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2018-08-04 Home Front: Politix
Teachers' Unions Plan to Become ‘More Political, Not Less Political'
h/t Instapundit
In a landmark First Amendment decision, the Supreme Court ruled earlier this summer in Janus v. AFSCME that states cannot require public employees to pay "agency fees" to unions. Prior to the decision, in 22 states, public employees who chose not to join a union could still be required to pay these fees ‐ somewhat less than full dues ‐ for union services. Some have suggested that unions might temper their left-wing politics in response to the decision, in the hopes of wooing potential members put off by union politics.

For unions, the stakes could hardly be higher. Kate Walsh, president of the National Council on Teacher Quality, warns that surveys show "many [teachers] see dues as too high" and "political activity as too leftist"; she also notes that "only half of all teachers voted for Hillary Clinton." Internal documents from the National Education Association (NEA), the nation’s largest teachers’ union, anticipate that the union will lose a whopping 300,000 members. Things look even bleaker for the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), the nation’s other major teachers’ union, which has 15 of its 22 largest state affiliates in former agency-fee states ‐ and already had fewer than half its members paying full dues.

By happenstance, both unions held their big national conventions in July, providing a chance to scour the tea leaves for subtle hints as to how the unions might woo reluctant members, especially the hefty share who take issue with the leftist bent that has characterized the unions in recent decades.

...It turns out that the tea leaves weren’t that hard to read, after all. At the NEA’s annual convention and representative assembly in Minneapolis, things kicked off on day one with Parkland survivor and woke gun-control activist David Hogg joining NEA president Lily Eskelsen García on stage to exhort the cheering throng, "There’s nothing more powerful in America than a pissed-off teacher." The NEA also made time to award its Human and Civil Rights Award ‐ given to those who have "demonstrated remarkable courage and conviction to stand up for racial and social justice" ‐ to recipients including First Lady Michelle Obama and former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick.

The NEA adopted 122 total New Business Items, including commitments to promote the Black Lives Matter Week of Action (including supporting BLM’s demand that "ethnic studies be taught in pre-K-12 schools"), to support "a strategy postponing confirmation of a Supreme Court justice until after the mid-term election," and to encourage teachers to assign readings that "describe and deconstruct the systemic proliferation of a White supremacy culture and its constituent elements of White privilege and institutional racism." The NEA also promised to respond "in support of and in solidarity with immigrant families who are separated, incarcerated, or refused their legal right to request asylum due to the heartless, racist, and discriminatory zero-tolerance policies of the Trump administration."

Posted by g(r)omgoru 2018-08-04 04:53|| || Front Page|| [6 views ]  Top

#1 Sounds like Trump should offer homeschoolers a tax credit.
Posted by Bright Pebbles 2018-08-04 07:17||   2018-08-04 07:17|| Front Page Top

#2 Sounds like Trump should offer homeschoolers a tax credit.

A well deserved white oak, GP Large tent stake through the heart of the so-called Teachers' Union.
Posted by Besoeker 2018-08-04 07:22||   2018-08-04 07:22|| Front Page Top

#3 nation-wide Charter School creation
Posted by Frank G 2018-08-04 08:39||   2018-08-04 08:39|| Front Page Top

#4 The NEA - now there's a 'tits on a bull' useless agency. Get rid of it.
Posted by Raj 2018-08-04 09:37||   2018-08-04 09:37|| Front Page Top

#5 NEA is a union which any set of idiots is free to have and belong to. Dept. of Education and National Endowment for the Arts? Shut 'em down...
Posted by M. Murcek 2018-08-04 09:46||   2018-08-04 09:46|| Front Page Top

#6 ^ My bad - I was thinking about the Dept. of Education, and how it was created (Carter agreed to do that in exchange for the NEA's support for him in the 1976 election). That's how I first got interested in politics.
Posted by Raj 2018-08-04 11:04||   2018-08-04 11:04|| Front Page Top

#7 "More political"--how will we be able to tell the difference?
Posted by Tom 2018-08-04 12:11||   2018-08-04 12:11|| Front Page Top

#8 Exactly Tom. The current teachers unions aren't exactly known for staying on the sidelines.
Posted by DarthVader 2018-08-04 12:22||   2018-08-04 12:22|| Front Page Top

#9 So the non-political teachers will stop paying fees, school districts will stop automatically withholding fees for them to funnel directly to the unions, and the rump membership will make their significantly reduced funding work much harder to produce political results... generating more ill will from potential members who see them ignoring local contract negotiations to purchase participation in the political arena.

A double win for the anti-unionists — in both the short- and mid-term.
Posted by trailing wife 2018-08-04 13:35||   2018-08-04 13:35|| Front Page Top

#10 Possibly even a virtuous cycle.
Posted by trailing wife 2018-08-04 13:36||   2018-08-04 13:36|| Front Page Top

#11 #1 Sounds like Trump should offer homeschoolers a tax credit.

McConnell and Ryan will nip that right in the bud.

Go to

https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/6470/text

and scroll to Title III for what Paulie NoNuts is proposing to spend directly on "education".
Posted by charger 2018-08-04 13:55||   2018-08-04 13:55|| Front Page Top

#12 This Educational system is not designed for the Children. It is designed for that GODDAMN Worthless GUnion.

Burn the whole Prussian piece of shit system down and start again from scratch.

There is no excuse for the ignorance coming out of the K-12 systems today.

They leave high school dumber than when they came out of the Womb. Only to attend the Marxist Madrassahs of the Aholio College system.

It has never been so crazy...
and Criminal.
Posted by newc 2018-08-04 15:21||   2018-08-04 15:21|| Front Page Top

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