(This post is certified safe in the politically correct zone. No mention of presidential candidates or hot button issues….)
That’s a great way to introduce this post, because I’m wondering today … Are our public schools now more about education, or more about politics? That includes parents who dress their children in provocative political T-shirts. That also includes lobbying groups that hide behind the skirts of a classroom teacher to defend their support of deceptive political propaganda.
What am I talking about? An absurd Speakout column in today’s Rocky Mountain News, co-authored by former CEA Teacher of the Year (and hand-picked CEA representative on the governor’s P-20 Council) Adele Bravo, attacking a series of initiatives on the state ballot with hollow arguments and deceptive rhetoric. Bravo is bylined as “a teacher in Lafayette,” just like her co-author, a local union president, is bylined as “a firefighter in Littleton.”
There isn’t much I can write here about the arguments and the amendments themselves that doesn’t already seem to have been taken care of in the comment section by keen readers (including the article’s insinuation that a vast array of newspapers, community leaders, and civic groups constitutes “narrow special interests” pushing a “reckless agenda”—makes you wonder who the “narrow special interests” really are).
Arguments and amendments aside, it’s what the rhetoric says about the current state of public education in Colorado that is most intriguing. The union authors seek to tie their opposition to the three measures to “speaking up for smaller class sizes” and advocating “for the tools and resources we need to educate your children.” This is merely code speak for “our union leaders would have a harder time getting members to toe (and subsidize) the party line, and we might actually have to focus harder on representing individual members’ interests.” But that doesn’t sound as compelling in a newspaper column.
CEA and its parent NEA have given nearly $1.3 million to the committee fighting Amendments 47, 49, and 54. Yet rather than putting their own name on the baseless attacks published in the Rocky, they find “a teacher” to do it. Maybe they don’t want to be the face of public opposition because CEA recently hired a lobbyist as their executive director. Such an approach tends to lend credence to an amendment that purports to “keep lobbyists in line.”
I’ve never been inside the lair known as CEA headquarters, but a former CEA staff employee told me what a burning hive of political campaign activity the place is during election season. And how can we forget about the infamous Fort Collins case that detailed CEA’s campaign outsourcing services in a state legislative race? The state supreme court in its less-than-apparent wisdom manufactured an argument to exculpate the union from state campaign finance laws, but an IRS investigation is underway.
When push comes to shove, CEA and NEA align themselves with union hardball politics while hiding behind the children. Has anyone contemplated how this kind of rhetoric (not to mention the millions of dollars of clout behind it) might affect the larger efforts of education reform?
Popularity: 1% [?]
Let’s look at this pragmatically, shall we? Unions will do what it takes to ensure their survival. Are we surprised by this? Are they hiding behind the children? C’mon! To insinuate that the teacher was put up to this reminds me of the stories where students take up an issue, get some publicity and then have people complain that their teacher put them up to it. I don’t have the answer to how this affects the larger issue of education reform. I do know that teacher unions are not going away, nor should they. I believe teacher unions need to distinguish themselves from other “traditional” labor versus owner unions. But there are instances where they should stand together. Amendments 47, 49, and 54 are anti-union measures which necessitates union collaboration to defeat them.
I didn’t get the impression that the teacher was “put up to this”: the point seems to me that there is something very telling in CEA not choosing one of its own officials to byline the opinion piece. Interesting how on one hand you say that teacher unions “need to distinguish themselves from other ‘traditional’ labor versus owner unions,” then applaud them for their opposition of Amendment 47. Public education employees, many of whom are represented by CEA, already have the right-to-work protections in Amendment 47. So why oppose it if it doesn’t hurt them? Because CEA leaders can’t “distinguish themselves from other ‘traditional’ labor versus owner unions.” Why the need to “stand together”? Has right-to-work destroyed CEA and/or public schools? Obviously not.
As far as Amendment 49 goes, it is interesting to see CEA and the labor union coalition more and more isolated in their opposition. Their group has raised $7 million to attack these initiatives, and the Denver Post, Rocky Mountain News, Colorado Springs Gazette, and Boulder Daily Camera all not only can see the arguments against 49 are bunk, but also that 47 & 49 are separate issues. Lumping them together further confuses and misleads voters. It’s just sad, but predictable, to see CEA as a party to all this.
At its core CEA is still a union and attempts to limit the influence of unions will be fought by unions. This is a different issue from my “traditional union” point. As for 49, why does the Independence Institute allow for United Way deductions to still take place under their proposal? They argue that the United Way doesn’t lobby the government which is a weak rationalization at best. The school districts pay money to outside contactors, who then go on to lobby the government. What’s the difference? In negotiations between labor and management one of the agreements in master agreements is the automatic deduction of dues. Should we put an amendment into the state contitution that overides local control over school districts and their negotiations with the local teacher’s unions as well?
[...] first two on the list were committees organized to defeat a series of three reform initiatives on the 2008 state ballot, including a Right-to-Work amendment (which ironically, Colorado teachers [...]
[...] Policy Center ($40,000) The first two on the list were committees organized to defeat a series of three reform initiatives on the 2008 state ballot, including a Right-to-Work amendment (which ironically, Colorado teachers [...]