Parent Revolution’s Ben Austin calls out AFT President Weingarten in open letter
The recent revelation that the Connecticut branch of the American Federation of Teachers used its political power to neuter that state’s parent trigger proposal has caused a lot of public embarrassment for the teachers union.
Perhaps even more significantly, the union’s subterfuge has repulsed fellow progressives around the nation who strongly believe in empowering minority and lower-income families, particularly when it comes to education.
Many progressives are upset to the point where the nation’s teachers unions could be left with precious few political friends.
In an open letter to American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten, Los Angeles-based Parent Revolution Executive Director Ben Austin openly questions how fellow progressives in the teachers unions could undermine a proposed law that would have given low income “parents the real power they need to fight for a better education for their children.”
Austin spends a large portion of his letter brandishing his progressive credentials. He notes that the Parent Revolution is “progressive organization working to make public education better for the parents and children it is supposed to serve,” and wonders why the Weingarten’s supposedly progressive AFT doesn’t share that commitment.
“While it appears from your secret document (regarding the Connecticut parent trigger controversy) that you view parental power as a threat to your own power, we believe that parents and teachers have a lot in common when it comes to a kids-first agenda,” Austin writes.
It’s time for Austin to set aside any notion that the AFT or the National Education Association share the goal of improving public education for students.
The teachers unions are not “down for the struggle”; they are only in it for themselves. The teachers unions say they care about students, but that’s only empty rhetoric designed to conceal their selfish, money-driven agenda from the public.
Austin and his fellow progressives must understand that union leaders such as Weingarten and the NEA’s Dennis Van Roekel are not that different from the Wall Street executives who are regularly denounced by the Left.
Union leaders enjoy fat salaries, fabulous benefits, access to expense accounts flush with cash, all while jetting across the country to attend conferences at posh hotels. They are also major “power players” in Washington D.C. If the union brass are different from the greedy Wall Street executives, it’s only by a matter of degree.
Austin ends his letter with a request to meet with Weingarten to “discuss how we can collaborate in effectuating a kids-first agenda in public education.”
We offer the following advice to Ben Austin:
The teachers unions are not your political friends. They are merely political opportunists who are focused on automatic annual pay raises, pension plans, tenure protection and raw political power. If implementing their agenda causes some students to receive an inadequate education, the unions are okay with that.
Mr. Austin, you cannot collaborate with these union leaders to solve the problems in public education. They are the problem – or at least a major part of it. Your values are not their values. Your goals are not their goals.
It’s time to face reality and recognize your adversaries for who they are. They are not individual teachers, but they certainly are the union leaders who have no interest in the quality of education offered in public schools.
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