Monday, August 3, 2015

Chris Christie wants to punch the teachers union in the face. But he isn’t the only candidate attacking educators. - The Washington Post

Chris Christie wants to punch the teachers union in the face. But he isn’t the only candidate attacking educators. - The Washington Post:

Chris Christie wants to punch the teachers union in the face. But he isn’t the only candidate attacking educators.



Leave it to Chris Christie to come up with a new way to court voters in his sagging quest to win the 2016 Republican presidential nomination: directly suggest violence against teachers, or, to be specific, a teachers union that endorsed Hillary Clinton. (One wonders what he might have said if the union had endorsed him.)
In any case, while he is getting a lot of attention for his bellicose rhetoric, a look at the Republican field shows that he is hardly the only candidate antagonistic toward teachers and their unions — and others have been more damaging to the teaching profession, at least so far.
The New Jersey governor was on CNN on Sunday, where host Jake Tapper asked, “At the national level, who deserves a punch in the face?” (Why would Christie get that question? Because he has made it known he likes to deal with bullies by punching them in the face, an approach that would work well in the Oval Office, no?) According to this story by my Post colleague Lyndsey Layton, Christie did not hesitate with a response: “Oh the national teachers union, who has already endorsed Hillary Clinton 16, 17 months before the election.”
Christie meant the American Federation of Teachers, the country’s second largest teachers union, which announced in July its endorsement of Clinton. AFT president Randi Weingarten has long been close with Clinton, and though some AFT members are unhappy with the early endorsement, the move could hardly have been a surprise. She was, naturally, not pleased with Christie, tweeting:

She followed up on Monday with this statement:
“Chris Christie has issues—from reneging on his promise to fix pensions to his state’s fiscal standing facing near junk bond status. But the biggest issue is he’s a bully and has anger management problems. That he would threaten to punch teachers in the face—mostly women seeking to help children meet their potential and achieve their dreams—promotes a culture of violence and underscores why he lacks the temperament and emotional skills to be president, or serve in any leadership capacity. It’s a sad day in the life of our nation to see a candidate threaten violence to gain political favor.”
Lily Eskelsen Garcia, president of the National Education Association, the largest union in the country, wasn’t pleased either:
And some other reaction:
 
Christie’s antagonism toward teachers is legendary. Back in 2013, when a teacher named Melissa Tomlinson asked him at a rally, “Why do you continue to spread the myth that our schools and teachers are failing?” he yelled at her.
“Because they are!”
He also said:
“I am tired of you people. What do you want?”

(Twitter picture above used with permission)

To be fair to Christie, New Jersey unions haven’t always pulled their punches about him. They have spent hundreds of millions of dollars to defeat him at Chris Christie wants to punch the teachers union in the face. But he isn’t the only candidate attacking educators. - The Washington Post:




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