Missouri Education Watchdog: Ed Reformers Don't Value Public Input nor does this Teacher's Union. What IS "Public" about "Public" Education?

Missouri Education Watchdog: Ed Reformers Don't Value Public Input nor does this Teacher's Union. What IS "Public" about "Public" Education?:

Ed Reformers Don't Value Public Input nor does this Teacher's Union. What IS "Public" about "Public" Education?

by stlgretchen

Following yesterday's posting about what ed reformers really think about parent and/or taxpayer input into the question of charters comes this story from California about a teacher's union not wanting parents to volunteer in the public schools.  From Hotair:

In Culver City, Calif., a local union wants to force unionization of — get this — parent volunteers at the local public schools. At several schools in the city, parents have banded together to form non-profit booster clubs to fundraise for and hire part-time teacher’s helpers, who also mostly come from the ranks of the parents themselves.

The local union — the Culver City Association of Classified Employees — is not OK with that kind of initiative. The union wants the parents to continue to fundraise, but to send the funds directly to the school district so the district can then hire union employees to fill the part-time positions. As the union’s scheme makes clear, the school district presently doesn’t have the money to hire anyone to fill the roles parents have voluntarily filled. The parent volunteers aren’t stealing existing jobs from union employees.

The union has taken its request to the labor-friendly Public Employment Relations Board (PERB), a “quasi-