Well, it looks like Teachers Unions are starting to lose more and more.... - Granite Grok

Well, it looks like Teachers Unions are starting to lose more and more….

First in Wisconsin and now in Colorado.  In a post at Townhall:

The Douglas County School District, a suburban community south of Denver, Colorado, has decided to part ways with their teachers’ union in the absence of progress on a new contract which expired June 30th, 2012.

“The Board of Education finds and declares that the Collective Bargaining Agreements between the District and the Unions,” said the district on July 3rd in its formal resolution dissolving the bonds between the union and the district, “which had been effective from July 1, 2011 through and including June 30, 2012, are now expired and of no legal effect whatsoever.”

The dissolution between the district and the union is unprecedented  and sources close to the union tell me that unions are pensively watching, worried that other districts around Colorado and the country could take the same action as Douglas County has.

We can only hope.

School houseIndeed – what led to them getting kicked out was (beside not settling on a contract ) is that the union wanted exclusivity for bargaining – the District wanted to have multiple unions in on it.  So, for wanting to be a monopoly (as they decry the same in the private sector), they show that they want no competition, period. Remember, it’s not “for the children” as the NEA’s own retiring General Counsel said as I posted back in 2009 (video at the link):

Despite what some among us would like to believe it is not because of our creative ideas. It is not because of the merit of our positions. It is not because we care about children and it is not because we have a vision of a great public school for every child. NEA and its affiliates are effective advocates because we have power.

And we have power because there are more than 3.2 million people who are willing to pay us hundreds of millions of dollars in dues each year, because they believe that we are the unions that can most effectively represent them, the unions that can protect their rights and advance their interests as education employees.

This is not to say that the concern of NEA and its affiliates with closing achievement gaps, reducing dropout rates, improving teacher quality and the like are unimportant or inappropriate. To the contrary. These are the goals that guide the work we do. But they need not and must not be achieved at the expense of due process, employee rights and collective bargaining. That simply is too high a price to pay.

 And the Teachers Unions are all in politically for those that give them more at contract time: the infamous “Public Sector Union – Democrat Feedback Cycle”.  At the annual NEA meeting in DC right now is this report at The Corner:

It will shock no one to learn that teachers’ unions are overwhelmingly in the tank for Democrats. But the National Education Association took its fanaticism to a new level at its Annual Meeting and Representative Assembly, which wrapped up yesterday in Washington, D.C.

The event, which brought 9,000 teachers to the nation’s capital, featured “Barack Obama T-shirts, videos celebrating the health care law, and a wall-size banner with encouraging messages to the incumbent president,” according to the Associated Press, which described the meeting as showcasing “all the trappings of a re-election rally.” “You are our knight in shining armor,” read one inscription.

The pro-Obama hysteria also spilled into anti-Romney hostility: One teacher who expressed her support for the Republican candidate was booed off the stage, while several Republican teachers who spoke to the Associated Press refused to give their names because “they were so worried about retribution from their colleagues.” Another teacher complained of the harassment against teachers who refused to be “EFOs”: Educators for Obama.

…Glad to see the teachers are focused on America’s kids.

Indeed – it’s a wonder that more Districts don’t toss the unions out simply because of the rank partisanship of the union.  Who negotiate, mostly, with local School Boards.  Which, funny as it may seem, are often bootlickers for the teacher unions.  Oh sure, they talk about the best interests of the kids, but, at least here in NH, when the NH Schoo lBoards Association has as part of its website a spot where it opposes Vouchers it is about protecting the status quo in education (and therefore, the Unions).

And the Union protects its own, even to fight a bill in California that would have made it easier to “to dismiss teachers accused of sex, violence, or drug offenses involving children.”   GET THAT?  Another example of union power first and not “its for the kids”:

Debate in the Assembly Education Committee took on an ominous tone when the opposition — teachers union officials and a busload of local teachers — took the floor. They said there already are sufficient rules to protect children, that the bill lacks due process, and that the bill was meant to give cover to the LAUSD officials who are to blame for the recent Miramonte scandal. Someone even called it un-American.

It’s hard to overestimate the power that the CTA [California Teachers Association] has in Sacramento. The group is one of the largest political donors in the state, and when the group stands up against legislation, it usually dies or has a very hard road to success.

So isn’t it time to say that Public Sector Unions, at least the Teachers  Unions, are Political Entities first, and just happen to teach secondarily to that (or tertiary, or quartenary…) – and treat them as such?

>