The question is whether teachers are being paid too little, and you answered it yourself, their salaries have remained essentially static. Their salaries are set at the State or local level, not by the Department of Education or the unions.

And since, by your own figures, Democratic teachers outnumber Republicans by 2 to 1, how can you possibly assert that teacher's unions do not "reflect that diversity"? Tom, those are your own figures! Union elections aren't run under US Senate rules where you need 60% to even bring an issue to a vote.

Their unions clearly represent the politics of the majority of their members, as they should, even if you find that distressing. Even if you include all the independent teachers in the Republican camp, the Democrats still outnumber them.

As for rising costs in education, we also have costs risng faster than inflation in health care, the military, and a host of other categories. So what? Do health care workers and the armed forces have crooked unions that don't reflect the diversity of their members? Do their unions funnel millions in laundered dollars to the Democrats? Not at all, but their lobbies funnel millions of laundered dollars to Republicans.

No, costs are rising because the private industries that support health, the military and education are charging more for their goods and services, and government is not regulating them sufficiently to keep costs more realistic. Now if you want to argue that the Feds are doing a sloppy job of administering that Agency, I might find some common ground with you. But don't blame the unions just because they won't give your side money.

Your real objection is that teacher unions support Democrats, because their members have voted for them to do so. That's what really pisses you off. People don't vote against their own interests, these people know perfectly well that Republicans will not only cut teacher salaries, they will cut funding to education and they will fire teachers. Or maybe they'll start importing cheap teachers from Haiti and the Phillipines like the hospitals do with nurses. After all, Republicans don't like sending money to public schools any more than they like paying old and poor people's medical bills. They have already made other arrangements. Everyone else can just eat cake.

As usual, your meticulously documented irrelevancies prove nothing. They answer the wrong questions. The question you should be asking yourself is why is it that a group of educated, dedicated people who are willing to work for shit wages because they care about kids aren't rushing to join your party, and continue to support your opponents? And why do they continue to vote for union policies that you claim are against their interests? These people aren't dumb. They're employees.

Maybe its just because educated, dedicated, underpaid employees are twice as likely to be Democrats as they are Republican. Now that's a correlation you should be considering. No conspiracies please.