The Sorry, but Unapologetic, Teachers Unions
Unions demand apologies, but refuse to make any themselves.
The cover of the November 3rd edition of Time Magazine reads “It’s nearly impossible to fire a bad teacher; some tech millionaires may have found a way to change that.” Accompanying the text is a photo of a judge’s gavel about to pound an apple.
The story, “The War on Teacher Tenure,” is mostly about the Vergara decision – in which a judge found that the tenure, seniority and dismissal statutes in the California education code are unconstitutional. The article focuses on Vergara’s guiding light – David Welch, a tech titan who has found a second career as an education reformer. It’s a fair piece, and one worthy of discussion.
But instead of delving into the merits of the article, the teacher union elite and fellow travelers went ballistic over the mildly provocative cover – the outrage reaching satirical proportions worthy of The Onion. American Federation of Teachers leader Randi Weingarten said she “felt sick” when she saw it. After ingesting a bowlful of Maalox, the union leader began to organize a protest and circulated a petition demanding an apology from Time Magazine. The AFT claimed the cover “casts teachers as ‘rotten apples’ needing to be smashed by Silicon Valley millionaires with no experience in education.” While the AFT and Weingarten are busy pointing out the lack of teaching experience of technology leaders, they neglect to mention that Weingarten doesn’t have any to speak of either. To puff up her cred, she frequently refers to her “teaching experience,” but it hardly exists; she taught on a per diem basis from 1991-1997 – a total of 122 days. I think the proper term here is “part-time, occasional, temporary sub.”
Time admirably refused to cave in to the unionistas. Instead, it invited various aggrieved parties to respond online. And the teachers union claque did just that, expressing outrage – outrage at the magazine in particular and at “outsiders” in general. National Education Association president Lily Garcia attacked the “wolves of Wall Street.” Some members of the Badass Teachers Association – a group that claims to represent 53,000 teachers – solemnly intoned, “The gavel as a symbol of corporate education, smashing the apple – the universal symbol of education – reinforces a text applauding yet another requested deathblow to teacher tenure.” In a blog, Badass Teacher Association cofounder Mark Naison wrote, “Time’s campaign epitomizes everything wrong with the crusade for ‘School Reform’ that has become a national obsession since the passage of No Child Left Behind. It is financed and driven by business leaders, not educators.”
With one or two exceptions, they insisted that Time apologize … or else.
But maybe the teachers unions should come up with a few apologies of their own and provide Time a pathway to contrition. For example:
- Maybe the California Federation of Teachers should apologize for posting a nauseating cartoon on its website in 2012. The Ed Asner narrated presentation promotes class warfare by showing rich folks urinating on poor people.
- Maybe Randi Weingarten should apologize to Marshall Tuck, who is running for California School Superintendent. Her union financed a slanderous TV ad which, among other things, shows a businessman stealing a child’s lunch, and ridiculously asserts that Tuck will allow corporate fat cats to take over our schools.
- Maybe The New York State United Teachers – an AFT affiliate – should apologize for a vile mailer it sent picturing a battered woman, suggesting that if Republican Mark Grisanti is elected as state senator, “he won’t protect her from her abuser.” The NYSUT-led campaign is so disgusting that even Democrats have roundly excoriated the union.
- Maybe Michael Mulgrew, president of the United Federation of Teachers, should apologize to those of us who have issues with the Common Core State Standards. Doing his best Joe Pesci impersonation, he menacingly seethed at an AFT convention, “If someone takes something from me (control of the standards), I’m going to grab it right back out of their cold, twisted, sick hands and say it is mine! You do not take what is mine! And I’m going to punch you in the face and push you in the dirt because this is the teachers’! These are our tools and you sick people need to deal with us and the children that we teach. Thank you very much!”
- Maybe teachers unions should apologize for their collective mantra that “corporations should pay their fair share of taxes.” The atonement is due because, while U.S. corporations have the highest tax rate in the world, the teacher unions don’t pay a penny in taxes. That means that the NEA and AFT bring in about $560 million tax-free dollars year after year. And when you add in the state and local union affiliates, the amount soars to over $2 billion. All tax-free. (In fact it’s not just the teachers unions; no union has to pay any tax on its “earnings.”)
- Maybe Badass Teachers Association guiding light Mark Naison should apologize to America. He was a founding member of the Weatherman, the violent, hate-filled group that was involved in murder and mayhem in the early 1970s.
- Maybe the California Teachers Association should apologize for disregarding its members and spending dues money that favors only the needs and desires of the union bosses. CTA will end up spending over $10 million to defeat Marshall Tuck in today’s election – most of it teachers’ dues money. Union activists are going all out – walking precincts, working phone banks, etc. – in an effort to stave off Tuck’s challenge to incumbent and union darling Tom Torlakson. But as Mike Antonucci writes,
Odd, then, that the Field Poll shows support for Torlakson from union households in California at an anemic 31%, with 23% backing Tuck, and 46% undecided. That’s after months of hyping Torlakson through every available union communications outlet.
The question arises: If 69% of union households are not, or not yet, backing Torlakson, how did the unions approve spending $10 million on his behalf?
That’s a rhetorical question, of course. The answer is that CTA practices representative democracy in reverse. Decisions are made by the small handful of officers and shop stewards who participate in union activities. Then they justify, promote and sell these decisions to the membership-at-large – using the members’ own money to do so. (Emphasis added.)
But seriously folks… don’t hold your breath in anticipation of CTA or any teachers union apologizing for anything. Ain’t gonna happen. Also, don’t expect them to ever right any of the wrongs that they have foisted on our children, their parents and all taxpayers. In California, due to the union-inflicted tenure and dismissal statutes, on average just of 2 “permanent” teachers a year lose their job due to incompetence. That’s 2 bad apples out of about 300,000. In my almost 30 years in the classroom, there were always at least 2 teachers at my school alone who shouldn’t have been allowed near children. This is not a secret; go into any school and ask who the incompetents are and you will get almost identical answers from teachers, kids, their parents, the principal, the assistant principal, guidance counselors, janitors, bus drivers, school secretaries and lunch ladies.
But instead of relaxing their intolerable policies, the unions divert attention by whining about a magazine cover. And while they do that, the rest of us – including parents, serious teachers, community members and yes, corporate types and tech gurus – are trying to make a troubled system better. American children can’t wait a minute longer for the unions and labor-friendly school districts to willingly cede any of their onerous work rules. And they will never apologize for the mess they have made and continue to make of our public education system. In that sense, at least, they are one sorry bunch.
Larry Sand, a former classroom teacher, is the president of the non-profit California Teachers Empowerment Network – a non-partisan, non-political group dedicated to providing teachers and the general public with reliable and balanced information about professional affiliations and positions on educational issues. The views presented here are strictly his own.