During the Capitol protests, one young child -- among many who with their parents were in the "frenzied mobs" that Scott Fitzgerald saw from his office window -- carried a sign that read: Without unions, I'd be at work right now
Damned kidsorganized labor movement in this country were instrumental in bringing about child labor laws, which limited the hours that juveniles could work, preventing many injuries and exploitative behavior by employers.
Given the national wave of public sector union bashing, it’s not surprising that people like Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, is out making speeches about the virtues of collective bargaining in public education.
The case against teachers unions has been simmering for decades, with horror stories about the rubber room in New York (now gone); countless instances of union resistance to modification of rigid seniority rules in promotion and layoffs, and, often, general insensitivity to the needs of children and the concerns of parents.
It had to blow – and what more likely time than during a recession and the accompanying tight state and local budgets. Nor does it come only from the Republicans of Wisconsin and Ohio (and Washington, D.C.), but from national foundations and from fully certified liberals like Davis Guggenheim, whose film Waiting for Superman portrays Weingarten as a villain in the struggle of parents to get their children into decent schools. Even Barack Obama and his education secretary Arne Duncan don’t seem so sure.
But Weingarten’s effort – I heard her in the East Bay suburb of Lafayette last week – was but a frail dike against that wave. She told stories to illustrate how bottom-up input in collective
Tennessee Republicans Vote to Repeal Evolution | |
| By: Blue Texan Friday April 1, 2011 6:00 pm | |
by .jun
The Scopes Monkey Trial ended 86 years ago, but wingnuts in Tennessee can’t quite seem to move past it. Republican Talibangelicals have penned an anti-Darwin bill — which actually made it out of committee this week — and they think they’re being really sneaky about it.
As with most of the other anti-evolution bills that have been introduced this year in states across the country, the Tennessee legislation does not specifically mention creationist or intelligent design. Rather, it says that the teachers must be helped “to find effective ways to present the science curriculum as it addresses scientific controversies.” It also says that teachers may not be prohibited from “helping students understand, analyze, critique and review in an objective manner the
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