Teachers' Unions Have Become Partisan Dinosaurs

 Read this: Teachers' Unions STILL Want Lockdowns on Schools

There was a time when unions served a purpose. They worked to get meaningful wages, to eliminate child labor and to make sure workers had a voice. Those days are gone. Union bosses have become every bit as money grubbing and elitist as any titan of industry. Indeed many of the offspring of union bosses attend the same elite schools and universities. It should make union rank and file ponder where their membership fees are going.

This leads to our current situation where the NEA is directing via narrative and media connections, the continuing closure of "free" public education. Never mind that this impacts low income students the worst. Ignore that it makes it impossible for single parents to work. Pretend it isn't an economic drag on an already wounded economy. NEA has bigger, unstated sacred cows to gore. And their inroads into controlling the message and measures used in education in some states shows what inordinate power they are wielding.

Many doctors and scientists have said lockdowns for children are unnecessary. They have stated this view from scientific data, from witnessing the demise of too many children and on the number of students who have simply disappeared from class rolls. But the NEA and their strident, fearful minions don't care. They insist on draconian actions that no district can afford in terms of space or money. What many of these same teachers may not realize is that they are destroying their own brand. Parents need to work and most have to work. Sooner or later if the public schools don't open, parents will seek another options. It may be homeschooling, it may be charter schools or private schools, but whatever their choice it will shrink the number of students in schools. 

With fewer students, there is less interest in financially supporting public school education with higher taxes. That means in turn that whatever actions the NEA hoped to achieve such as smaller classes, higher pay, better insurance will fall by the wayside. As these advantages go away, private and charter schools will look even more attractive to parents. If you want to see this in action, look at Chicago. Chicago's taxes are insanely high and many parents struggle to survive, but this is one city where the Catholic school system is strong because parents will do whatever is necessary to make sure their kids are not in the warzone that the Chicago public schools has become.

I'm not cheering this situation. I am a product of public schools. Public schools enabled my father to move out of his Depression Era poverty and go to college. Public school enabled my Irish immigrant ancestors to learn English and become citizens. Public school education is what set us apart from our European ancestors and enabled the American Dream, where anyone can achieve anything with knowledge and hard work. As that system dies-courtesy of the combination of an alphabet soup of agencies and laws-our ability to stand apart also goes away. The American Public School was the shared American experience where we all learned the same English, Math, History and Science and that type of share knowledge is what creates a cohesive culture.

The biggest mistake NEA and its supporters have made is to allow schools to become petri dishes for social justice. Rather than giving students the tools to achieve, schools have been and are being used a means to inoculate children with "appropriate" social attitudes. Whether it is to believe in Global Warming, support "Kindness" as a blanket of acceptance for all manner of behavior or tolerating the outbursts of mentally ill students parachuted into general education classrooms the methodology is push students further apart. These obedient followers are becoming more and more liberal to the point that they can't discuss any issue. The rebels are becoming more conservative and shutting down. 

Now that we have had lockdowns, parents are fully aware of the scope of the indoctrination. While NEA lobbies even up to the White House to stay closed, many parents are opting out or moving to districts where education matters more than ideology. I believe the NEA's endgame is to get Federal control over ALL schools public and private. We're already seeing churches under attack to accept lifestyles or views that don't reflect their moral guides, so is it really so far off to think the NEA wouldn't have an underlying agenda to control ALL education?