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Essential, But Not
Teachers are shaping the future and are doing essential work. Well, except they are not to be viewed as essential workers and have decided not to come back to work for a full year or more. Remember, in the beginning of the pandemic last fall, when it was two weeks to slow the spread? Then it turned into “We should just call this year off, it’s already so close to the end of the year, and we’ll spend the summer preparing to get back into the classroom.” Now we’re into almost August, and you know what? They’re just not ready and not willing to risk it. Your kids didn’t do anything resembling okay with online learning last year, but it’ll be fine this year. Well, except, sigh, online learning is draining. On second thought, let’s just cancel that, too.
So what, exactly, *do* they want to do?https://t.co/7FXp6LRPeB pic.twitter.com/yNRW7mTRJ2
— Scot Bertram (@ScotBertram) July 29, 2020
But we’ve learned that the unions are now just saying the quiet part out loud. Because while the middle and upper-class parents in richer districts were complaining about how drained they were by online learning, kids in low-income areas weren’t even getting that last year. Buried in a story about online learning in Chicago we learned this shocking factoid:
"About 80% of high school teachers logged on to the district’s Google digital learning platform at least three days a week last spring, and 55% of elementary teachers did — numbers the district would like to see increase." https://t.co/9V3aChdbua
— Alexander (@alexanderrusso) July 27, 2020
Unions are seeking to capture for their constituents the ultimate prize: a full year, at least, of salaries and benefits without any actual work. I mean, wouldn’t you want that? Wouldn’t anyone?
What teachers and their unions don’t realize is the messaging they’re sending to the public:
What are we doing, exactly? Why have we appointed people to the most important task in our society and installed mechanisms for there to be zero accountability about how they do their jobs? If anything good comes from COVID, if conservatives are smart and don’t let this crisis go to waste, we will defund and deconstruct public education. Teachers themselves have shown us it’s long past time.
Published in General
If teachers care more about allegiance to the union than the well being of kids, they should find another career. I wonder how many fearful for their lives went to grocery stores, gas stations, etc? Because we essential workers went to our minimum wage jobs without complaint, picket lines, and drama. I’m willing to bet there’s lots us us who would trade our thankless, hard jobs for paid holidays and summers off.
I would absolutely love to go back into the classroom, but I am not given the option by my institution. I also worked very hard all summer on the online classes I taught, so not all teachers just want a vacation. But yes. You are absolutely right. This should push parents to push to restructure education. I hope more of them homeschool.
And don’t pay the part of your property taxes that funds Government Schools. No work, no money. They are going to be ruining an entire generation of American children. Tantamount to murder. Those kids are never going to be able to function as members of society without education. Most parents just don’t have what it takes to home-school their kids (not teacher material, must earn income to feed the family, not educated themselves…). However, just think what might be avoided with no classrooms:
Sexual education starting in Kindergarten (now mandated by the state of Washington). Leftist environmentalist indoctrination. Common Core. White Guilt education.
Oregon’s governor has essentially made it impossible for schools to open for in class learning this fall.
Actually, I’d feel like a thief; and I’m not interested in feeling like a thief.
Trump should give vouchers or cash for parents who want to hire private teachers if private and public schools are closed such as most of California including Los Angeles.
I’ve thought about hacking into the finances of UTLA (United Teachers Los Angeles)…
To me this is a big point the public should be absorbing: The best interests of the students is not a goal of the teachers’ unions. All the advertising put out by teachers’ unions at school budget time is a lie.
Teachers’ pay is essential, but their presence in the classroom isn’t . . .
I’m a HS rhetoric teacher and I’m desperate to get back to the classroom. I’ve already had my kids order Hoffer’s True Believer and Ferguson’s Civilization: The West & the Rest. Kids want to know why the world is falling apart.
Why can’t non union teachers teach. Why do the unions have such power when they shouldn’t exist in the first place? In Democrat run teacher dominated states and cities let them rot, but other places. I don’t understand. Stop paying teachers that don’t work. Cut property taxes, let parents pay directly. We lost all the battles years ago it seems.
Ironically, at the start of this, most people wanted to be declared “essential workers” so they could keep their jobs and keep earning money.
If someone doesn’t want to be an “essential worker,” I might question whether they want to be a worker at all.
At a private school? I’d be surprised if rhetorics were taught in public schools
On August 5, 1993 following the PATCO workers’ refusal to return to work, Reagan fired the 11,345 striking air traffic controllers who had ignored the order, and banned them from federal service for life. …
I think some States should take the above approach. It worked well the first time.
Can you imagine the incandescent fury that would follow?
Between this and things like the L.A. Teacher’s Union adding ‘Defund the Police” to their list of demands for returning to work, you would think that parents and even people without children who have to intermingle with the general public on a daily basis would become more and more unsympathetic to the idea that the teachers need special protection unlike other job sectors (which I’d assume they’re basing on the idea of kids normally being little communicable germ factories, even though to this point COVID-19 has shown a far lower child infection rate than for any other age demographic).
Yeah! That’s one of the positive parts of the plan.
There isn’t enough popcorn in the world… let’s do it.
Below is a quote from a teacher who recently started a public school teaching career after 20+ years in other professional fields. This attitude is likely due to the corrosive effect of public sector unions.
“Teachers are Whiners”
What about tax deductions for private school tuition?
We have tax shelters for home mortgages — why not private schools, k – 12?
or create federal vouchers for students and parents stuck on charter school waiting lists or denied via lottery?
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-virus-may-strike-teachers-unions-11596040702?st=s0lubc2sgdxu5bk&reflink=article_copyURL_share
good editorial by David Henderson