I need to work through this in several parts. In the first part, I reported that California teachers are the best paid in the nation, bounce out of school ten months out of the year with one of the best gold-plated benefit and retirement plans in the nation, with a salary higher than most households in the state. And this in a state with a near 20% dropout rate and SAT scores near the bottom. In Part II, I told you how teachers are abusing your children with propaganda to further their political goals, and that they see it as their right to do so. In this part, we will review the parent reaction to the propaganda, the Union and ACORN involvement. While this is happening here in California today, this could happen in your state soon.
The California Teachers Association The California Teachers Association -- their name is a clever lie, a twist on the ostensibly non-partisan Parent Teacher Association. They are not an association, but a union, led by a union thug.
They have a student chapter organization as well, through which they give members of the student CTA awards for Political Action to students that create “issue awareness around vouchers, IDEA funding, and state-mandated new teacher rights” and those who “help elect pro-public education officials.” Talk about brainwashing.
Then there is the United Teachers Los Angeles Union, led by A.J. Duffy, pictured here. (This man has no neck!) There is a long and sordid history about the Union thugs bribing other organizations for support of political aims. The unions openly run candidates in school board elections to gain control of the school boards -- the very entities they being paid to represent the teachers. The unions are supposed to bargain with the school boards -- not run them.ACORN-Union Grandstanding The UTLA (the Los Angeles teachers Union) joined forces with ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) in a civil disobedience act attempting to get arrested and thus grandstand for the television cameras. The press ‘failed to report’ the fact that ACORN was involved, but thanks to NewsBusters, the truth can be told about ACORN’s involvement.
Longstanding ACORN-IAF-NEA-CTA Left Wing Socialist Associations. You have every right to know about the ACORN-UTLA association, as it goes back to at least 2004. This google search reveals the depth of the association. Why just in the first document I found this:
Along with ACORN, MoveOn.org, Campaign for America’s Future, NAACP Voter Fund, and the U.S. Hispanic Leadership Institute, the NEA is sponsoring a national approach to making public education part of the national agenda in the upcoming elections. Every local union, including UTLA, is being asked to host a House Party and to invite parents and community members…
and this (from then UTLA President John Perez).
We have broadened our community ties by working with organizations that share our goal of improving public education. Tens of thousands of our students’ parents not to mention many UTLA members, such as chapter chairs Sal Valdez and Charlotte Vrooman—belong to the Industrial Areas Foundation, ACORN, or POWER.
ACORN, MoveOn.org, Campaign for America’s Future, NAACP Voter Fund, and the U.S. Hispanic Leadership Institute all support the left wing liberal agenda. Saul Alinsky formed the Industrial Areas Foundation in the 1940’s, where one Barack Obama learned how to do ‘community organizing. I have never heard of POWER but you can guess what it does. Perez explains they should be involved with “everything that affects our community” including “health care” and financially supporting strikes by other unions.
Carl goes into great detail how the teachers unions promote a social justice agenda across the spectrum while giddily gorging themselves on union dues, paying themselves extravagant salaries. He concludes: “Were I a teacher, I'd try to decertify my union. … if education is so important -- and it is -- why are schools still struggling under a socialist, nationalized model?”
Fired First: Teacher of the Year -- Socialism at its Best. Naturally, when government budgets are straining, the first thing they tell you they will cut are police, fire and other essential services. It is never the worthless bureaucrat that loses his job, but the people on the front line that affect your life. So in this round of layoffs, it is teacher of the year. You don’t think that Tenured Tom the gym teacher goes to the extra effort to earn teacher of the year, do you? That’s right, because of teacher tenure, layoffs depend solely on the hire date. Just when you might want to get rid of that old dead worthless wood, the Union makes you fire teacher of the year instead. Dear Readers, thank your teachers union for that. By the way, I’d start with cutting fully paid gold-plated benefits for part-time cafeteria workers. If a pimple-faced punk can sling hash browns at McDonalds for not much more than eight bucks an hour, why do we need to give free medical and dental ($20 Crowns!) to Rosie the lunch lady?
Questions: Look around you, who is not cutting expenses in your neighborhood, your city, your state? With unemployment increasing to double digits everywhere, does anyone think that school districts should be immune from budget problems?
Parents Intimidated by Calls for Support of Pink[o] Friday The so-called ‘mainstream media’ reported several hundred times over about teacher protests and there are many mentions of students wearing pink in support, you need to look elsewhere for parent reactions. And parents are not happy. They are intimidated. Here is a typical reaction: “…my two kids were told by their teachers to wear pink to support the union. I told my kids- no way. they think the other kids and especially the teachers will get mad if they don't and they are afraid to go to school. what do i do?”
A lone story on the Examiner.com is the sole representative of ‘the other side’:
There is plenty of opposition to the teacher abuse of their position to dispense propaganda to our children. But, not a single ‘mainstream media’ report on it.The cuts in public education will impact our kids with possible damage for years to come, no doubt. But with the controversy between tenured teachers and more junior teachers, administrators, school districts, school boards, parents and especially the teachers’ unions, is it fair to throw our kids in the mix and further divide loyalties?
It is easy to prove the union’s opposition to merit pay and reform of education by abolishing tenure, the practice of keeping a teacher employed based on a hire date. This tenure practice is isolated mostly to the sector of the teaching profession. Many school districts, administrators, parents and possibly now even our president, opposes the union’s views on education. And as I’ve learned, there is no parent who wants a teacher in front of their child’s class based on his or her hire date.
This brings me to "Pink Friday" and our students. Many students across Los Angeles were encouraged to wear pink today to school. This so-called request for a spirit day may not have impressed many parents in the public school communities. The main reason being that they had no idea what it meant. More troubling is that the students themselves had no idea what it meant. Even more suspicious, many students were offered extra credit to wear pink today. With so many political positions with respect to education reform pressing us, it seems unnatural to ask children to protest or support any cause unwittingly.
As for my daughter, who was offered extra credit to wear pink, I explained to her the meaning of this protest and the statement attached to it, lest she be tricked into protesting without foundation for her position. In the end, I let her go ahead and wear her pink tie today. Why? Because she said, "I’m not supporting a cause. I just want to wear my new pink tie. And, I sort of need the extra credit." And my son? He said he was asked to wear pink today to support breast cancer awareness. Neither child was told the truth about "Pink Friday."
Pinko Friday The color pink (chosen by the teachers union) has a fair similitude with the term 'pinko', which lends too much credence to the socialistic nature of the group it is too much to ignore. The union also uses red as its color of choice for demonstrations.
Socialist Teachers? AVI defends my use of the term socialist to describe the teacher ‘antics of the day.’ As individuals, I have great respect for our teachers. They are well paid for a tough job. However, when they demonstrate in front of our children, when they bribe, cajole or encourage our kids to support their cause, they cross the line. It is intimidation.
I ask all teachers that participated in Pinko Friday protests, and especially those that asked their students to support them -- is this why you became a teacher? To abuse your position of power and use your influence over our children to further your political position? This quite vocal group of teachers openly and brazenly educates our children according to their left-leaning political agenda instead of the approved curriculum.
In conclusion: Ours is a single-choice government-operated school system (except for special schools for the wealthy, gifted and elite). You give your money to the government, who gives it to the teachers, who give it to the unions who run candidates for the school board and pay off their cohorts to keep themselves in business of representing teachers to the school board. Our unions conspire to maintain and shore up the status quo, and the so-called mainstream media backs them up. Where is the accountability in this system?
One thing that you can do -- write to your favorite newspaper or TV station and ask them why they didn’t cover parent objections to Pinko Friday.
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