Surprise!

The teacher’s unions and their mouthpieces have repeatedly put the education of children second to “The System”.

You might call it the Obama-Duncan-Gates-Rhee philosophy of education reform.

Bill Gates, the Microsoft founder turned full-time philanthropist, visited The Post last week to talk, among other things, about how to improve schools for the nation’s poorest children.

That so many children in this country cannot live up to their potential because they are born in poverty and attend terrible schools is one of the nation’s greatest scandals, as Gates pointed out in his recent letter from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

“Only 71 percent of kids graduate from high school within four years, and for minorities the numbers are even worse — 58 percent for Hispanics and 55 percent for African Americans,” he wrote. “If the decline in childhood deaths (in developing countries) is one of the most positive statistics ever, these are some of the most negative.”

The foundation has spent about $4 billion seeking to improve high schools and promote college access since 2000, along the way gaining valuable experience on what does and doesn’t work. Based on those lessons, Gates names two priorities: helping successful charter-school organizations, such as KIPP, replicate as quickly as possible; and improving teacher effectiveness at every other school.

In both cases, institutions stand in the way. School boards resist the expansion of charter schools. Teachers unions resist measuring and rewarding effectiveness.

Will fiscal conservatives be given credit for speaking these truths for the past five decades (without having to spend $4 Billion)?

Oh hell no!

In fact, they’re gonna plaster “President Obama” all over this idea in a disgusting display of lauditory bukakke.