Yes, I am against unsupervised bail-outs for dysfunctional school districts. Yes, I know that charters sometimes work very well. Charters may be the best local option for education. Yes, I know my state is … financially challenged, maybe even broke.

I would like to make one observation, though. I don’t trust privatization. When op-ed pieces tell me I need to be freed from the union taking my money, I flash to a thought: The only people I know with decent pensions at this point are union members. The affordability of that pension for the state may be debatable. But my corporate friends are on their own. They invest their money or they don’t. Those who don’t save enough money find themselves in a world of hurt. Awhile back, my brother and I had a conversation revolving around fifty-some-year olds who have realized they can’t retire in the near future — or, indeed, in any future. He talked about the scared look in their eyes, the higher-pitch in their voices as they discuss numbers that don’t add up, numbers that will lock them into the workforce long after they desire to leave.

Thanks to the union, I retired with health care and a pension. I did not work long enough to get a big pension, but I can afford to sit at this computer right now in my Star Wars t-shirt and pajamas. O.K., I’ll admit without my husband’s contribution, I’d have to work another 10 years probably to sit where I am, but I did not quit with no recognition for my time and effort. Every year I worked, my pension got a little bigger.

We are breaking the unions in this country. For readers who are not in unions or who are beginning to believe the prevailing propaganda out there, I would like to say this: Unions are not tools of top secret communist cabals. They are bargaining organizations that support rank-and-file workers. In the corporate world, the world that many government leaders now want for education, who will bargain for the workers? Who will protect those workers?

Eduhonesty: I don’t know that I trust unions to always have my interests at heart, but I’d have to be batshit crazy to trust corporations to put my interests ahead of their profits. That’s the bottom-line to this discussion. I have seen unions represent workers, known workers who recovered jobs or pay because of the union.  I have never seen a corporation do the same unless threatened with legal action.

That’s the critical fact that our op-ed pieces tend to leave out.