Unions have lost the PR-battle, leaving courts as their only hope for stopping meaningful reforms
Voters in several states recently elected governors and legislators who are determined to reform public education and increase educational opportunities for families and children.
Those officials have passed groundbreaking legislation to meet those goals, despite the opposition of teachers unions. They are doing what the voters elected them to do.
In the meantime, a recent Rasmussen poll finds that only 42 percent of Americans have a favorable view of the National Education Association, the nation’s largest teachers union. To put that into perspective, the same poll finds that 54 percent of Americans have a favorable view of the National Rifle Association, the oft-maligned guns rights group.
But losing elections and public confidence won’t stop the unions. If they can’t win over the voters, they intend to circumvent the process by using the courts to block approved legislation they oppose.
After all, it’s a lot easier to find a union-friendly judge to strike down crucial education reform laws than it is to win at the ballot box. This sort of thing is happening in Indiana, Washington and Florida.
The hallmark of Indiana’s recently completed legislative session was the school voucher plan. By all counts, it is the most far-reaching voucher plan in the nation. The Indiana State Teachers Association knows that ineffective, union-dominated government schools will hemorrhage students once families have a choice of where to send their children to school.
That’s why ISTA has filed a lawsuit asserting that the vouchers violate the separation of church and state principle. We believe ISTA’s real motivation is the $65.8 million that union-controlled schools stand to lose if Indiana families are allowed to choose non-government schools for their children.
ISTA wants kids to remain trapped within geographic school district boundaries, sometimes in very bad schools, so public school districts and union teachers will maintain a guaranteed clientele of students and the state dollars that come with them.
In Florida, citizens will soon decide the fate of a constitutional amendment that would allow school vouchers to be used for religious schools. The Florida Education Association has filed a pre-emptive lawsuit claiming that – get this - the proposed constitutional amendment would violate the Florida constitution.
As we said in an earlier press release, the FEA is only opposing this measure because teachers employed by private schools typically do not belong to a union. If FEA-dominated schools lose a lot of students to private schools, government-run public schools will shrink, as will the FEA’s membership and, ultimately, its very existence.
The most recent example of a teachers union using the courts to save its hide comes from Washington state. The Washington Education Association has joined a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the state’s new law that requires the approval of two-thirds of state lawmakers to raise taxes.
The WEA claims the law prevents the state from adequately funding public education. Translation: the union is afraid its members might have to forgo their automatic “step” raises, contribute more toward their insurance and pension benefits, and give up other taxpayer-funded goodies stuffed inside their teachers’ contracts.
Since that message wouldn’t fly with taxpayers, the WEA sees this lawsuit as its best hope for protecting its members’ financial interests.
These lawsuits all follow in the wake of the judicial showdown in Wisconsin. In that case, the Wisconsin Education Association Council joined other public sector unions in trying to stop Gov. Scott Walker’s budget repair bill. The unions’ lawsuit failed, and the new law has subsequently saved Wisconsin public schools a bundle of money and quite a few teaching jobs.
The unions consider public education their private domain, and will stop at nothing to protect their turf. They have no respect for the will of the people. They want to use the courts to circumvent the legislative process and delete the crucial reforms that state lawmakers have passed to improve education for children.
The union’s self-serving nature has never been so obvious. Their actions are telling the American public that they intend to protect their financial interests at all costs, even if that means fewer opportunities for kids. The American people see through their cynical maneuvers.
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