Unions Shortchange Teachers

by Larry Sand - October 18th, 2008 - Los Angeles Times

In 28 states, a teacher is essentially forced to join a costly union. A typical teacher in Southern California, where I teach, pays $922 every year to his or her local, which then sends $611 of that amount to the state affiliate, the California Teachers Assn., or CTA, and $140 to the national affiliate, the National Education Assn., or NEA. (One has to wonder, if the unions are so beneficial, why do teachers need to be forced to join and to fork over such hefty dues in most states?)

And just what are all of these forced dues spent on? Untold millions go to political causes, whether a teacher agrees with the cause or not. According to Reg Weaver, the recently retired NEA president, his union's rank-and-file teachers are about one-third Democrat, one-third Republican and one-third independent. Yet more than 90% of NEA political spending goes to Democratic causes, according to OpenSecrets.org. Thus, if you are a Republican and have conservative values, your dues are being used to support causes and candidates you oppose.

In August, just before relinquishing his position, Weaver spoke at the Democratic National Convention in Denver. Although it was not surprising that he expressed support for Barack Obama, he made an egregious statement at the end of his speech. After extolling the virtues of his candidate, Weaver said, "That, my friends, is why the 3.2 million members of the National Education Assn. are organized, energized and mobilized to help elect Barack Obama as the next president of the United States of America."

We have the most politicized education system in the world. Education Unions [only the most ignorant would call them "teacher" unions] require forced unionization to exist. They also require forced support, both in political causes and in the classroom, for the evil tyranny of socialism. The 40 year disaster that our education system has practiced, failing our children in providing an education, is a direct result of this politicized environment.

The fourty year failure of parents to protest this political brainwashing of our children has resulted in the least prepared generations since the formation of our nation, totally unprepared to practice government of the people, by the people and for the people.

Unless and until parents rise up in protest, our children will enter the world prepared only to register for welfare payments and to sit helplessly dependent on government bureaucrats to provide them with inadequate lives, while these same recipients feel entitled to middle class compensation at government expense as a right. No nation can provide a middle class living to people who don't work. No nation has ever been able to do this and no matter how much it is demanded as a "right", the economics will never support being able to do so.

The idiocy of the welfare state demanded by socialists is a Utopian dream that can never exist in the real world.