The teachers unions are mad at me

John Stossel wrote in Townhall "Teachers unions are mad at me. The New York State United Teachers demands I apologize for my 'gutter level' journalism, 'an irresponsible assault on public school students and teachers.' This is because I hosted an ABC News TV special titled 'Stupid in America,' which pointed out:

-- American fourth graders do well on international tests, but by high school, Americans have fallen behind kids in most other countries.

That is because No Child Left Behind, from Bush's first administration, focused on the lower grade levels. He planned to carry it to high school this term, but could not get the support he needed.

The constant refrain that 'public schools need more money' is nonsense.

The more they have, the more they can waste.

Many countries that spend significantly less on education do better than we do. School spending in America (adjusted for inflation) has more than tripled over the past 30 years, but national test scores are flat. The average per-pupil cost today is an astonishing $10,000 per student -- $200,000 per classroom! Think about how many teachers you could hire, and how much better you could do with that amount of money."

Give every child a $10,000 voucher, and let him spend it on the school that could teach him the best with it.

It doesn't have to be that way. We know what works: choice. That's what's brought Americans better computers, phones, movies, music, supermarkets -- most everything we have. Schoolchildren deserve the joyous benefits of market competition too.

Unions say, "education of the children is too important to be left to the vagaries of the market." The opposite is true. Education is too important to be left to the calcified union/government monopoly.

That is absolutely true.