By Mark Naison
The movement to unionize America’s low wage workers is an important compliment to the movement to strengthen and protect public education.
Strong schools require strong families and strong neighborhoods. People who have to work two or three jobs to support their families don’t have time to be involved in their children’s education, either at home or at school. Raising their pay allows them to better fulfill their citizenship obligations. That is why those who are attacking unions in the name of strengthening schools are so misguided. In the US today, unions are more a part of the Solution than a part of the Problem.
We need to make Arne Duncan, Bill Gates, Obama, The Clintons and other so called liberals etc realize their ” Education Reforms” have failed miserably and have lost public support.
Swarm them every opportunity you get, via email, on twitter, in social media. Bombard them with the evidence of their own failure. And warn them of the political consequences of adhering to failed and unpopular policies.
The pressure is working. They are feeling it. On Testing. On Charters. On Common Core. On Union Busting and Attacks on Tenure and Due Process.
Smash the linkage between “liberalism” and School Reform
And above all remind them that a War on Teachers is not a War on Poverty.
We have enough problems with Conservatives trying to dismantle public education entirely.
We don’t need Liberals doing the same thing under a different name
We know of many parents who work two & three jobs and are very involved in their children’s education. We also know many affluent parents who are not involved in school affairs at all. We know many parents who would like to be more involved in their civic duties but the school administration and other elected officials actively seek ways to keep parents at bay, uninformed,and unwelcome, in their own children’s education. And by the way – the unions are a big part of the problem especially when they embolden some of the people they represent to believe they are invincible and immune to consequences of abuses of taxpayer trust and sub par performance of their duties as public servants.
Are there some examples of this taxpayer abuse on the part of unions that might support this accusation?