Yeah, teachers at public schools want parents to be involved.

Yet some parents in Montgomery County and elsewhere have discovered limits on the get-involved policy when they ask questions about individual teachers, whether those queries are about alleged abuse of students or a decision to fire a popular instructor.

School officials said they are required to hold back information because of privacy laws, union contracts and potential lawsuits. Some acknowledged that a more open policy would help families handle the repercussions of incidents involving teachers. But the officials said there is little they can do.

The key phrase in that paragraph is “union contracts”. Five to one this fired teacher had failed to genuflect to the Union in some way. Was probably making the other teachers look bad. I’m reminded of Jaime Escalente, a situation in which the teachers’ union decided that keeping latino kids pig-ignorant was worth getting rid of a trouble-maker.

Of course, the parents’ and students’ opinions don’t matter. They never will so long as the system is a government monopoly. It’s about the special interests — bureaucrats and unions. That’s all that matters.

The more time goes on, the more I find myself agreeing with Neal Boortz’s extremism. Big Education — that ugly intersection of teachers’ unions and politicians — may be a greater threat to our future than Al-Quaeda.

Yeah, I said it. I have far more fear of my kids growing up ignorant and out of work than their being killed by a terrorist.

The worst thing is that we’ve got millions of dedicated teachers out there trapped in this broken Soviet-style system. Is anyone going to speak for them? Does anyone care? Teachers love their unions. And they fail to realize that these unions are destroying their chance to make a difference.