Union President: Time to Make Charter Schools ‘Ours’
by Education Action GroupMINNESOTA — Charter schools are popping up all across the nation, with 41 states offering families access to the alternative public schools.
Because the large majority of charter schools are not unionized, they can focus solely on serving students instead of pacifying the financial demands of school employee unions.
The unions know they cannot stop the spread of charter schools, so they have decided to take them over.
Late last year, the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers decided to authorize its own charter schools. An email written by MFT President Lynn Nordgren and posted on Eduwonk.com explains the union’s decision.
“ … [C]harter schools are not going away despite 20 years of protesting,” Nordgren writes. “Because of this, it is time to figure out how to… stop the de-professionalization of teaching, the bleeding out of our unions and the miseducation of too many students… It is time to ‘get in the game’ and make it ours.”
We all know that “the miseducation” of students is really the unions’ specialty, and they guard it jealously.
Nordgren writes that the MFT’s decision to open charter schools will “keep our union responsibilities and rights as an option, and make sure teachers are respected and have a voice in the schools in which they work.”
Translation: the unions want charter schools to choke on all their rigid work rules, pay schedules and adult-centered demands which will render the alternative public schools no different than their government-run counterparts.
The union’s new philosophy about charter schools is simple: if you can’t beat ‘em, infiltrate and destroy them from within.
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59 Comments
So the plan is to take over the charter school cause them to fail and then point out they were right all along.
Wait isn't that what socialists do to the economy and everything else they touch?
So schools who actually provide a nonpartisan education and educate people to think for themselves instead of political indoctrination will have to make sure to distinguish themselves from the union Democrat party indoctrination schools. Hope they do that . We don't need to lose any more Americans to the political garbage of the the unions and Democrat party.
HELL NO!
We homeschooled back in the nineties when Clinton et al were attacking us and trying to make it too difficult to continue. Our youngest just graduated the university with a degree in physics and minors in math and engineering and the oldest finished three years of college and started a very successful business, now in its sixth year. Home schooling works and the kids get their work done in four hours and it gives the family the flexibility to travel and to work together on other tasks. There are now homeschooling curriculum available at Barnes and Noble and online. If you like spending time with your children instead of wishing them "out the door" then homeschooling is a great option.
Thank you for creating useful citizens who were raised properly.
lol. Do public schools even educate our students enough to call it "mis-education"?
Unions need that hands-on time with our children to do the early damage to their psyche, damage that is almost impossible to reverse.
If you don't realize, or perhaps doubt their mission I suggest you read a short essay, "The Comprachicos" by Ayn Rand. The horrific methods have been applied for many decades, beginning in the U.S. preschool daycare system. IMO this explains why we have so many disenfranchised folks in their 20's, 30's and even 40's these days.
The Charter Schools would do well to keep the unions out with 100% parental support……
Let the unions build their own…..question is: will students come?
Charter schools and home schooling are the enemy of the socialist unions whose agenda is to dumb down the children and teach their commie class warfare. I sincerely hope more and more parents opt to keep their children out of public schools. Parents can control the material and use every day news as a teaching opportunity and offset the propaganda agenda of the press. The most important message-what it means to be an American citizen-is critical for the survival of this country like never before. I despair about conservative friends who are afraid to talk to their adult children about politics for fear of losing their 'friendship'. This is it folks – 2012 elections.
"ours" says the union boss. This tells us all we need know about teachers unions they beleive they control the schools not the parents nor the children. Unions are killing America just as they do in Europe. Obama has been bought by the union campaign dollars at the cost of ther education of "our" children. Can't you realize how Obama is slowly destroying our country, just like Stalin, Mao, Hitler and Castro previously.
VOUCHERS NOW!
Good point, when unions get involved in the free market they usually fail miserably.
Unions…….
My wife and I decided she should fill her day with a part time job. She decided to work in a local, unionized school district part time. She refuses to talk with the union people that are constantly trying to gain membership—-nothing new here.
In the middle of Fall she was approached and asked to add an additional hour and 20 minutes a day to her schedule. We have kids, so it' not the first thing she was planning to do, but she said yes. Since this school is unionized they have "rules" that no one disclosed until too late. By adding an additional 80 minutes per day, there is a union rule that said she had to take a non-paid 45 minute lunch…….. The job only entails a few hours a day anyway and when to have lunch isn't really an issue. So moral of the story is that unions stifle productivity.
She went back to her short day in 2012.
"The union’s new philosophy about charter schools is simple: if you can’t beat ‘em, infiltrate and destroy them from within."
Kind of like our govt . today.
The schools have indoctrinated our children with the entire democratic playbook: America is bad, the military is cruel, the unuions are necessary, Obama is wonderful, big government will provide for you, the 1%- ers are the problem not the millionair politicians, President and V.P. or sports stars and hollywood fawns, the environment is harmed by oil and gas while the rest of the world gets rich selling those to us and our President gives our tax dollars[2 billion] to Brazil and says "we want to be your best customer" while preventing the USA from drilling in the same ocean as Brazil. The OWS brats are the result of the 60's radicals reliving their failed lives.The indoctrination over the years has worked unless we take back our country and put Obama on unemplyment.
As long as the government doesn't force you into a particular charter school based on where you live, then the free market will dictate which charter school parents send their children too. The smart money is on the one NOT run by the Teacher's Union.
Even that would improve the union-run schools because parents can take their kids out if they don't like it. This competition will make even the unions run better schools. The government is the problem in education because they do not allow proper market forces to work (i.e. competition).
Unions had a noble purpose in the late 1800s and early 1900s. However, much like the women's rights and civil rights movements, once they achieved their goals they didn't know what to do, so the normal people left (having achieved what they set out to do), and the radicals took over to demand more and more.
Now Unions are just a burden on everyone, and serve only to enrich the bosses at the expense of their own members, labor in general, and the tax payer.
Vouchers are the obvious solution, and would benefit the poor the most (who can't afford private schools).
If only all the poor people who blindly support the Democrat Party would realize how little the Democrats care about them when it goes against the Union agenda.
Any competition would improve all schools (including those run by unions). Once the Unions learned that parents could take their kids out of the school if they didn't like what they were getting the Union would be forced to improve.
The only thing keeping this from happening now is the government-mandated monopoly that public schools enjoy whereby you are forced to attend a school based on where you live unless you can afford private school.
It is time for all unions to go, especially public sector unions. The original purpose of unions is over, rule of law has rendered them obsolete and in the public sector they were never needed in the first place. Unions only exist today to perpetuate themselves and rape the public of tax dollars and through higher prices for goods and services.
Unions are just filthy organizations these days. The national labor relations act should be repealed.
Interesting view….so the actual education of children is mis-education according to the teacher unions? "Up" must mean "down" and "good" must mean "bad".
No. To emphasize the point, consider the OWS movement.
Impressive. And the unions are doing this all for the children? I think not. Teacher unions have become a very sick joke. They don't give a tinkers damn about children; it's all about them.
Please, differentiate between the often-partisan elementary and liberal arts teachers, and the math, business, and science teachers. The former's skill set doesn't translate well, out of schools, whereas the latter's have application in business and industry.
Math, business, and science teachers generally come into education for non-partisan reasons. They like kids, have some valuable skills to teach them, and are generally knowledgeable enough about the world that propaganda efforts of the unions aren't seductive to them.
Elementary and liberal arts teachers, on the other hand, couldn't earn a fraction of their pay out of educational jobs. For them, getting out isn't an option. Therefore, whatever money they make HAS to be in schools. They'll go along with any goofy ideas from the peeps that make more money possible.
Unfortunately, the elementary teachers, combined with the liberal arts teachers, outnumber their opponents in the union. I'm living in a right-to-work state now (formerly from OH), and I'm praying for those OH teachers to wise up. Failing that, how about a hard run at de-certifying the unions? Virtually NONE of the current teachers voted for them.
Well done. Thank you for providing the country with two productive citizens. Kudos.
The way to discourage the hijacking of charter schools is to make them all private in name only.
It's a basic law of nature.
Once a parasite has destroyed their host…
… they must seek a new donor or die themselves.
So the Unions are going to form their own charter schools, what will be their selling point to prospective parents? Who here sends their children to a charter school who has teachers and curriculum just like the one they came from? Only the kind of arrogance displayed by unions could envision this scenario as being successful.
Typical liberals. Find something that is working AND beneficial to society and do all they can to destroy it. PURE insanity.
I have three daughters in public schools – two in our town's system and one at a charter school – and I cannot tell you how much admiration I have for the way that the charter school is approaching the education of my middle daughter.
Case in point: my oldest daughter, a junior, and my middle daughter, a freshman, were coincidently studying the Constitution. My oldest daughter had an assignment to do an interpretive dance about the founders (no, I swear to God that I am not making that up). Meanwhile, my middle daughter's charter school teacher expected a four page report comparing and contrasting the Federalists and Anti-Federalists. And the level of the subject matter was very, very deep.
It has come to the regrettable point that the public schools exist in this country for the benefit of the teacher's unions. Period. They should be dismantled entirely and replaced with either private non-profit or for-profit institutions.
My mother and father's community just voted to knock down their perfectly good 30 odd year old high school and middle school and spend over a hundred million rebuilding them. Fools. They are making a very big mistake.
I could go on for hours, such has my contempt for public education and teacher's unions.
They have oak trees in MN, right?
yep- scorched earth is their favorite battle plan.
yes, unions believe they OWN their jobs. certainly not the taxpayers, parents, or students. in their view, companies, schools, etc., primary reason to exist is to provide them jobs. the rest is just extraneous details…
Q: When did the teachers stop volunteering for after school programs?
A: When the Union first established the mantra of "not in their job description".
yeah, yeah, i'm a pr ! ck for saying this, but if the poor were very smart they wouldn't be voting Democrat, nor would they be nearly so likely to be poor in the first place…
every legitimate cause unions ever espoused (40 hr wk, OT, child labor, safety, min wage, etc.) is now securely ensconced in law. the ONLY reason unions now exist is to extort from their employers compensation in excess of what they could command in a free market, and get it for doing as little actual work as possible. period.
More like brain-washing and indoctrination.
I have a message to the Public Unions. It is time the bosses (The People) take back their school districts from you & run them to educate, NOT INDOCTRINATE.
“Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.” James Madison
Rope.
Tree.
Socialist.
Some assembly required.
I wonder when the unionists will come after home schooling families. All those teachers for their union.
I agree that non-partisan teachers would most likely be in the business, math and sciences. Although, the climate scientists have been infiltrated yet, they have bravely managed to expose the partisans. There are also good teachers and teachers that started out with noble intentions. The problem with too many of the unions is that when they enter the scene their tactics are so extreme that few people are prepared to deal with them. Look at OWS. There were some well-intentioned people, I'm sure, but they lost out to the criminals and commies crazies. Look at the Arab Spring, same thing the radicals win because they scare the heck out of everyone. Our government is supposed to protect our freedom by protecting us from that type of coercion. Unfortunately, our government is in cahoots with them.
Union President: Time to Make Charter Schools ‘Ours’
In other words, they are doing too well and really education our youth. The unions cannot have this – they need robots, stupid idiots coming out of our Government School System.
The last thing the unions want is a truly educated public. That is anathema to the unions.
The unions are simply attempting to define literacy and intelligence down.
No wonder Obammy killed the Washington, DC vouchers for special schools. Like his brother unionists, he wants a fundamentally transformed America – stupid ignorant puppets.
The battle is still spiritual – for the hearts, souls and minds of people – - good versus evil, Jesus versus Satan.
It is very clear to see who is which side.
Learn the Constitution quickly at:
http://www.constitutionparty.org Find "Party Platform" and there's 40 issues or topics listed with the Constitutional Answer.
BEWARE: They use the Early Colonialist Worldview, which was predominantly a biblical Christian perspective.
WE ARE THE UNIONS. RESISTANCE IS FUTILE. TAXPAYERS WALLETS WILL BE ASSIMILATED.
FROM NOW ON, YOU WILL SERVICE US.
And where is our Starship Enterprise?
is it racist to notice barack obama is a blithering idiot?
Haha! That's great! I nearly choked when I read that. You don't mind if I borrow do you?
I am gonna have to steal that as well ill credit it to you tho!
Government supplied vouchers would give the government a foot in the door of private schools. Since it's "the goverment's money" paying for the vouchers, they will demand a say in the curriculum and private schools will rapidly come to resemble public schools.
The unions new philosophy is no different from the communist's old philosophy.
The Unions have deprofessionalized the teacher corps.
I read this and it really hit me just how damaging the Progressive Think Tank has damaged our society. Ideas that everyone wins an award, even if they failed. It can't be a coincidence that this happened.
Well said!
Borrow away, guys. It wasn't originally mine, either.
"My oldest daughter had an assignment to do an interpretive dance about the founders"
wut
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That's a generic statement that is less than clear. In my state, non-chartered non-tax supported schools are still required to comply with a state regulation on what subjects the curriculum must cover, additionally, students in those schools qualify for PSEO opportunities, meaning state colleges give credit for High School classes that matched college level work. So, government already has a foot in the door of private schools anyway.
The fact is that you can see this a-hole shouting “UNIONS ARE DESTROYING AMERICA” almost every day on CNBC. Never mind that union membership (9%) in the private sector is lower than it has been in 80 years, Kudlow won’t rest until it is 0%. That most wealth and wages are concentrated in 1% of the population? I don't think so. I think these things need to change because they are not American values and goals and certainly not the America the founders were founding. I do value highly my rights to opinion, not to have religion, freedom of speech, freedom to pursue my way of life and ability to go where I want. Fearful right wing policies have done more harm to these freedoms and rights than anything Obama has ever done.
Might be interesting to watch as the union charter schools fail
and the non-union charter schools are the only ones left standing.
Then we can go "See, we told you so".
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