Fool’s Gold: It just keeps getting more ridiculous

by David Safier

I wasn't planning on posting any more about G.I. today, but then I read the Daily Email written by Matthew Ladner. How can I resist when he once again demonstrates that he writes for political effect, not to give a fair hearing to the issues?

His subject for today is cutting "education bureaucrats." I'm not going to argue the topic. I just want to spotlight this howler:

Consider administrators in the K-12 public educational system. The National Center for Education Statistics reveals that of the 104,630 employees at Arizona school districts in 2007-08, only 54,032 of them were teachers. What is more worthy of funding: maintaining an almost 1-to-1 teacher to bureaucrat ratio or maintaining services for the mentally ill?

According to Ladner, half of AZ districts employees are teachers and the other half are bureaucrats.

Like, for instance, the bureaucrats who serve in their office/buses administrating the picking up of children and bringing them to school.

Like, for instance, the maintenance bureaucrats who use their cleaning and repair tools to administer the cleanliness and upkeep of the schools.

Like, for instance, the food bureaucrats who administer school lunches onto students' food trays.

Like, for instance, the instructional aide bureaucrats who administer teaching support for the children.

I guess everyone who works in a school and isn't a teacher is a bureaucrat — at least in the anything-to-make-my-point world of the Goldwater Institute. Sarah Palin would be so proud.