Teachers Leave the Classroom to Occupy Wall Street in NYC

The video is entitled: Educators use Occupy Movement to Empower Students, Defend Public Education.

Questions:

• What do you think of this video and the actions of the teachers?
  
• Do these protests empower students?
  
• Do we have a public system of education that needs an overhaul or should Americans be happy with the taxes paid for the education delivered in the present system?
• Are all the problems experienced in public education due to the 1%?
• Where do the unions' influence in the 1% lie?
• How much of this frustration shown have to do with policies set by the Department of Education vs private influence?
  
• How much influence does a school board have any longer in setting school policies? Have school boards become ineffective since they can no longer set standards and assessments?
  

Union Education Must Begin In Elementary School

AFL-CIO Secretary Treasurer Liz Shuler said, in an interview for People’s World, the on-line newsletter of the Communist Party USA, that the unions need to bring their message to elementary level education. "High school is too late" to educate students about unions and workers, said Shuler. To support her contention, she pointed to the students who went with their teachers to the recent protest in Madison WI. Wisconsin had passed a mandate for labor education within the public school system years ago. Perhaps she didn’t really pay attention to the interviews with some of those students who said they weren’t sure why they were there. Another group of students freely admitted they were just there to get out of going to school. Is it possible to sincerely protest in support of better conditions for the people most directly responsible for keeping you where you don’t want to be?

It would appear from Ms. Shuler’s comments that the goal is not improved education for the child, merely a more union friendly student. One commenter noted on another site that picked up this story that, while she did receive some education about labor while in school, she got all the education about unions she needed from seeing them strike in her home town of NYC, seeing the damage they did to private property in their protests and watching what they did to her chosen profession, teaching. Now, after 40 years of teaching, she said she had “not encountered a high school teacher possessing the knowledge that [she] had in tenth grade.”

Never was there a more clear case of a group viewing your children as human capitol to be shaped by the needs of the workforce. "When school children start paying union dues, that's when I'll start representing the interests of school children."- Albert Shanker (President of the United Federation of Teachers from 1964 to 1984 and President of the American Federation of Teachers from 1974 to 1997.) Need we say more?

How Not to Win Friends and Influence People

This is from an online primer listing qualities of a good teacher:

Good teachers....

keep their cool. There will be times when you will be tempted to scream or yell at your students, other teachers, parents, administrators, and so on. Good teachers are able to successfully resist this urge.

I hope this woman is not a teacher in Missouri but she could be as members from the MO NEA drove to Wisconsin to join the union protests. Let's hope she doesn't teach character education.

Is this a Lesson in Hypocrisy from the American Federation of Teachers?

The Washington Examiner reports the head of the American Federation of Teachers, Randi Weingarten, has an issue with a government panel dealing with budgetary concerns...but not with her own financial situation:

American Federation of Teachers president Rhonda “Randi” Weingarten has issued a statement slamming proposed cuts from the congressional deficit commission for not pushing shared sacrifice among the wealthy, but an AFT spokesman has told The Examiner that Weingarten will not be taking a paycut from the total $428,284 she received in salary and benefits during fiscal year 2010.

It's easy enough not to sacrifice any of your paycheck and benefits when it is funded by union members' dues whose salaries are paid by taxpayers. Are you weary of the call to "shared sacrifice" that isn't shared by any of the parties calling upon the sacrifice? Is this what we call leadership?

Here is an piece chronicling Obama's vision vs. the Christie Principle which provides a clear contrast of calling others to "shared sacrifice" but excusing yourself from financial hardship. Christie addresses this idea of 'sacrifice":

At all times, and especially during a difficult economy, it is unfair for those who run government, and those who receive paychecks from government, to exempt themselves from the difficult financial decisions that other private citizens are required to make.

The "sacrifice" is more like a shell game. As the Examiner article states:

The lesson from the teachers union is clear: Shared sacrifice for thee and not for me.

Should This Message be on Your School's Answering Machine?

Bad education in our schools is not always due to choice architects, or the teachers' unions, bad administrators, or the Department of Education. Sometimes it is the parents who sabotage their children.

This video has been out for awhile, but it's good sometimes to take an overview of the educational problems in the public school system and understand there are many actors in this play. It has been proven to be a hoax, but actually, there is alot of truth in this clever video.

Enjoy the Aussie humor.