As Vice President of the Rensselaer County Taxpayers Association I must apologize to Gary and Joyce for the verbal abuses they have and will continue to incur as a result of their membership in the RCTA.

I hope you can develop a thick skin because as we get closer to reforming our government of it's excesses, those who rely on its largess will become even more desperate and shrill. Be comforted in the fact that you are associated with a growing number of citizens who have either awakened to or grown tired of the misfeasance of government schools.

You will notice that the people who attack you are servants of the vast public school bureaucracy and not it's leaders. This is a political strategy they have learned from their glorious leader, Bill Clinton. Remember he was elevated to power with immense support from our public school teacher unions. They were also the largest physical presence at the Democratic National Conventions and every fundraising event of his election campaigns. Just as he used them to get vast sums of campaign money and manpower, the union leaders now hide behind politically naive citizens to get more money started up the chain.

An increasing number of people are realizing that the answer to the problems in our public schools lies in a very simple comparison between schools that work, and those that don't. Schools that work employ teachers that are free of the constraints of a union that concentrates on politics and raising the kind of money necessary to play in the political arena. Of course there are many other problems associated with public schools but one of the most fundamental is that which education bureaucrats go to great lengths to hide.

One of the most disquieting tactics they use is the employment of children in political advertisements the way Charles Schumer did in his Senate campaign ads. We should do a better job of protecting our children from these parasites until they are old enough to handle the disappointment they will ultimately be in for when and if they wake up to the fact that they have been used.

I know Gary and Joyce to be good people. The level of vitriol that has been
vomited on them is consistent with that which many good people who've attempted to reform public schools have had to endure. The APSD school board, administration and the union that claims to represent the teachers, benefit from and probably cultivate the venom used to stifle dissent, so it's unlikely to abate anytime soon.

Personally, I think the only way to reform public schools is to end the monopoly that brought the results we are now witnessing.

Consider what would result if the government controlled where you ate. Would you speak out against being forced to eat beans everyday at $17 per plate? I can see it now; Chuck Schumer's campaign ads would have a skinny little girl devouring a plate of very expensive G.I. beans with a big smile on her face asking for more while the caption reads: "My Republican opponent would rather see her starve."

-DRC