Latest News and Comment from Education

Thursday, July 30, 2020

NYC Educator: NY Times Trashes Unionized Teachers, Presents Barely Researched Nonsense as Fact

NYC Educator: NY Times Trashes Unionized Teachers, Presents Barely Researched Nonsense as Fact

NY Times Trashes Unionized Teachers, Presents Barely Researched Nonsense as Fact

I'd like to say I was startled by this remarkably unresearched piece of reporting in the NY Times, but alas their agenda is plain to see. The NY Times, the paper of record, has decided to tell the world that unionized teachers a. do not want to go back into schools, and b. don't want to teach online either. The claim itself is pretty spectacular.

Unions are threatening to strike if classrooms reopen, but are also pushing to limit live remote teaching. Their demands will shape pandemic education.

Wow. Those teachers are so unreasonable. They don't want to do anything. This, in fact, is no different than recent claims made in the NY Post. Here's the difference--the Post, at least, ran it on the editorial page, while the Times runs it as a feature. While I don't like either story, at least the Post seems aware of what is and is not opinion.

How they come to conclusions is a little tougher to determine. It's certainly not based on verifiable fact. Perhaps the two (!) reporters on this piece came to an opinion and sought out to prove it. Perhaps they feel their case is valid. However, it isn't.

Let's look at their first assertion--that unions are threatening to strike. Here's what they say:

On Tuesday, the nation’s second-largest teachers’ union raised the stakes dramatically by authorizing its local and state chapters to strike if their districts do not take sufficient precautions — such as requiring masks and updating ventilation systems — before reopening classrooms. Already, teachers’ unions have sued Florida’s governor over that state’s efforts to require schools to offer in-person instruction.

I'm not entirely sure that's anything so drastic. The fact is Florida is exploding in Corona virus. Deaths just spiked to a record high. The MAGA governor claims students are at less CONTINUE READING: NYC Educator: NY Times Trashes Unionized Teachers, Presents Barely Researched Nonsense as Fact