The National Education Association, the nation’s largest teachers union, and its counterpart, the American Federation of Teachers, are ramping up attention on Senate Bill 3206, introduced by Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), which would create a $23 billion “education jobs fund” to hire or retain “150,000 or more” school employees for the next school year.  The NEA is engaged in a “massive, 24/7 lobbying campaign” to pass Harkin’s bill, according to its president Dennis Van Roekel.

That’s $153,333 spent per job just to “retain” them.  The most recent data from the American Federation of Teachers concluded the average teacher salary is $51,009.  Where is the other $100,000 per job going?

Nevertheless, in a recent Senate committee hearing, Harkin cited the “emergency” for creating the fund.  Note he didn’t say teachers, he said “education jobs.”  That’s because in many states, like Michigan, teachers unions are losing members that are custodians or food service workers.

Just for the record, billions of dollars have already been spent on “retaining” school jobs.  The NEA claims 325,000 public school jobs were “saved” under the stimulus bill.

The NEA released a YouTube video with a title which pretty much sums up the union’s entire existence: “The issue is JOBS.”

Of course: the issue is not accountability or test scores or huge amounts of fiscal waste.  It’s simply jobs and therefore union dues.

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In his 2007 book, Outrage, Dick Morris said it best: “There’s nothing wrong with America’s schools that breaking the power of the teachers unions wouldn’t cure.”

Few have had the courage to put it that directly.  Our organization’s similarly blunt language puts a target on our back, but when you deal with organized labor, you know that comes with the territory.  Expecting unions to act like professional organizations is like expecting the government to be frugal.  It’s not in their DNA.

As Education Action Group Foundation chronicles daily on NEAexposed.com and AFTexposed.com, the national teachers unions and their state affiliates bully and punish school boards and administrators during contract negotiations and school elections.  They work aggressively to elect union sympathizers to local school boards, then up end up negotiating friendly contracts with the candidates they just helped to elect.  It’s a corrupt system that works to  the detriment of children, parents and taxpayers.

And the teachers unions’ answer for school financial problems is always “more taxes,” rather than offering a few concessions that would save schools a ton of money.

When I was invited to speak to the Americans for Prosperity Tax Day rally at the state capitol in Lansing, Michigan last week, it was a first for me.  I had never spoken at such an event.  It was probably one of the few speeches around the country that zeroed in on the pirates of public education: the teachers unions.

The understanding that teachers unions are the problem, not the cure for our public schools, is finally starting to sink in with the public. Even President Obama, whose campaign collected millions from the teachers unions, has come out in favor of school reforms that the unions violently object to.

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When we created AFTexposed.com a few weeks ago, we paid particular attention to the American Federation of Teachers’ connection to ACORN.  [See a related sidebar below.]  Randi Weingarten, the president of the AFT, had previously been the president of the United Federation of Teachers–the New York City teachers’ union.

Bertha Lewis, before becoming the CEO and chief organizer of ACORN, had headed up the New York chapter of ACORN.

Weingarten’s UFT had hired Lewis’s ACORN to help unionize 28,000 day care workers and bring them into the UFT fold.  Just what exactly does the UFT know about child care?  From ACORN itself:

“For us, it’s an educational issue and a moral issue and an economic justice issue,” [Weingarten] said.

From 2006 to 2008, ACORNcracked.com has been able to account for over $1.2 million in dues dollars from New York City teachers going to ACORN.  And Weingarten earned a special recognition from ACORN earlier this summer at its 39th anniversary gala, hosted by chief AFT rival, the National Education Association.

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