldn’t be teaching anymore.”

Bader’s comments instigated instant feedback from callers who have had their own problems with teachers crossing the political line.

“My son texted me … from his civics class, he’s a freshman, and there is some guy in the room just running (Gov.) Walker down. So I immediately call the principal and told the principal ‘Get that teacher out of the room,’” a caller from Colby, Wisconsin said. “She told me not to worry, there was only 12 minutes left in class, and she would let him finish up.

“ … That was the wrong answer,” according to the caller, who went on to press the issue with the superintendent and the school board. The teacher, a substitute, was ultimately required to issue an apology, the caller said.

According to Racine Unified School District Superintendent Ann Laing, Levie’s conduct at the awards ceremony “occurred on his own time since Martin Luther King Day is not a work day for employees.”

“The First Amendment protects his right to freedom of speech,” she said.

We certainly agree, and it’s clear that Levie uses that right to its full advantage. But what’s concerning is that teachers like Levie are using their positions in publicly funded schools to recruit teens to their personal political causes. Parents and citizens are rightly concerned that students are receiving an education skewed by political ideology.

Fear the sweater vest!

So much for Governor Mitch Daniels’ “truce” on social issues. Rick Santorum refused to raise the white flag on his principles and charged ahead. Tonight he celebrates a trifecta victory in Missouri, Minnesota, and Colorado, all but shattering the myth of Romney’s inevitable cruise to victory in the presidential primary.

I’ll admit it. I didn’t see it coming. To be sure, this victory comes with caveats, as I wrote here. Santorum picked up only five delegates tonight and has 22 delegates to Romney’s 106, but it’s a move in the right direction. (The delegate count is here.)

But Santorum understands something that few of the other candidates can put into words: that the power to mandate is the power to compel and compulsion must be grounded on something higher than the mere will of the sovereign. This is a very effective argument against Barack Obama, but it it also a very effective one against Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich, who also supported the Wall Street bailouts, cap and trade (taxing breathing) and of course, the individual mandate in health insurance. Both Gingrich and Romney are essentially progressives in their view that there is nothing government mustn’t do.

Santorum is totally correct when he says that government big enough to give you everything is big enough to take everything away or to force you to accept their “gifts” on their terms. We got a vision of what an Obamacare regime will look like this week when the Obama administration forced Catholic universities, hospitals and other church-affiliated employers to implement a new policy that requires health insurers to offer birth control coverage. For Catholics and many Americans who rightly argue that life begins at conception, forcing their institutions to provide the morning after-pill is tantamount to forcing them to countenance abortion.

The truth has always been that the left were the aggressors in the culture wars and this week they dug their trenches and prepared their assault on three key issues: homosexuals, the murder of the unborn, and compulsory subsidizing of birth control. Each of these issues is tied to the freedom of conscience and each of these issues is a battleground that the left has chosen. Suddenly the pushy Catholic, as the left would describe Santorum, doesn’t seem so pushy when the Catholics get pushed around. So much for if you like your health plan you can keep it. The fine print was apparently: you can only keep your health plan if we like it. Oh, and if you are a charity that doesn’t want to fund our left-wing causes, we will hack your websites, destroy your reputation, and threaten your employees.

Santorum knows all of this. Like Gingrich, he gets that we are in the fight of our lifetimes against an adversary that wants to wipe out our way of life. Romney doesn’t understand this impulse, alas, for all his bromides about America.

When Santorum speaks of the liberty of the Constitution, Santorum knows what the Ron Paul fans do not: that liberty is not license, but the right to live a good, virtuous life. Which is what Santorum, in contradistinction to Newt’s personal life and Mitt’s business and political life is exactly what Rick has led. What Gingrich and Santorum reveal is that Romney cannot win in the South and Midwest.

Santorum would be right to return to these wells again. Liberty is about more than choice, it is about choosing the good and sticking to it, even if you might lose an election. Santorum knows all about this and fought the good fight in 2006, only to lose to Bob Casey (an allegedly pro-life Catholic Democrat) by 17 points in a bad year for Republicans. Let’s not forget that Romney lost his U.S. Senate bid to Ted Kennedy by 17 points in a terrific Republican year in 1994 by essentially rejecting Reaganism. Pennsylvania is a moderately blue state; Massachusetts a blue state, but only one candidate compromised his principles.

It’s that argument over principles where Santorum is most strong. Here’s to hoping he dusts it off again in going after the mandates that RomneyCare put on Massachusetts residents. As a then-teetotaler and one-time resident of Massachusetts, I always found it somewhat odd that Mitt Romney, a practicing Mormon, was forcing insurers, underwriters and businesses in Massachusetts to cover the costs of alcohol rehabilitation for their employees.

It would be bad if that were the only mandate, but as of late 2011 there were some 42 other mandates, including clinical trials, hospice care, hormone replacement therapy, diabetes, and, yes, contraceptive services. Only eight were added since Romney left office and of those eight, three governed things that are a lot harder to assail against than alcoholism. Who, after all, wants to be against mandates for prosthetic devices (for the cripples), childhood vaccination (for the kids), and early intervention (for everyone who wishes he had caught the disease before he was felled by it)? This is the central problem of mandates. Everyone wants to mandate something and thanks to public choice economics, the benefits of getting a mandate approved are a lot more concentrated than the benefits of resisting all mandates. Think of it as medical earmarking.

Returning to tonight, with his sweep of the caucuses, Santorum is starting to look an awful lot like the candidate (Barack Obama) who won the caucuses, only to go toe-to-toe with a well-funded machine (Hilary Clinton).

If history is our guide, Mitt Romney is looking an awful lot like Hilary Clinton and Rick Santorum is looking an awful lot like Barack Obama. Now it is on to Arizona and Michigan. Romney is ahead in both states, but will his lead hold after Santorum’s major victory tonight? And will Santorum survive the negative assaults that are going to come his way?

Santorum has better take out his bullet proof sweater vest.