Teachers Union Battles Powerful Interests
OTHER OPINION
"There is something awful going on in America. It has to do with scapegoating teachers, demonizing unions, and undermining education." That commentary is from former U.S. Assistant Commissioner of Education Diane Ravitch. Ravitch, who today is a professor and author, also is concerned about excluding teachers through top-down reforms. But that's exactly what anti-union forces are trying to do in Connecticut.
As education reform moves forward in the state legislature with a substitute education reform bill, teachers and their union now find themselves being told to take a seat on the bench by wealthy and powerful interests, from CEOs to charter management companies to out-of-state, ultraconservative, anti-union organizations. Make no mistake; they look to privatize education and run roughshod over teachers' rights in the closing weeks of what was supposed to be the collaborative "Year of Education."
Teachers are a mainstay of the middle class and part of the 99 percent. They wouldn't have much of a political voice without their union to give them a collective voice. So, if you wanted to minimize teachers' voices, you'd have to weaken their union by creating a false narrative. That narrative contends that the union is the protector of the status quo that's