As I write this, all the unionized public school teachers in Chicago have gone on strike, leaving the kids to fend for themselves. These are unionized teachers who are already the best paid teachers in the country, and maybe the worst at teaching. They’re cocky and arrogant. Would you want them teaching your kids? Neither would I. But now they’re demanding another 16 to 30 percent more pay and even more benefits before they say they’ll come back to work. Others, besides just kids, must pay for this arrogance. It has been the taxpayers up until now, but it doesn’t have to be that way. Teachers put kids on the lowest rung of the ladder, and that has to be turned around to place union teachers on the lowest rung where they belong.

What many don’t realize is that a large portion of the money for public schools comes from the federal government. We in Maryland actually help pay for the corrupt Chicago school system’s wastefulness. I call on President Obama to take the lead and to fire them all unless they stop their strike and disruption of education. I call on him to do like Ronald Reagan once did with the federal air traffic controllers who were going on random strikes and disrupting air travel. Reagan gave public strikers an ultimatum: “Go back to work or never work as an air traffic controller again.” If the president does that just one time, like Ronald Reagan once did, he’d gain the full respect and support of the majority of the American people who just want to see good leadership and an end to organized labor’s unfair control of nearly everything we do. Doing what Reagan did would put an end to union corruption wherever the federal government is involved, including in our schools.

It should be noted that there is no provision in the U. S. Constitution for labor unions. So, whether it involves kids or anything else, a good leader is needed to correct this horrible combination of corruption and waste called “uionization.” If president Obama refuses to act responsibly, and if he doesn’t renounce his union ties, and if he continues to side with the union teachers and not with the kids, he should be relieved of his duties as president. Unfortunately for U.S. taxpayers, the funds for most of his electioneering and that of his party come from corrupt labor union bosses who keep this scam going. It simply must stop, or our kids won’t get educated and America, as we once knew it, will cease to exist. Do we care so little about our kids that we’ll allow them to pay the price of poor leadership, first in one city, and then in another? This corruption by unions goes on in every state, including Maryland, and unless we put a stop to it, kids everywhere in our once-great country will suffer more and more as unions gain more power and duplicate what’s happened in Chicago.

This is getting ridiculous. There are good teachers, but unionized teachers, more and more, think they control every one of us, and they’re now using kids, who will suffer, as their hostages. We who pay the taxes deserve better. Unions should be eliminated in all governments. They’re robbing us. Chicago schools should lose all federal support if they don’t teach students. Teachers there already get an average of $74,000 a year plus complete health care and other benefits. Most of us, on the other hand, have to work very hard for a living. We pay the taxes and teachers’ salaries. Chicago teachers don’t want “standardized tests.” They know they’ll fail. Chicago schools graduate only about 55 percent of students. There’s almost no learning. And get this: Most teachers there work only five and a half hours a day, with summers off. These are among the worst schools in the country, and we in Maryland should not be helping to pay for them. Vote the unfit leaders and their demented party of choice out of office.

Richard Navickas, Lusby