Kentucky is entering about Year 18 of an ever-cascading educational disaster. The current horrible mistake is the proposed health plan for teachers, which (under a typical family plan) would have employees pay the highest state-insurance premium in the country, with the state making the next-to-lowest contribution. The idea was that a 3% raise would help cover the cost, but that means $1050 before taxes for the average teacher. The premiums alone for that family health plan would exhaust that in two months.

I’ve been half-following the story as it develops, because I went to a Kentucky public high school and I’m interested by the state’s boundless inventiveness as it races to achieve the worst school quality in the country (right behind you, Alabama!). There will very likely be a statewide (and illegal) educator strike on October 27th. Tonight I saw some TV news coverage of a teachers’ union protest at Waterfront Park; after a couple of crowd shots, they pulled in close on one woman, who held a posterboard sign stating that

Some truths are self-evident.