Pardon Me Union Official, but Your Slip is Showing

Want any further proof that teachers unions are interested in only power and not what is best for the students?  Take a look at this. Unions leaders are scrambling to get the teachers at charter schools under the union umbrella and they are trying to do it as fast as they can before those affected (charter school kids and their parents) can push back.

“If we do not figure out how to organize charter schools and if we are not successful in doing that, we will end up in the same place as the auto workers.  So there is no more key question before us as a union and a broader labor movement with regard to education than how we approach charter schools and our ability to organize them.”

“Organizing a charter school is like organizing WalMart. This is not traditional public sector organizing.”

“The battle has to be to organize those schools.  If those schools are organized, do you think WalMart is going to be pouring money into them?”

“I am for the position that charter schools are ratty and should be abolished yet at the same time we should organize them – I agree with that position.”

The first three quotes above were given at a socialist Left Forum and can be attributed to Leo Casey, the Vice President of the United Federation of Teachers. The final quote was spoken at the same forum and was given by Stanley Arnonwitz who is a union activist and former Green Party candidate for Governor.  I want you to read them over again and then note that there was not a word about the impact charter schools might be having on the children attending.  Nope, it was all about gaining a keeping power. Never mind how the children might be impacted one way or another.

The other thing I would like for you notice is where these individuals were speaking. It wasn’t in Congress, or at a teacher’s rally. It was a socialist forum. While is in no way surprises me, it does continue to disturb me. To have a union official speak to a group of socialist kind of removes the curtain that now exposes the linkage between unions and the far left. I know that both the linkage and the exposure have been going on for some time now, but that is the reason why it continues to disturb me.

A few years back my boy went to a charter school funded by the Bill and Belinda Gates Foundation. During the year he attended the school, he had his highest achievements. The teachers at the charter school were able to give him a solid foundation because they recognized where his strengths and weaknesses were.  They focused on the weaknesses and built on the strengths. It took extra time by the teachers, time they were willing to give.  But now that he is back in public schools, most of his teachers do their time required and then depart the building. When he was struggling with a particular subject the only time his teacher could give to him was during his class period. He had asked if she would be willing to stay after school and she said no. Fortunately he was able to get the help he needed from his parents and from a couple of friends. When we tried to complain to the school, the principal said his hands were tied by the union contract that stated how many hours each and week the teacher could work.

When you hear and read statements like the one by Leo Casey, their support for ending the school voucher program in Washington DC, and see the events occur in places like Wisconsin, you begin to realize that the unions do not care one iota about the kids.  Their only concerns are how much power they can get and maintain.

One of my favorite commentators is Neal Boortz and he has railed against government schools for years. He has been saying government schools are on an all-out assault on our basic rights. He mostly keys in on property rights by describing how many schools require students to turn in all of their supplies into community property. This is a special tactic by the left to teach young minds how the world should be in a progressive society.  And as a tool of the left the unions are culpable in this mindset that they must not let the young children learn about individual rights, only collective rights. Since charter schools tend to focus on the individual students by all the extra hard work done by those charter schools teachers, there is no way the left (unions) can let this stand.