Lets be honest in America sports is more important than education.
Lets take a look at two recent events in the United States:
1) Chicago Teachers Strike
2) NFL Referee Lockout
The American people talked about the referee lockout and got MAD when a bad call by a replacement referee affected the results of a football game. People were downright nasty towards people just trying to do a job that most were probably not ready for in their career. It would be like asking a college freshman QB to start for the NFL and perform like Payton Manning! The results are not going to be good! People make mistakes and even the pro officials make bad calls that affect games in a serious way.
Does anyone remember Ed Hochuli, arguably the NFL's best referee, in 2008 during a game between the San Diego Chargers and the Denver Broncos? His bad call seemingly caused the Chargers to lose the game.
Football isn't the only game where pro officials make significant errors. Does anyone remember Jim Joyce ending Armando Galarraga's bid for a perfect game on the final out of the game? Remember the "Safe" call when the runner was about a foot off the base when Galarraga caught the ball while on the base?
Now lets compare this with the Chicago teachers' strike. The NFL referee lockout helped to cause the Green Bay Packers to lose an extra game. The Chicago teachers' strike kept students out of school. One of the chief reasons for the work stoppage was a pension plan and the refs received public support while the teachers got this:
"There's an attitude that teachers should be glad they have jobs with so many others losing ground," says Peter Cappelli.
Who got their pension? The referees. Who should have gotten a pension? Probably nobody! To quote friend, tweeter, and blogger Joshua Hall (@Splatergrits):
"Pensions are going the way of the dodo bird."
This is very true and there is a good reason for it! Pensions cause businesses and government financial hardships! Just look at the auto industry and pensions in the linked article, they cost too much money.
The moral of the story is that the teachers' got little to no support from the public while the refs benefited from a public outcry. If education is really more important in the minds of people would we support the teachers or would we support the refs?
