Democrats and the teachers unions are trying every which way to pass a $23 billion “education jobs fund” bill, a bailout for our public schools. The money would be used to ease the ever-increasing burden of employee retirement costs, health care increases and other benefits. The spending has little if anything to do with children.

But that hasn’t stopped the National Education Association from using children in its television advertising. Kids are doing the dirty work for the adults because, of course, long-faced kids tugging at America’s heartstrings are much more impactful than a bunch of adults with their hand out.

The “education jobs fund” is little more than a back scratch for the teachers unions, because in 2008, they scratched the back of those currently in power in Washington DC with millions of dollars of campaign contributions and boots on the ground in key states and districts.

This all gets back to the fact that the NEA (and the AFT) wants to maintain its power and that is done through money and members.

Kids are an afterthought in the NEA’s political calculation, if they ever dawn on the union at all.

That’s because both school employee unions have successfully put the focus of public education spending on the needs of adults, not students. Read the newspaper during contract negotiation time in your community; the fight invariably is about pay and benefits – not what policy is best to increase student achievement. (Student achievement? what does that have to do with the job-providing schools?)

Sometimes the dig through the bureaucratic public school heap to find the students turns into a journey to the center of the earth.

Just look at the spending. In Illinois, the teachers’ pension fund has an estimated $70 BILLION unfunded liability. Schools need that federal stimulus to keep funding that sinking system.

The teachers union-owned health insurance entity in Michigan is jacking up premium rates on some districts by 25%. MESSA, as it’s known, pays the union millions of dollars each year. As an aside, didn’t the Obama administration hammer on a California insurer during the health care debate for increases in that range? Never mind that these hikes are coming after the passage of ObamaCare. That’s irrelevant, mainly because they’re coming from an ally of his.

And some districts, because of tenure, actually pay teachers to go away and give them positive letters of recommendation. One teacher in Michigan that was on a last chance agreement for drinking alcohol in the class room, was caught boozing it up again. A cool $90,980 payoff got him out of the classroom.

This is the system that doesn’t have enough money? And this is the system that spits kids out at the end of the assembly line that can’t read and aren’t prepared to compete globally? And you, teachers unions – the defenders of the adults – have the gall to demand more?

Your allies in Congress, the Democrats are eyeing the wave of discontent that’s about the crash onshore in November. They realize how angry Americans are. The jig will be up then and the spigot of out-of-control spending will (hopefully) be shut off. Thank goodness a handful of Democrats are beginning to see the impact the reckless spending will have on the children the union claims to put first.