Across the country, the mainstream media and tabloid outlets
are screaming about the alleged abuse of Patricia Krentcil of Nutley, an overly
tan New Jersey mother who let her young daughter steam in a tanning bed. The
New Jersey legislature has already criminalized the use of tanning beds by
minors, as did my home state last year.
Yet the liberal majority and media in the Garden state, the Golden State
(no pun intended), and throughout the nation have ignored the deleterious
effects of a more dangerous machine, one that daily drains the life out of our
children, all in the professed aim of preparing them for adulthood: the public
school system.
Governor Christie and like-minded staff are steamed up about this
more heated yet less vetted matter of public education. They have properly
identified the declining quality of our schools as a combination of teachers’
unions’ resistance to reform, school boards’ growing and unsustainable burden
of pensions and health care benefits to public school teachers, and parents’
frustration in subsidizing poor schools with their own tax dollars, coupled
with their incapacity to choose the best education for their children.
more heated yet less vetted matter of public education. They have properly
identified the declining quality of our schools as a combination of teachers’
unions’ resistance to reform, school boards’ growing and unsustainable burden
of pensions and health care benefits to public school teachers, and parents’
frustration in subsidizing poor schools with their own tax dollars, coupled
with their incapacity to choose the best education for their children.
Instead of damning the pretended abuse of one parent
bronzing her daughter in a tanning salon, the voters of New Jersey and in the
rest of the country ought to demand that the media train its attention on the reforms
touted by Governor Christie: scholarships for children in poor neighborhoods, the
expansion of charter schools, and the end of teacher tenure.
bronzing her daughter in a tanning salon, the voters of New Jersey and in the
rest of the country ought to demand that the media train its attention on the reforms
touted by Governor Christie: scholarships for children in poor neighborhoods, the
expansion of charter schools, and the end of teacher tenure.