Once upon a time, in this country, early in the last century hoards of Italians, (like me!), Irish, German, Jewish peoples and more descended on this land in search of something better. From the schools to the sweatshops, they took jobs that paid little and demanded much. Haste, greed and neglect soon became the norm in the American workforce. Labor unions stepped, to collectively support and advance the rights of people to work and be given adequate wages, benefits and a quality environment. It was great, when it was needed.

Today those same unions — in this case in education — no longer protect people who are being abused, neglected, forced to work 15-hour days with no break for food or bathroom. Because of enlightened leaders, workers and yes, labor’s past contributions, today we and our institutions are protected. Those protections however, may have swung too far past the original intentions. For when it comes to teachers unions, protections now are all about labor not product.

Consider the attack by the United Federation of Teachers of New York in successfully challenging a new state evaluation system that would allow schools, parents and the public to know for certain if the people teaching our kids actually is successful at it!

The national unions have been fighting efforts to allow parents to turnaround failing schools. They oppose California’s parent trigger law and have well-documented tools for members who succeeded in squashing a similar proposal in Connecticut. The unions not only oppose real performance evaluations and parent choice but even standards and testing, funding teachers to rally in Washington over efforts to hold schools accountable.

This is what labor unions have become?

Movies have been done, books written, and hundreds of thousands of blogs, tweets, and news articles on the same subject.

This Labor day — which most Americans simply use as a needed day off before the annual renewal of the post-summer work period and back to school season, let’s resolve to change the system that once was needed but is no more. All of our great labors day in and day out aside, our schools and public institutions need the right to put results and effort first.

Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts, said the late great Daniel Patrick Moynihan. And indeed, the PDK/Gallup poll underscores the wisdom offered by the former Senior Senator from New York, no doubt in the larger public policy context of his day.

While everyone has opinions, pollsters are supposed to provide at least a baseline of data to allow someone to offer an opinion on information that he or she may or may not have known before being asked a question. The annual PDK/Gallup poll lacks much needed context, perhaps not unintentionally, rendering its usefulness nearly meaningless. Asking someone about spending priorities in the absence of knowing what the nation spends on schools doesn’t really tell you what we believe about money. Defining online learning as a way to learn at home doesn’t really inform the reader about how much we know and like the new digital learning age. Dozens of such data-lacking examples abound in this year’s annual survey of Americans’ attitudes.

Therein lies a nugget of truth that is perhaps at the heart Senator Moynihan’s admonishment. If this is a world in which opinions matter but facts do not, is it any wonder we are failing to educate millions of students? There’s no shortage of opinions among Americans, even if we don’t have data to back them up. And isn’t that the difference between productive learning environments and ones destined to fail? Good policy and bad policy? From pre-school to higher education, we are convinced that thinking and talking without real content knowledge is acceptable and that opinions matter, regardless of how well informed they are. Why try to find out the answers when your opinion counts, regardless of what you know?

If facts mattered in this survey, PDK would have provided context for its questions before concluding with authority that Americans believe certain things on certain issues. True, those questions do indeed hit issues we all care about. But the devil is in the details, and, without those details, we really do not know more today than we did the last time this survey was done.

Thankfully, Americans vote with their feet so we can see how they behave, which is a better way to understand where school reform sits in the hearts and minds of our neighbors, our colleagues, and our families. Their actions, not their words, are the real indicator of attitudes.

Here at Edspresso, we’ve grown tired of this complaining that high-stakes testing is responsible for the cheating done by teachers and administrators.

It almost seems that because as a society we demand and expect positive results – our children to be educated – we’re being unfair. It’s not their fault, they say, it’s the requirements. The stakes are too high.

But what exactly are these high stakes we hear about? We’re talking about children’s futures – it’s highly important that they are educated, right?

Well, no.

To teachers and administrators, high stakes means earning more money, accolades, getting tenure and ultimately keeping their job. But, don’t most people need to produce solid outcomes in their job to keep it?

Do we accept cheating elsewhere? Is it okay for the bank teller to shortchange you, so her daily numbers look higher? Is it okay for your doctor to cut corners so she can get you out of the office faster and see more patients? Was it okay when Wall Street put personal profits over the financial security of the public?

Why should we give teachers and administrators a pass? There are many quality teachers that produce high results without resorting to fraud. Because there are some that can’t, we’re supposed to turn a blind eye.

Now, we don’t only have to worry that our children are not getting the educational background they need to be prepared to succeed.

We’ve got to be concerned that those teaching them may feel that the end justifies the means at any cost, the line between right and wrong is a shade of grey and if you get caught blame someone else.

Princeton International Academy Charter School is suing three school districts to stop what they say is the spending of “public funds and using their governmental positions to oppose the opening of the charter school.”

Bravo!

All too often, traditional school districts fight dirty to protect their territory and thwart charter school competition – much to the detriment of parents and students.

But PIACS and parents are calling them out on it.

They want to stop the misuse of public funds, seek repayment of said funds, initiate a full accounting report of monies spent and see a monitor appointed to oversee spending.

This could set a new tone in the fight for charter schools where school districts will be held accountable for unfair practices. If successful, we could see charters in districts across the nation following suit.

Reason.tv did a fantastic job of capturing footage and conducting interviews with supporters, teachers and even Matt Damon at the recent Save Our Schools Status Quo rally in D.C.

The comments may shock you – and no, I’m not talking about Matt Damon’s potty mouth. You can catch his interview at the 0:38 mark. But, you really have to see the teacher at 3:05 who thinks we should be spending a BILLION dollars per student.

Her comments get me thinking about one of Matt Damon’s movies – Rounders. In the film, he plays some uber-smart poker player. I’m sure even Matt Damon can explain what it means to be drawing dead. This is when, no matter how much money you put into the pot, you’re never going to win the hand because your opponent has better cards.

It’s kind of like the battle over education reform. The unions want to put more and more money into the pot, but they’re holding a losing hand. As a nation, we’ve put more money into education than ever before, while test scores and student performance have remained flat.

The unions are drawing dead. And no amount of money can change that.