All Unions, But Especially Teachers' Unions-Are Not Serving the Rank and File

Dying Unions Represent Agendas Over Rank And File 

Go ahead and read it. It's everything I've been saying about unions and teachers and the Left for years. 

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? 

I'm A Teacher and I Think Wisconsin Teachers are Wrong.

I teach in a right to work state. That means I am not represented by a union. Sure, you can join NEA/TSTA if you want, but it's the most expensive ticket to representation. Most teachers, regardless of political views, only join to get liability insurance. That's the bottom line. If I can get that for less from any of the other alphabet soup of organizations, then I will. That all being said, here's my take on the brouhaha in Madison.

I am appalled.

If you talk to any teacher, one of the first things that comes up is that kids just aren't very well behaved. Also, if you are really a trained professional, you know that modeling behavior is one of the best ways of teaching behavior. So by rioting, writing fake doctor's notes and more, these teachers are acting out just as badly as the more unruly segment of our student population. I suppose we should give many of the younger ones sort of a pass because they were raised in an era when adults tolerated snippy behavior as "cute." I didn't let my own kids watch The Simpsons, because I didn't find mimickry of Bart's behavior to be an attractive trait in a child. But other parents said I was staid. Now we have young adults who think aggression equates to assertiveness. Nothing could be farther from the truth. If you are assertive, you have the authority of facts to back you up. On the other hand, aggression is nothing more that bullying behavior and conjecture based on nothing but opinion. That is what we see in the streets of Madison.

I understand to a point. I am currently the only breadwinner at my house. As a classroom teacher it's not easy to make ends meet on a less than $50K income. But we do what we have to do. We sell things. We make do. We do without. And we do this as our parents and grandparents had to do during bad times. Unfortunately, the youngest teachers were raised in a period of time when self-esteem trumped achievement. Everyone wins a trophy. Nobody loses. And that's not reality. In the real world competition determines the winners. I bet the Chinese understand that. And I think many immigrants who come here for the very freedoms this current administration is trying to squelch understand as well. But these younger teacher do not understand. The think they are entitled to have everything it took their parents and grandparents decades to afford. For example, my mother didn't have her own new car until I was in high school. I didn't get a car for turning sixteen. My kids helped pay their way through school. These things may sound normal to you. If that is the case, I can almost guarantee you were either raised before 1980 or you were part of a military family.

These are the attitudes that fuel this debate in Madison. It's been shouted by Oprah, echoed by Obama and resonates with those who would much rather watch others work than work themselves. These are the folks who were never read "The Ant and the Grasshopper" or "The Little Red Hen" or "The Goose that Laid the Golden Egg" because those were seen as archaic stories written by dead white men. Instead these young teachers' heads were filled with politically affirming stories of downtrodden people deserving the best and getting it only when laws were changed or when action was taken by governments. Funny how none of these stories ever relied on actions by individuals to save the day. But socialist regimes rely on groupthink and group activities and those are the very things that condition smart kids to carry the rest. The result: well you see it on the streets of Madison.

What can you say about unions? Unions had their place. There's no doubt that appalling conditions of child labor and dangerous working situations were changed because of unions. But it is also true that unions are far more concerned in their own success over the success of the business in which the rank and file work. Unions destroyed American manufacturing, the auto industry being a prime example. Had GM been allowed to fail, union contracts would have had to be renegotiated. But Obama was indebted to union organization for votes, so he managed to create funds that bought out GM. And we will never see that money paid back. Card check, buyouts, exemption from the healthcare bill and countless other actions have been promoted by the White House and backed by muscle from such entities as SEIU and AFT. When you have the president calling out political activists to intervene in a state funding issue, that is invasive policy and demonstrates the absolute disdain this White House has for the states. In a larger measure this also tells us that Wisconsin is not the end of this fight but may be only the start. I know there is talk of Texas teachers gathering in Austin on March 12th. I do not know if I will be there or not. But I do know that I will not support unions in this state.