Here are a few small things to consider while we wait for the tsunami of change to occur: In my early 20’s, I taught school. My first rude awakening was that I HAD to join a teachers union. At the time, the unions were all over the news with some issue I had not the bandwidth nor discernment to concern myself with. I didn’t think I liked their arguments but wasn’t certain. I didn’t want to join until I knew more about it so I tried to “hand-wave” them off. Several mentors strongly cautioned that if I didn’t join, and say I lost my temper and knocked over a kid’s desk, if a pencil went flying and blinded a kid or something, even though I had not actually thrown said pencil, it would not matter if the kid had been knocking out windows and slashing others with the glass, I would be sued and worse. So I paid my $75 to get my million dollar coverage. For that reason alone, I was now a member of a union currently making moves in the news that I myself wasn’t sure I condoned. Do the math for every teacher, every year, then consider that, like me, many teachers do not have the same ideals as the teacher’s unions. We’re just stuck needing insurance. Another lesson wherein my hands were tied by stupid bureaucracy: They handed out massive catalogs of teacher supply stuff, telling me to check the boxes of what I’d need—- everything from staplers to projectors. I was like a kid with a JCPenny catalog and no budget. PLUS, the goods were dirt cheap in comparison to Walmart. (Thanks, Feds!) I went sort of hog wild — with a dash of, “but I don’t want to be greedy”, and got construction paper in every color, fun math tools like plastic pie pieces to help teach fractions, you get the idea. I turned in my wish list. They returned it to me saying I had to spend more. (?!) I went back and REALLY went hog wild, forget seeming greediness. They returned it to me again, saying spend more! This happened 3x before I finally asked exactly how much more and WHY, if I honestly didn’t think I needed anything else? The office said (wait for it…) if we didn’t collectively spend more than we’d spent last year, we would not be allocated as much the following year and whatever we were allocated may not be enough. WHAT? I was only 24 and I knew that wasn’t a good rationale for the entire country’s worth of teachers to overspend! I suggested they give my spare $ to special ed or art or … Turns out those depts. already get far more money than the rest. A secretary who had been around for 40 years actually looked at me and said, “Just order extra construction paper and math toys and give them to your nieces for Christmas.” 😳 Yes, they basically MADE me spend $600 more than I needed. Again, do that math for all federally funded schools. Allocating needs to be refined, at the very least. By the way, I homeschooled all 3 of my kids because I wanted them to have our ideals and because I could accomplish more than most schools accomplish per day, in half the time, leaving the rest of the day to read good lit, to create or to pursue others interests.