Concord High School science teacher Phil Browne seized his five minutes of fame yesterday to talk about the environment. After being named Wal-Mart’s New Hampshire Teacher of the Year, Browne told an auditorium full of students, teachers and community leaders about his latest project: Bulbs n’a Bulb n’a Bag.
The award comes with a $10,000 grant, for which Browne has already dreamed up a use. He said he plans to spend the money on laptop computers and a robotics program called Lego Mindstorms, which lets students build robots out of Legos.
NEA has joined "Wake-Up Wal-Mart," a national campaign to educate the public about the effects of Wal-Mart on its employees, their communities and the economy, as well as the anti-public education activities of founder Sam Walton’s family.Participation in the campaign, which is organized by the United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW), the AFL-CIO union with primary jurisdiction for employees of retail stores, was approved by the NEA Executive Committee in May 2005 and endorsed by the 2005 Representative Assembly in July 2005.
Our society and economy pay for Wal-Mart’s low prices. Because of its enormous size (the world’s largest and richest corporation and with 1.2 million U.S. employees, the country’s largest employer), Wal-Mart’s practices have an impact far beyond its own stores and employees.
The company’s low wages and benefits drive down wages and benefits throughout the economy, negatively impacting the families of students in NEA members’ classrooms. The tax subsidies Wal-Mart receives could be used to help fund schools and other public services.
One would think that Mr. Browne would refuse acceptance of the money from such an evil entity such as WalMart to make a proper statement of protest. What gives here? How could he in good conscience take this dirty money? The Monitor piece closes by telling us
In addition to the $10,000, Wal-Mart gave Browne a framed certificate, a giant banner, a cloth briefcase, an apple made of crystal and a voucher for free photographs in the store’s studio.
Gasp! Whaaaaat? He took a v—vvvv—v-v-v-v-voucher!? How could he? After all, the teachers union says that a
voucher system would only encourage economic, racial, ethnic, and religious stratification in our society.
Somebody needs to tell "Brownie" to get with the progaram…
