Unions Continue Their Long March into the Classroom
Labor union indoctrination is seeping into our schools before our very eyes.
Teacher union intrusion into the lives of children is not new. Via anti-child work rules like tenure and seniority, unions have been making their influence felt for years. Additionally, as labor expert Kevin Dayton points out, they have been angling to promote their cause via the curriculum nationally since 1981. Here in California, union propaganda got a big push in 2002 when California governor Gray Davis signed Assembly Bill 1900 into law. As Dayton wrote at the time,
Sponsored by the California Federation of Teachers, this bill recognized the first week of April as ‘Labor History Week’ and authorized public school districts to ‘commemorate that week with appropriate educational exercises that make pupils aware of the role that the labor movement has played in shaping California and the United States.’
At the end of 2012, labor’s “week” morphed into “Labor History Month” (or as I referred to it at the time, “The Not So Merry Month of May”). I pointed out that the lessons suggested by the unions were not simply a celebration of organized workers but a toxic, one-sided, politicized bundle of indoctrination aimed at your kids. A few examples:
- California Federation of Teachers – many “children’s stories,” including one which features a mean farmer and the hens that organize against him.
- California Teachers Association – a bevy of “lessons” which can be readily summed up as “Workers are poor; CEOs are rich.” In other words, Class Warfare 101.
- University of California Miguel Contreras Labor Program – lots of fun stuff for the little ones including an anthology of stories promoting the IWW, a radical union noted for its ties to socialism and anarchism, and a sanitized biography of singing Stalinist Pete Seeger.
The end of 2014 saw the unions on the move again. Every ten years or so, the California Department of Education tinkers with the state’s curriculum, and in Sept. 2014 the review process was initiated for the history framework. The state solicits suggestions from anyone who wants to weigh in and in November, the California Federation of Teachers sent a proposal to California’s Instructional Quality Commission – an advisory body to the California State Board of Education on matters concerning curriculum, instructional materials, and content standards. The missive, unearthed by Dayton, is a doozie. A few highlights:
- CFT wonders why the Second Great Awakening earns a prominent place in the framework. This religious revival, which took place in the late 18th Century, moved beyond the educated elite of New England to those who were less wealthy and less educated, hastening in the temperance, abolition, and women’s rights movements. Instead, CFT wants to minimize the importance of Christianity and, at the same time, include teaching about anti-Muslim discrimination after 9–11. (While there was an uptick in anti-Muslim “hate crimes,” immediately following 9-11, it was short-lived. In fact, Jews today are targeted for their faith six times more frequently Muslims.)
- The union wants the U.S. described as an “empire” not a “world power,” so as to let our kids know that we have regularly has been “dominating other civilizations.” When I read things like this, I can’t help but think about WWII. Germany and Japan – our sworn enemies at the time – were not raped and plundered by us after defeat, but instead assisted by us, rebuilt to become economically sound, independent world powers.)
- Additionally, there’s a plea for a “Labor Studies” elective and in fact, that’s where we are heading. A proposed part of the revamped standards reads, “Students can participate in a collective bargaining simulation to examine the struggles of workers to be paid for the value of their labor and to work under safe conditions. They can examine legislation that gave workers the right to organize into unions, to improve working conditions, and to prohibit discrimination.”
The massive irony here is that the unions are railing against what they perceive to be a sanitized version of U.S. history, but nothing could be further from the truth. As an American history teacher for much of the aughts, I (and every other history teacher I knew) taught extensively about slavery and other injustices of our collective past. We didn’t browbeat the kids, however, into believing that American history was riddled with treachery and malevolence.
And given the opportunity, will the unions tell the full truth about their own history? Of course not. The CFT labor curriculum would be completely sanitized. The teachers unions alone leave us with a toxic waste dump worth of sludge to clean up. For example:
- In 2000, the California Teachers Association spent over $26 million to defeat Prop. 38 – a voucher bill that would have enabled some kids to escape their failing schools.
- Former CFT president Marty Hittleman, referred to the Parent Trigger Law – by which primarily black and Hispanic parents can force a governance change at their children’s defective public school – as a “lynch mob provision.”
- In 2009, National Education Association president Dennis Van Roekel wrote a threatening letter to every Democratic member of Congress, demanding that they vote against the Washington D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program (a voucher program that helps poor kids) … or else. (They dutifully complied en masse.)
- Despite a massive amount of forced dues collected by the teachers unions every year, they (and in fact all unions) don’t pay a penny in tax. As 501(c)(5)’s they have a special exemption from the IRS.
- Union leaders are always railing against the rich and palavering over CEO and worker pay disparity. However, while the average U.S. public school teacher salary for 2013-14 was $56,610, American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten’s income is $543,679 – almost ten times that of the average teacher, while corporate CEOs average $178,400 yearly, just five times that of the average worker.
- In 2012, the California Teachers Association’s bought-and-paid-for state legislators robotically fell into line and killed SB 1530, which would have simplified the process of getting rid of pedophile teachers. (This really shouldn’t have come as a surprise. At its 2004 convention the NEA, CTA’s parent organization, gave its prestigious Human Rights Award to Kevin Jennings, founder of the Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network. GLSEN is the group that presided over the infamous “Fistgate” conference held at Tufts University in Massachusetts in March 2000, where state employees gave explicit instructions about “fisting” and other forms of gay sexual activity to children as young as 12.)
- On CFT’s Facebook page it often reminds people that the 5-day 40-hour work week comes to us courtesy of the unions. Wrong. Thinking it was a good business move, noted capitalist Henry Ford instituted that change in the 1920s. (The United Auto Workers, didn’t come into being until 1935.)
Will the unions insist that we include any of the above in their proposed “Labor Studies” elective? Of course not.
The unions have big plans for your children. If parents (and all citizens) don’t get involved and protest, these unions will add a load of America-trashing and distorted history to the curriculum, and at the same time indoctrinate your kids in the glories of collective bargaining. If this does not sound like something you want, please contact Kenneth McDonald (KMcDonal@cde.ca.gov) at the State Board of Education and express your thoughts.
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.