It is normally conservatives who are deceitfully and dismissively portrayed as wanting only to maintain the status quo and to thwart positive progress. As the recent education and union battles in some states have recently shown, the status quo has acquired some interesting defenders.

As a resident of one of the states in which education and labor reforms have been proposed, I have been deluged with numerous flyers, ads, and articles maintaining that change is bad. One flyer arrived this morning in my newspaper proclaiming, "MYTH: Public Education is failing in Indiana."

Massive protests against proposed education reforms have been staged in this state's capital by teachers whipped into a frenzy by their union personnel (not during spring breaks, though). They declare that the proposed reforms will not "be good for the children." The extension of the protest, then, is that the status quo is good "for the children." By logical application, they declare that the status quo is also good for the taxpayer.

What is lost among the headlines and heated rhetoric is, of course, objective, rational discussion about the impact of maintaining the status quo over proposed reforms. Not surprisingly, teachers and unionists are concerned over threats - perceived or real - to their personal benefits. The resulting reality is that as such threats surface, progressives clearly demonstrate that they are not progressive.