Pages
Stay In Touch
More
© 2011 The Union Label Blog & Grassfire Nation
-By Larry Sand
The very creepy sexualization of young children, a part of the teachers unions’ progressive agenda, goes on unabated.
In the past few years, teachers unions in the United States have gotten into the perverse business of sexualizing children. I first wrote about this phenomenon several years ago. In 2004, the National Education Association gave its prestigious Human Rights Award to Kevin Jennings, the founder of the Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network (GLSEN) and the man who eventually became President Obama’s school safety czar. GLSEN is the group that presided over the infamous “Fistgate†conference held at Tufts University in Massachusetts in March 2000, where state employees gave explicit instructions about “fisting†and other forms of gay sexual activity to children as young as 12. The conference was secretly recorded and can be heard here. (Warning: The contents are extraordinarily vile.)
Then this past March, I dug up a story about an NEA “trainer of trainers†who at a U.N. conference claimed that oral sex, masturbation, and orgasms should to be “taught in education†to children as young as 11.
Currently in California, we have SB 48 being debated in Sacramento. This bill, supported in testimony by the California Teachers Association, if passed, would “require instruction (emphasis mine) in social sciences to also include a study of the role and contributions of Native Americans, African Americans, Mexican Americans, Asian Americans, Pacific Islanders, European Americans, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Americans, persons with disabilities, and other ethnic and cultural groups, to the development of California and the United States.†Just how is a teacher supposed to explain to a six year that so-and-so was a great inventor — and he was bisexual?!
And to bring us up to date is a bizarre story out of Oakland. Last week, with a $1,500 grant from CTA, a group called Gender Spectrum presented some rather interesting lessons over two days to the entire 350 student school. The specifics were reported by Fox News, which was invited to sit in on the lessons,
â€Joel Baum, director of education and training for Gender Spectrum, taught the classes. In the kindergarten class he asked the 5- and 6-year-olds to identify if a toy was a “girl toy” or a “boy toy” or both. He also asked which students liked the color pink, prompting many to raise their hands, to which he responded that boys can like pink, too.
In the fourth-grade class, Baum focused on specific animal species, like sea horses, where the males can have or take care of the children. He suggested that even if someone was born with male “private parts†but identified more with being a girl, that was something to be “accepted†and “respected.â€
Students in the class were given cards, which included information on all-girl geckos and transgender clownfish, to illustrate the variations in nature that occur in humans, too.
“Gender identity is one’s own sense of themselves. Do they know themselves to be a girl? Do they know themselves to be a boy? Do they know themselves to be a combination?†Baum said. “Gender identity is a spectrum where people can be girls, feel like girls, they feel like boys, they feel like both, or they can feel like neither.â€
The question here becomes why are elementary school children as young as five being exposed to sexual concepts and anomalies which they are totally incapable of understanding and can be very frightening and confusing to them?
There are two answers. One is “social justice.†With their progressive agenda, teachers unions are doing their best to socially engineer acceptance of all kinds of lifestyles.
The second answer is darker. In a piece written for Queerty, an online publication which proudly claims to be in favor of advancing the gay agenda, editor Daniel Villarreal writes Can We Please Just Start Admitting That We Do Actually Want To Indoctrinate Kids?
The article very matter of factly states that, “I and a lot of other people want to indoctrinate, recruit, teach, and expose children to queer sexuality AND THERE’S NOTHING WRONG WITH THAT.†(Caps in the original.)
There were many comments to this very controversial piece and most were written by homosexuals who were very angry at Mr. Villarreal for delivering what they consider a crushing blow to the cause for general homosexual acceptance. The rest of the comments supported the main thesis of the article.
The bottom line is that straight or gay, there are those amongst us with a radical progressive agenda who are determined to advance it in any way they can. And what better way to advance an agenda than by indoctrinating children.
It is thusly incumbent upon parents to become informed about how their child’s school is handling subject matter having sexual themes. It also may be worthwhile to ask the CTA/NEA why they are so intent on exposing young children to a sexual agenda that can be very damaging to them. Don’t expect honest answers though. And don’t accept anything less.
______
Larry Sand began his teaching career in New York in 1971. Since 1984, he has taught elementary school as well as English, math, history and ESL in the Los Angeles Unified School District, where he also served as a Title 1 Coordinator. Retired in 2009, he is the president of the non-profit California Teachers Empowerment Network – a non-partisan, non-political group dedicated to providing teachers with reliable and balanced information about professional affiliations and positions on educational issues – information teachers will often not get from their school districts or unions.
CTEN was formed in 2006 because a wide range of information from the more global concerns of education policy, education leadership, and education reform, to information having a more personal application, such as professional liability insurance, options of relationships to teachers’ unions, and the effect of unionism on teacher pay, comes to teachers from entities that have a specific agenda. Sand’s comments and op-eds have appeared in City Journal, Associated Press, Newsweek, Townhall Magazine, Los Angeles Times, San Diego Union Tribune, Los Angeles Daily News, San Jose Mercury News, Orange County Register and other publications. He has appeared on numerous broadcast news programs in Southern California and nationally.
Sand has participated in panel discussions and events focusing on education reform efforts and the impact of teachers’ unions on public education. In March 2010, Sand participated in a debate hosted by the non-profit Intelligence Squared, an organization that regularly hosts Oxford-style debates, which was nationally broadcast on Bloomberg TV and NPR, as well as covered by Newsweek. Sand and his teammates – Terry Moe of the Hoover Institution and former U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige, opposed the proposition – Don’t Blame Teachers Unions For Our Failing Schools. The pro-union team included Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers. In August 2010, he was on a panel at the Where’s the Outrage? Conference in San Francisco, where he spoke about how charter school operators can best deal with teachers’ unions. This past January he was on panels in Los Angeles, San Diego and San Mateo in support of National School Choice week.
Sand has also worked with other organizations to present accurate information about the relationship between teachers and their unions, most recently assisting in the production of a video for the Center for Union Facts in which a group of teachers speak truthfully about the teachers’ unions.
CTEN maintains an active and strong new media presence, reaching out to teachers and those interested in education reform across the USA, and around the world, with its popular Facebook page, whose members include teachers, writers, think tankers, and political activists. Since 2006, CTEN has experienced dramatic growth.
-By Larry Sand
Cindy Sheehan, Code Pink and a band of fringe groups have joined the California Teachers Association protest in Sacramento
We are now in the midst of California Teachers Association’s desperation week or as they are calling it “state of emergency.†At the crux of the issue is that Governor Jerry Brown will unveil his revised budget on May 16, and deep cuts to the K-12 education budget could mean widespread teacher layoffs as early as next month. Californians are getting heavy doses of union demagoguery this week, as Brown works to forge a deal with Republicans who oppose any tax hikes.
As I wrote recently, there are many other ways to solve educational budgetary problems without raising taxes. However, none of my proposed solutions are acceptable to CTA because the union insists on maintaining the status quo lest its power be threatened in any way.
As CTA was making final plans for their week long protest, someone crashed their party — none other than Cindy I-am-sorry-but-if-you-believe-the-newest-death-of-OBL-you’re-stupid Sheehan decided to cash in on CTA’s event, figuring she could tag on to a group of sympathetic fellow travelers. (Ms. Sheehan, lest you forget, is a peace activist best known for her for obsessive hatred of George Bush, who set up camp near the former president’s Texas home to protest our involvement in the Iraq War.) Then, the radical Code Pink group and a few other fringe groups joined Ms. Sheehan.
While there were some arrests in the Capitol rotunda on Monday, it was a mostly uneventful day– marching, placards, etc. The fringies and CTA factions mingled briefly before splitting apart.
However, by Tuesday there was much more commingling of the tribes. While much of the CTA crowd tried to dissociate from the Code Pinkers et al, not all did (as you can see by the photos courtesy of Sacramento reporter Amanda Morello.) The teachers, mostly wearing “We are one†t-shirts, carried signs with predictable slogans like “Tax the Rich.†The fringies were a bit more strident, with one of their signs bleating “Outlaw the rich.†(Seems as if the two signs cancel each other out. How can you tax a group you want to outlaw? But I digress.)
By all news accounts, Wednesday was quieter. Perhaps the protesters are resting up for the big finale this Friday when teachers from all over the state will have local rallies where their strident demands will echo from the Mexican border to the Redwood Forests.
You might be wondering why teachers, who make up a sizable part of the CTA faction, are in Sacramento during the time that they are supposed to be teaching children. The answer is that many teachers are not as dedicated as they’d have you believe. As such, this week, thousands of children will have substitutes. And all this is happening the week many students are taking their yearly standardized tests.
But, from a financial standpoint, the taxpayers are covered. CTA has devoted over $1 million to pay for the subs.
In an unprecedented move, the Los Angeles Unified School District has buckled to union demand and will close all LA schools early on Friday, so that teachers can leave their classrooms and protest. Again, so much for children coming first.
And then yesterday, UTLA President A.J. Duffy released the following statement:
It has come to our attention, through recent actions and the rumor mill, that students in many of our high schools and possibly middle schools may plan walkouts for Friday, May 13, the day of our State of Emergency actions.
It is critical for all of our teachers to understand that we cannot encourage or condone such activity, as it could put our students in harm’s way.
Having said that, we in no way want to dampen the ardor of our students, their parents, or the community in their desire to step up and participate in actions and activities in pursuit of preserving public education and the jobs of their hard-working teachers and health and human services professionals.
Bottom line, do not encourage or agitate for walkouts, but if our students decide to do this, get out of the way and let them do their thing. Do not accompany them on these walk-outs, and trust that the authorities will protect them.
Talk about a mixed message. First we hear the union boss say we cannot encourage or condone but in the next breath we hear we in no way want to dampen the ardor of our students.
Can’t you just feel the nudge and see the wink as Duffy says this?
Children, you see, are the best weapon the teachers unions have. Trotted out at the right time, kids can make the unions appear as if they really care about them.
Oh please.
______
Larry Sand began his teaching career in New York in 1971. Since 1984, he has taught elementary school as well as English, math, history and ESL in the Los Angeles Unified School District, where he also served as a Title 1 Coordinator. Retired in 2009, he is the president of the non-profit California Teachers Empowerment Network – a non-partisan, non-political group dedicated to providing teachers with reliable and balanced information about professional affiliations and positions on educational issues – information teachers will often not get from their school districts or unions.
CTEN was formed in 2006 because a wide range of information from the more global concerns of education policy, education leadership, and education reform, to information having a more personal application, such as professional liability insurance, options of relationships to teachers’ unions, and the effect of unionism on teacher pay, comes to teachers from entities that have a specific agenda. Sand’s comments and op-eds have appeared in City Journal, Associated Press, Newsweek, Townhall Magazine, Los Angeles Times, San Diego Union Tribune, Los Angeles Daily News, San Jose Mercury News, Orange County Register and other publications. He has appeared on numerous broadcast news programs in Southern California and nationally.
Sand has participated in panel discussions and events focusing on education reform efforts and the impact of teachers’ unions on public education. In March 2010, Sand participated in a debate hosted by the non-profit Intelligence Squared, an organization that regularly hosts Oxford-style debates, which was nationally broadcast on Bloomberg TV and NPR, as well as covered by Newsweek. Sand and his teammates – Terry Moe of the Hoover Institution and former U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige, opposed the proposition – Don’t Blame Teachers Unions For Our Failing Schools. The pro-union team included Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers. In August 2010, he was on a panel at the Where’s the Outrage? Conference in San Francisco, where he spoke about how charter school operators can best deal with teachers’ unions. This past January he was on panels in Los Angeles, San Diego and San Mateo in support of National School Choice week.
Sand has also worked with other organizations to present accurate information about the relationship between teachers and their unions, most recently assisting in the production of a video for the Center for Union Facts in which a group of teachers speak truthfully about the teachers’ unions.
CTEN maintains an active and strong new media presence, reaching out to teachers and those interested in education reform across the USA, and around the world, with its popular Facebook page, whose members include teachers, writers, think tankers, and political activists. Since 2006, CTEN has experienced dramatic growth.
-By Larry Sand
The teachers unions’ radical agenda alienates them from the American mainstream
As I mentioned in last week’s post, during the week of May 9th, the California Teachers Association and many local unions, like the United Teachers of Los Angeles, will be taking to the streets in an attempt to convince legislators and citizens that cuts to education will not be tolerated by the unions. In other times this would be a winning strategy, but as shown by recent polls, the teachers unions are not the darlings of the public that they used to be.
While unionistas all over the country lament this loss of favor, they only need to look in their collective mirrors to understand why. They have managed to alienate too many Americans who previously had held them in a better light. The unions’ insistence on things like tenure and seniority privileges, which serve to protect only the bad apples, has begun to grate on the public. Additionally, the fact that they are tolerant of, and give outright support to extremist political causes is another reason the public is turning against them.
An example of the unions turn toward extremist politics took place last year in Los Angeles. Santee High School teacher and UTLA union rep Jose Lara took his students to Arizona on a “field trip†to protest Arizona’s new immigration law. In a YouTube video, Lara is seen standing in front of a wall-to-wall mural featuring a who’s who of murderous revolutionaries, including Ho Chi Minh, Fidel Castro and Che Guevara, while proudly displaying the motto Patria o Muerte, Venceremos!!! (Fatherland or Death, We Shall Overcome!!!). UTLA, while not a sponsor of the Memorial Day weekend trip, had no comment on Mr. Lara’s attempt to turn his students into an army of radical activists.
Ron Gochez, another radical teacher at Santee made an incendiary video in which he referred to Americans as “frail, racist, white people†and to California as “stolen, occupied Mexico.” This video produced calls from outraged citizens to the Los Angeles Unified School District, but they fell on deaf ears. After receiving many complaints, the district referred to the union contract and issued a statement which says, in effect, that Gochez committed no crime. So get over it.
Sarah Knopp, also a LA high school teacher, union rep and member of the International Socialist Organization is on record as a militant socialist who is not shy about pushing her collectivist credo onto her students. Additionally, Ms. Knopp has used UTLA offices to advocate for class warfare. After a trip to Wisconsin to protest the elimination of some collective bargaining rights for teachers, she proclaimed, “We cannot let public-sector workers and unions be scapegoats for an economic crisis caused by banks and billionaires!â€
In these instances of teachers and proud union members using students to promote their activist agenda, we see the union as a passive observer, neither taking a position nor issuing a statement about some pretty egregious comments and activities. However, when the unions feel like inserting themselves into political-social issues that have nothing to do with teachers or education, they are not so taciturn.
For example, in 2008 the California Teachers Association contributed $1.25 million in a failed attempt to kill Prop. 8, which keeps marriage in its traditional form – between a man and a woman. That same year they also spent almost a half a million more to successfully defeat Prop. 4, which would have required parental notification before abortions are performed on minors. So then as now, a girl can be released from a public school to get an abortion and no parental notification is necessary.
Just last month, the California Federation of Teachers drew up a resolution at its yearly convention to “support and demand that the courts consider the evidence of innocence of Mumia Abu-Jamal.†Almost 30 years ago, Mr. Jamal was convicted of murdering Danny Faulkner, a white policeman. Mr. Jamal, who escaped the death penalty, is still trying to weasel his way out of prison, though a battery of lawyers can’t seem to convince anyone that he should have a retrial.
Outraged over the union’s action, the slain cop’s widow called CFT boss Marty Hittelman and asked how the teachers union could support a convicted cop killer. Caught off guard, Hittelman refused to directly address the issue and tried to change the subject by asking “How did you find out about this?†(A tech savvy five year old could have found out with a few mouse clicks by going here and scrolling down to Resolution 19.) Mrs. Faulkner said the conversation ended when Hittelman hung up on her.
Just three weeks ago in California, the members of the Oakland Education Association decided that they would shut down a local bank because they thought that 700 teachers would lose their jobs come September. Enlisting the help of the International Bolshevik Tendency, a Communist organization, they managed their mission, shutting down the Bank of America branch in downtown Oakland for two hours with signs that said, “Bail out schools, not banks.†Turns out that just 35 teachers at most will actually be laid off.
And then there is Wisconsin where there have been some boisterous demonstrations aimed at Governor Scott Walker and Republican legislators. Teachers and others were angry about the curtailing of teachers collective bargaining “rights.†While the demonstrators were a mix of teachers and rent-a-thugs, it was a teacher who committed some rather serious crimes. Kate Windels, a 26 year old pre-school teacher and union activist has been accused of two misdemeanor counts of making threats over a computer and two felony counts of making bomb threats. Apparently, Ms. Windels sent an email that threatened Republican legislators and their families with a miserable death by bombing and by “putting a nice little bullet in your head.â€
Interestingly, there has been no word of approval or condemnation for Ms. Windels’ extra-curricular activities by the Wisconsin Education Association. But considering that their brethren in California think nothing of supporting a convicted cop killer, Ms. Windels’ actions probably raised few union eyebrows.
So what have we learned here?
The teachers unions
- either support or turn a blind eye to radical Chicano racist-separatists and teachers who indoctrinate their students into the ideology of universal socialism.
- have no comment when a union activist sends death threats to legislators and their families.
- want children released from school to get an abortion while keeping it a secret from their parents.
- contributed $1,250,000 of teachers’ dues for legislation that would have fundamentally changed the course of human history by redefining marriage.
- are lobbying for a convicted cop killer to be released from prison.
- collude with Communists to shut down a bank in an attempt to promote class warfare.
If the teachers unions continue down this path, the months and years to come will see them more and more marginalized from American life. These unions and their acolytes have moved so far from Main Street that they can’t even see it. The citizenry, becoming well aware of their radical antics, will undoubtedly become increasingly active in combating them.
______
Larry Sand began his teaching career in New York in 1971. Since 1984, he has taught elementary school as well as English, math, history and ESL in the Los Angeles Unified School District, where he also served as a Title 1 Coordinator. Retired in 2009, he is the president of the non-profit California Teachers Empowerment Network – a non-partisan, non-political group dedicated to providing teachers with reliable and balanced information about professional affiliations and positions on educational issues – information teachers will often not get from their school districts or unions.
CTEN was formed in 2006 because a wide range of information from the more global concerns of education policy, education leadership, and education reform, to information having a more personal application, such as professional liability insurance, options of relationships to teachers’ unions, and the effect of unionism on teacher pay, comes to teachers from entities that have a specific agenda. Sand’s comments and op-eds have appeared in City Journal, Associated Press, Newsweek, Townhall Magazine, Los Angeles Times, San Diego Union Tribune, Los Angeles Daily News, San Jose Mercury News, Orange County Register and other publications. He has appeared on numerous broadcast news programs in Southern California and nationally.
Sand has participated in panel discussions and events focusing on education reform efforts and the impact of teachers’ unions on public education. In March 2010, Sand participated in a debate hosted by the non-profit Intelligence Squared, an organization that regularly hosts Oxford-style debates, which was nationally broadcast on Bloomberg TV and NPR, as well as covered by Newsweek. Sand and his teammates – Terry Moe of the Hoover Institution and former U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige, opposed the proposition – Don’t Blame Teachers Unions For Our Failing Schools. The pro-union team included Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers. In August 2010, he was on a panel at the Where’s the Outrage? Conference in San Francisco, where he spoke about how charter school operators can best deal with teachers’ unions. This past January he was on panels in Los Angeles, San Diego and San Mateo in support of National School Choice week.
Sand has also worked with other organizations to present accurate information about the relationship between teachers and their unions, most recently assisting in the production of a video for the Center for Union Facts in which a group of teachers speak truthfully about the teachers’ unions.
CTEN maintains an active and strong new media presence, reaching out to teachers and those interested in education reform across the USA, and around the world, with its popular Facebook page, whose members include teachers, writers, think tankers, and political activists. Since 2006, CTEN has experienced dramatic growth.
-By Larry Sand
Fearful of taking a financial hit, California Teachers Association will be taking to the streets and declaring a “state of emergency.†But I have some questions for them when the demagoguery begins.
With California in a world of fiscal trouble and many people sick and tired of the unrealistic perks and benefits gained by collective bargaining, the California Teachers Association figured they had to take action. Their first idea was to go on a rampage the week of May 9.
The original plan included such disruptive strategies as
- Closing major arteries into the city.
- Having students and parents picket school sites and camp there overnight.
- Picketing legislators’ homes and businesses.
After teacher union watchdog Mike Antonucci broke the story on April 11, many bloggers picked up on it. The cat now out of the bag, CTA decided to tone down their tantrum. So they have gone from being seriously disruptive to just very annoying.
The plan, now a bit more moderate, still includes
At the very top of CTA’s angst is that absent a turnaround in Sacramento, many teachers may be laid off in Sepetember. And when that happens, the union loses dues and that is one thing the union can’t tolerate. CTA takes in about $200,000,000 from teachers every year in California where public school teachers have no choice but to pay money to the union if they want a job.
While we don’t know exactly what to expect the week of the 9th, one thing we know for sure is that the smell of demagoguery will be polluting the air from Klamath to Calexico. You will hear tales of horror about overcrowded classrooms, unemployed teachers and stories of the evil rich who just won’t pay their fair share of taxes.
Emotional pleas are powerful, but (at least in the case of the teachers unions) they can be easily countered with inconvenient things called facts. Here are some questions you can ask if besieged by a hysterical unionista trying to convince you that we can’t make cuts to education spending because it will “destroy our schools.†(All the following suggestions are good for children or will save the taxpayer money or both.)
- Why are you staging this protest during a week when many school districts are holding their standardized testing? Isn’t this type of action a serious distraction to teachers and students?
- Why, when economic times are good, do you lobby districts to over-hire when you know that many of the new hires will have to be let go when the economic cycle goes south? (Economies go through periods where they wax and wane; why don’t you ever plan for the inevitable downturn?)
- You constantly bang the “small class size†drum. Why are there no major studies that link small class size to educational achievement?
- Why do you insist on an archaic seniority system that disregards teaching quality when staffing decisions are made? If we must lose some teachers, why not let the stinkers go instead of the ones who have been on the job the least amount of time?
- Why do you insist on a salary step pay scale where less competent teachers make as much as good ones for the same amount of years on the job? Why should the only requirement for a teacher to get a raise in September is to not die over the summer?
- Why do you believe that a teacher who doesn’t do anything short of committing a felony in their first two years of teaching should be granted permanence – essentially a job for life?
- School choice will give poor children a chance to get out of failing schools and save the taxpayer money at the same time. Why do you fight to kill school choice whenever pro-choice legislation is on the table?
- You hated charter schools at first but then became resigned to their existence. Now you tolerate them because you think you can unionize them. This of course will kill their special status. But that’s what you want, isn’t it?
- You say studies show that charters do no better than traditional public schools. Yes, a few studies do, but others contend that charters indeed do better… some a lot better. But even if there is no difference, charters are funded at about 60 cents on the dollar compared to traditional public schools, thus saving the taxpayers large sums of money.
- Why not work on developing a fair system for evaluating teacher performance? Is it possible that you really don’t care about the quality of teachers as long as you collect dues from them? And is it possible that once you acknowledge that some teachers are better than others, your insistence on one-size-fits-all collective bargaining falls flat?
- Why do you pretend that every one of your actions is done for the children? Isn’t it true that students who don’t pay your inflated dues are just a prop for you to hide your real agenda, which is raw political power?
- And talking about your real agenda – CTA is by far the biggest political spender in California, spending almost $212,000,000 on candidates and causes between 2000-2009. Why are you constantly trying to extract more and more money from taxpayers as you did in 2009 by spending over $2 million to Prop. 1A, which would have resulted in a tax increase to Californians of $16 billion? Why do you spend money on issues that have little to do with education, as in 2008 when you gave $1,250,000 to the campaign to legalize same-sex marriage?
- Why don’t you believe in a 401k type plan for retirement? This would put the responsibility for teachers’ retirement on the individual teacher, not the taxpayer.
- If you are so beneficial for teachers, why do you force them to pay you as a condition of employment? Don’t you think teachers are smart enough to recognize all the wonderful work that you do and will happily turn over $1,000 a year to you as a way of saying thanks? And why does the school district have to collect teachers’ union dues? Why don’t you collect your own dues and save the taxpayers some money?
But maybe the above scenario won’t happen. Remember the “We Are One†rally on April 4th? You don’t? Well that’s because there was nothing memorable about it. It was supposed to be a nationwide day of union solidarity for the teachers in Wisconsin who lost their collective bargaining “rights,†but there was just a smattering of demonstrators in a few cities across the country.
As I wrote in a blog entry on April 5,
Is it possible that private sector union members are waking up to the fact that maybe “We are not all one� Maybe they realize that those in the NEA and other public employee unions are better paid and have more perks than they do – and that these extravagances are being paid for by taxpayers, which include those union members in the private sector.
Is it possible that many Americans realize that the NEA wouldn’t hold anything for MLK? This is the union that by being virulently anti-school choice is doing everything within its mighty power to keep African-American children stuck in failing schools across America. Even the union’s former allies in the mainstream media are now in increasing numbers coming down on the side of choice.
Is it possible that the NEA and other public employee unions have exposed themselves as bullies who are detrimental to the country at large?
Is it possible that fewer people are being fooled by their hollow and abusive rhetoric?
It’s just three weeks till the CTA desperate “State of Emergency†plan is rolled out. Are you ready for it, California?
______
Larry Sand began his teaching career in New York in 1971. Since 1984, he has taught elementary school as well as English, math, history and ESL in the Los Angeles Unified School District, where he also served as a Title 1 Coordinator. Retired in 2009, he is the president of the non-profit California Teachers Empowerment Network – a non-partisan, non-political group dedicated to providing teachers with reliable and balanced information about professional affiliations and positions on educational issues – information teachers will often not get from their school districts or unions.
CTEN was formed in 2006 because a wide range of information from the more global concerns of education policy, education leadership, and education reform, to information having a more personal application, such as professional liability insurance, options of relationships to teachers’ unions, and the effect of unionism on teacher pay, comes to teachers from entities that have a specific agenda. Sand’s comments and op-eds have appeared in City Journal, Associated Press, Newsweek, Townhall Magazine, Los Angeles Times, San Diego Union Tribune, Los Angeles Daily News, San Jose Mercury News, Orange County Register and other publications. He has appeared on numerous broadcast news programs in Southern California and nationally.
Sand has participated in panel discussions and events focusing on education reform efforts and the impact of teachers’ unions on public education. In March 2010, Sand participated in a debate hosted by the non-profit Intelligence Squared, an organization that regularly hosts Oxford-style debates, which was nationally broadcast on Bloomberg TV and NPR, as well as covered by Newsweek. Sand and his teammates – Terry Moe of the Hoover Institution and former U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige, opposed the proposition – Don’t Blame Teachers Unions For Our Failing Schools. The pro-union team included Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers. In August 2010, he was on a panel at the Where’s the Outrage? Conference in San Francisco, where he spoke about how charter school operators can best deal with teachers’ unions. This past January he was on panels in Los Angeles, San Diego and San Mateo in support of National School Choice week.
Sand has also worked with other organizations to present accurate information about the relationship between teachers and their unions, most recently assisting in the production of a video for the Center for Union Facts in which a group of teachers speak truthfully about the teachers’ unions.
CTEN maintains an active and strong new media presence, reaching out to teachers and those interested in education reform across the USA, and around the world, with its popular Facebook page, whose members include teachers, writers, think tankers, and political activists. Since 2006, CTEN has experienced dramatic growth.
