MUSKEGON, Mich. – We’ve always known that teachers unions are very political organizations, and many of their more radical members are active in left-wing causes.

That’s their right, as long as they pursue their activities after school.

But more and more American K-12 teachers are bringing their politics into the classroom, brazenly acknowledging their effort to indoctrinate and recruit a new generation of radical, anti-American students.

“The long period of self-censorship among educators regarding class and labor issues may no longer hold,” wrote radical educator Rob Linne in his book “Organizing the Curriculum.”

“We cannot claim to be teaching for social justice if we ignore the class warfare being waged all around us. Bringing labor into the arena of K-12 education will undoubtedly meet political resistance, but an increasing number of educators are motivated to take up the challenge.”

That frightening approach to teaching is what motivated Education Action Group to publish a new book titled “Indoctrination: How ‘Useful Idiots’ are Using Our Schools to Subvert American Exceptionalism.”

You can watch a short promotional video for the book by clicking here.

The book, authored by EAG Chief Executive Officer Kyle Olson, with assistance from staffers Ben Velderman and Steve Gunn, is available on Amazon.com.

It explores dozens of examples of radical public school teachers and their politically active unions taking liberty with our children by teaching left-wing philosophy as fact.

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This is one part of a running series entitled “Indoctrination Fridays,” a weekly review of leftist propaganda incorporated into public school curriculum, much geared towards elementary students.  For more of the series, please visit PublicSchoolSpending.com.

In typical union and socialist propaganda, employers are depicted as cruel and uncaring business owners who never miss an opportunity to cheat and mistreat workers.

Big Labor’s “us versus them” worldview is so entrenched that they can’t recognize the fact that most successful companies value their employees, and do whatever they can to retain their best workers. That reality, of course, undercuts the relevance of unions.

So what’s a union to do?

Like their fellow travelers in the “man-made” global warming community, the unions know they have to indoctrinate the young with their propaganda. But when you’re dealing with kindergartners, you have to insert the concept of unionizing subtly into lessons.  You’ll get blank stares if you talk about the virtues of Jimmy Hoffa or the Service Employees International Union.

The California Federation of Teachers produced the perfect solution with “Trouble in the Hen House: A Puppet Show.” To spare you the unpleasantness of reading this bilge, here’s the basic plot:  a bunch of hens feel “oppressed” by the farmer, so they band together and create Hens United. The angry unionized chickens are too powerful a force for the farmer to handle, so he capitulates to the hens’ demands.  Here’s a key excerpt:

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This is one part of a running series entitled “Indoctrination Fridays,” a weekly review of leftist propaganda incorporated into public school curriculum and geared towards elementary students.  For more of the series, please visit PublicSchoolSpending.com.

The California Federation of Teachers thinks it’s important for kids to learn how to run a business.  I come from a small business family, so I’m cool with that.  The curriculum immediately starts off on the wrong foot, though, because it’s not from the perspective of an entrepreneur, but rather a disgruntled employee.

A “Labor Studies Curriculum for Elementary Schools,” entitled “The Yummy Pizza Company,” takes up to 20 classroom hours over a two-week period.  Important concepts in the 10 lessons, such as the value of work and money management, are critical components, but are quickly overshadowed by the fact that 40% of the curriculum is about forming Pizza Makers Union Local 18.  That’s right – the program is focused on teaching kids to unionize.

I don’t suppose this creative curriculum has anything do to with current issues, like collective bargaining privileges for public employees. Teachers wouldn’t be so blatant as to involve young children in their political issues, would they?

Art lessons are incorporated into the curriculum. Students are assigned the task of designing a union logo and membership cards.  Math is also a focus. Part of the lesson involves calculating “union dues as a percentage of wages.”

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A few weeks ago I brought you the story of the California Federation of Teachers passing a resolution “reaffirming” support for convicted cop killer Mumia Abu-Jamal.  He was convicted of killing, execution-style, Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner. Despite numerous appeals and efforts by far leftists to spring him from prison, he’s serving a life sentence in an open-and-shut case.

The Fraternal Order of Police issued a strongly-worded letter to American Federation of Teachers’ President Randi Weingarten, parent union to the CFT.

The union’s absurdly radical action is now producing its consequences.

I received an email from a CFT and AFT member resigning his union membership over the kerfuffle.  He wrote in part:

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I believe there is a difference between rank-and-file teachers and the leadership of radical teachers’ unions.  The trouble is, the rank-and-file sits idly by as the radicals embarrass them, time and time again.  Perhaps we’ve reached the point where the rank-and-file can rightfully be accused of being complicit of such behavior.

Why aren’t teachers angrily denouncing a recent resolution passed by the California Federation of Teachers in which the union “reaffirms support for death row journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal?”

The American Federation of Teachers, led by Randi Weingarten, has to date issued no statement in opposition to this offensive resolution.

And what does the AFL-CIO, the parent to the AFT think?  More importantly, what do the police members of the AFL-CIO think?  After all, Abu-Jamal was convicted of killing one of their own.

Or don’t they care?

At what point will the teachers’ unions be more concerned with the pitiful state of public education than they are about the fate of a convicted cop killer, or other unrelated issues like gay rights, national health care or American foreign policy?

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