I have the May 2012 issue of California Educator, mouthpiece rag of the California Teachers Association, and it's full of--I know what you thought I was going to say!--it's full of all the leftie tripe you'd expect from a labor union.
What amazes me, though, is the total lack of intellectual effort that goes into it. It's nothing but vapid thoughts augmented by angry words, without a shred of logic, of reason, if intelligence added. So instead of taking the magazine apart piece by piece, I'm going to direct your attention to only one item, a 2-page poster you can "post...in your classroom, worksite, or wherever you think it important to share our opposition to the Corporate Power Grab." To find this poster, click here to get to the digital version of the magazine and then scroll through the pages until you get to pp 21-22.
Go look at the poster. Look at in in detail, then come back. I'll wait. :-)
Great, welcome back. I only have one question for you--what is this poster about? "It's about the Corporate Power Grab Initiative", you might say. But what is that? Its actual name, mentioned in the smallest font on the poster, is the "Stop Special Interest Money Now Act". What does this act do? Why does CTA oppose it? What makes it so heinous that I should hang up this poster in my classroom--where I don't have very many students of voting age?
This poster doesn't tell us anything. I look on the pages immediately before and immediately after the poster, hoping in vain that there will be some explanation there about what exactly this act says and why it's so bad. But there's nothing.
I'll bet I could ask every teacher at my school about this poster, and not one of them would be able to tell me about the act in question, but most of them will vote against it because the CTA tells them to.
That poster is the intellectual equivalent of a temper tantrum. It's nothing more than red meat, designed to inspire a thoughtless feeding frenzy.
And it's directed at college-educated people, who will no doubt devour it--at least the CTA thinks and hopes they'll devour it. If that isn't a sad commentary on both teachers and their union, I don't know what is.
Update, 5/28/12: Is it even legal to post such things in a classroom?
Hey, that's as great as the cover of the American Federation of Teacher's On Campus magazine, May/June 2012 edition. The cover story is "Occupy Sallie Mae! Students seek relief for $1 trillion in loan debt," over a picture of some fist-to-power marchers with an "Education Is a Right!" banner.
ReplyDeleteIt is clear that my union dues go to publications such as this which inform me which way NOT to vote. This, of course, means that the AFT would cry out that I am voting against my own interest, but since when do they know what my best interest is?