As if the $10 billion “public education bailout” wasn’t enough to stomach, U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) has introduced a bill, titled Education for All Act of 2010, which would spend American tax dollars on education systems around the globe.  It’s S.3797.

U.S. Rep Nita Lowey (D-CA) has introduced similar legislation as H.B. 5117.

I think Washington has officially lost its marbles.

While no dollar amount is contained in the legislation, the bill states, “Credible estimates indicate that approximately $16,000,000,000 per year of financing assistance is necessary for developing countries to achieve universal basic education by 2015.”

Is Sen. Gillibrand really proposing to spend an additional $16 billion of our hard-earned tax dollars elsewhere?

Does spending money in other countries imply that our system is okay?  Or that it’s on a course of improvement?  Because in case these members of Congress haven’t noticed, our system kind of stinks.

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When the Congress passed the Public School Bailout, it was akin to slapping a band-aid on a bleeding head wound.  American public school systems spend somewhere around a half-trillion dollars a year, and another $10 billion is going to make everything alright?  Hardly.

Public schools have a serious spending problem.   When a local teachers union bargains with the school district over a new teacher contract, the new contract typically includes all kinds of hidden expenses.  Collective bargaining agreements typically put school districts on the hook for sick leave pay, cash payouts for unused sick days, release time to conduct union business, and other embedded costs that cause school districts to hemorrhage huge amounts of money.

News coverage of teacher contracts, if there is any, is rarely controversial or in-depth.  It usually covers the general raise every employee receives, as well as the modest increase in health insurance co-pays.  But dig beneath the surface, and a different story emerges.

Education Action Group is dedicated to pointing out the huge spending problems plaguing our schools.  We recently conducted an analysis of nearly 20 teacher contracts in southwest Ohio and uncovered some shocking numbers.  For example, Cincinnati Public Schools spent $7.5 million on sick leave in last year.  How many teacher salaries would that cover?

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Will the madness ever stop?  Just over two weeks ago, Congress passed a $10 billion “Education Jobs Fund” that gave money to cash-strapped states to keep teachers and other school employees on the job.  It was spun as a victory for the kids, but the real winners were the teacher unions who were spared from making any concessions on pay and benefits that are necessary to balancing school budgets.

Once that $10 billion is spent, the structural problems of school spending will still remain.  A recent study from the Manhattan Institute and the Foundation for Educational Choice finds that “teacher pension liabilities for all 50 states now total almost $1 trillion….almost triple the cost of what state officials have on their balance sheets.”  The study concludes that these unfunded public burdens “could bankrupt state budgets including education programs.”

While the teacher unions won a temporary victory, we have to believe that they are paying careful attention to another, bigger bailout that is lurking in the shadows.   And this time, there is more at stake than just a few billion dollars.  If this latest bailout becomes law, it will mark the first time in American history that tax dollars are used to fund the pension plans of private—unionized—industry.

The teachers unions know that their lavish pension plans will result in a financial tsunami for the states.  Should this new bailout go through, it will pave the way for a massive bailout for the teacher unions, the likes of which have never seen.  This is a very big deal.

In late July, Sen. Dick Durbin (D – IL), the second most powerful Democrat in the U.S. Senate, announced that he is supporting the “Create Jobs and Save Benefits Act of 2010.” This proposed bill that would make certain labor union pension plans the “obligations of the United States.” Put another way, the American taxpayer will be on the hook for financially disastrous pension plans.

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Here’s a story problem to get kids ready for the new school year:

If Congress borrows $10 billion to bail out the public schools, and if toilet paper costs fifty cents a roll, how many rolls of toilet paper will each of the nation’s 132,000 K-12 public schools receive?

The answer:  Zero. Zip. Zilch.

The average American can be forgiven for thinking that the $10 billion “edujobs” bill signed into law last week by President Obama would directly benefit the nation’s school children.  That’s certainly how the National Education Association President Dennis Van Roekel spun it:  “As a result of this vote, we expect to see less crowded classrooms, reinstated bus routes and restored education programs and services,” Van Roekel said.

What a windfall for the kids, right?  But how to make sense of this headline in The New York Times:  “Back to School? Bring Your Own Toilet Paper.”  Just five days after the $10 billion bailout became law, the Times reports that schools all across the country are sending out shopping lists to parents and students, requiring them to help stock the janitorial closets that have been stripped bare by shrinking school budgets.  Wasn’t that money supposed to prevent this kind of thing?

It’s a fact that school districts all across the country have smaller budgets to work with, due to the aftermath of “The Great Recession.”  It’s also a fact that unlike most American workers who have had to take less pay and fewer benefits to keep their jobs, many teacher unions all across the country have refused to make any concessions (i.e. accepting a freeze in pay or contributing to their health insurance costs).   Left with no other options to balance their budgets, school districts were forced to cut teaching jobs.  This resulted in a “crisis” and led to Congress’ $10 billion bailout.

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Unions moved one step closer to receiving their own bailout Wednesday when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called the U.S. House back from recess to vote on a stimulus bill for unionized public employees.

The House will vote to create a $10 billion “Education Jobs Fund,” a euphemism for a public school bailout.  Those aren’t my words – that’s American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten’s line.

And Pelosi made a telling admission when she announced via Twitter, “I will be calling the House back into session early next week to save teachers’ jobs…”

It’s not about student achievement.  It’s about protecting the adults.

Public schools have a spending problem, not a funding problem.  Pelosi and her regime are perpetuating the problem at a time America literally can’t afford it.

According to The Hill, Pelosi’s action came about after urging from a public employees union, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.

Taxpayers must now foot the bill for the demands of unions and the politicians that kowtow to them.

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