Union Bosses Undermine Conscientious Educators – – Big Labor-Backed Rules Make Online Teaching Virtually Impossible
From the National Right to Work Committee Newsletter, June, 2020
But regardless of what Mr. Newsom intended, the sweeping monopoly privileges that California law accords to teacher union bosses rendered his promise altogether unkeepable.
In the weeks that followed, government union bigwigs demanded and obtained deals, including a host of provisions that benefit primarily educators who care little whether their students learn or not and serve mostly to undermine conscientious educators.
Of course, even though the required work hours are being drastically cut this spring for unionized teachers in San Diego and the vast majority of other school districts in California, pay and benefits are continuing as usual.
If Internet Instruction Doesn’t Count, Why Should Kids Bother to Show Up?
In the “memorandum of understanding” between SDEA bosses and the SDUSD, the lack of accountability explicitly extends to teachers, as Ms. Taketa explained:
“Like students, teachers also will be ‘held harmless,’ meaning they won’t be evaluated or disciplined based on how they provide distance learning or the quality of their instruction during this time”!
For example, Chicago Teachers Union (CTU/AFT) boss Jesse Sharkey declared in a screed penned in mid-April that it’s “just plain cruel” and “wrong to assign letter grades” for any work completed at any time this school semester.
And the San Francisco Chronicle has reported that school union bosses in the City by the Bay support giving all students A’s, regardless of performance.
While some teachers undoubtedly do regard what amounts to a paid extended vacation for themselves, at taxpayers’ expense, as a benefit, many teachers who are trying to make the best of a bad situation detest the regime put in place at union bosses’ behest.
For an April 12 article in the Chronicle regarding the “lack of teaching at many schools” during the coronavirus closures, staff writer Jill Tucker spoke with Oakland Technical High School English teacher Brennan Nicholas.
Mr. Nicholas told Ms. Tucker he was seeing fewer than half of his students show up for online classes because they know “grading won’t be punitive.”
Inordinate Influence of Teacher Union Bosses Is A Nationwide Problem
National Right to Work Committee Vice President Mary King commented:
“The interests of talented, hard-working teachers, along with the interests of concerned parents and schoolchildren who want to learn, are routinely shortchanged by government union bosses.
“Big Labor’s cynical exploitation of COVID-19 school shutdowns to advance its anti-education agenda is just the latest example. And today there is not even one of the 50 states where education policymaking is free from the inordinate influence of teacher union bosses.
“However, thanks in large part to the persistent and determined lobbying efforts of Right to Work members and supporters, 15 states have refused to mandate union monopoly bargaining over teachers’ pay, benefits, and work rules.