WhatFinger


The overwhelming majority of public schools in the United States suffer discontent and strife because of the rapacious teachers unions, the AFT and the NEA

Fire "Red For Ed" Teachers And Start Over



Fire Red For Ed Teachers And Start Over,Go online and do research on the recent West Virginia teachers strike, and low and behold, the Democratic Media Industrial Complex all get in line to report on this non-catastrophe. They are all there: National Public Radio, the New York Times, CNN, USA Today, CBS News, and Time Magazine --to get behind the teachers union like Pavlov's dogs. As the West Virginia House of Delegates killed a bill that would allow for charter schools and private school vouchers, the American Federation of Teachers was there to celebrate its political muscle and their continual ability to give students the finger. According to the print edition of NPR, cheers came from the rooms in the Capitol where teachers on strike had assembled, and Fred Albert, president of West Virginia chapter of the American Federation of Teachers, told The Associated Press, "It was very clear today that the House heard our voice."
What is that voice? That any state legislator anywhere in the United States that crosses the teachers' unions will be belled like the cat. How? Simple. In every state legislative district there is one constituency with the overwhelming power to ruin the political career of an aspiring legislator in some small city, town or hamlet, and with it, that chance for that beloved state pension for life: the teachers' unions. Those outfits being, the AFT, add it's a little-less-radical younger sibling, the National Education Association. Who can ever forget the famous, perhaps apocryphal, quote of AFT Union President Albert Shanker in 1985, "When schoolchildren start paying union dues, that's when I'll start representing the interests of schoolchildren." And so it goes. Let's talk about how this unholy alliance works. Public school teachers vote for the local school boards, which make the decisions about how much teachers ought to be paid. It's the same with city government, with city councils setting the salaries for city workers. West Virginia, which voted overwhelmingly for President Trump, wanted to expand options for parents to start charter schools and to have education savings accounts. No, No, No, said the AFT, we can't "leech" money away from our underperforming public schools, which recently were ranked 45th in the nation for quality by U.S. News and World Report. Only in government is failure so enthusiastically rewarded. What would be the only sensible response to these increasingly fanatical teachers unions, which have run aggressive strike actions in Los Angeles and Denver, and in Nevada, Arizona and Oklahoma? Local school boards ought to fire as many of these union teachers as possible and start over by giving parents the resources to send their children to the schools of their choice, and end the near monopoly of public (government) schools. Here is the prime example, the dirty little secret, of the ineffectiveness of public schools compared to private or parochial schools: There is a straight line correlation between student academic performance and household income on standardized tests. In other words, no matter how much government schools try to indoctrinate students with politically correct propaganda and educational fads, they can't do anything to help underprivileged kids success on par with affluent youngsters. Conversely, children from economically disadvantaged families that win lotteries to attend charter schools or are lucky enough to win scholarships to private or parochial schools, achieve at a higher level without respect to family financial background!

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These strikes by the teachers unions are now all taking place under the "Red For Ed" banner, which, no surprise, is led by socialist political ideologues. What's truly remarkable though is that these union activists who at one time would have said they were non-partisan, now freely and unabashedly align themselves with the Red Flag of Marxism. The overwhelming majority of public schools in the United States suffer discontent and strife because of the rapacious teachers unions, the AFT and the NEA, and they will forever for as long as those two organizations are the most reliable donors to the Democrat Party, which they are. Every young person in America deserves the opportunity to go to a charter school or a private or parochial school, free from union interference as possible. It is the civil right issue of present day America. Sentencing poor Americans to public government schools is immoral, when the solution is so readily at hand. How is it possible that we can allow public school teachers to have so much political power to the detriment of students? Especially in an environment when the information revolution has made knowledge accessible to anyone with a computer or smart phone? This is insane. Let's also remove the federal government from meddling in education, which ought to be a matter of local control, closest to the people it would be designed to serve, the students, and not the teachers, which is what happens now all too often.


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Daniel Wiseman -- Bio and Archives

Daniel Wiseman is an independent political commentator, who focuses on national and international affairs. He spent nine years as a professional journalist in Wyoming before working in fund-raising, non-profit management, and is now working in New York City. Wiseman focuses his writing on how to bring the United States back to its Constitutional moorings.  He writes exclusively for Canada Free Press.


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