The California state legislature is in Democratic hands, so it's trying to protect public-school teachers rather than firing them or stripping them of collective-bargaining rights. Political cartoonist Tom Meyer decided to portray this as selfish teachers hogging scarce resources in a time of emergency—at the expense of poor little children. (After all, every teacher saved is a student harmed.) Editorial cartoons aren't a good medium for nuance, but it was still a rather nasty effort by the normally moderate Meyer.
There was, of course, a flurry of letters castigating Meyer for his cartoon's ham-handed “teacher versus student” message. Just as predictably, there were a few that cheered him on. Here's one that appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle on July 19:
CTA's orchestrated outragePorterville? That's right in the middle of Tulare County, down in the Central Valley—the reddest part of the Golden State. Mr. Blomgren is undoubtedly one of those teachers who knows things would be better if the California Teachers Association went away and left him to the tender mercies of school administrators, most of whom are unlikely to take undue advantage of unrepresented faculty members. Most.
I just received an e-mail from the California Teachers Association suggesting that I express my outrage over the recent political cartoon run in your paper. So here goes: I am outraged that every time the overpaid, self-serving, self-important CTA union bureaucrats get attacked, they try to turn it into an attack on teachers.
CTA does not represent students, period. For that matter, it does not even truly represent teachers. While every public school teacher in California is required by law to pay dues to CTA, only those members who pay extra to support political candidates of CTA's choosing are allowed to vote in CTA elections. Does that sound like representation to you?
Like virtually all organizations with power, their primary goal is securing more control over those issues they deem important (many of which have nothing to do with education).
Kinsey Blomgren, Porterville
Then I saw a letter in the July 20 edition of the Sacramento Bee. Gosh, it looked familiar:
The real outrage on cartoonHuh. It looks like Kinsey has forgotten he lives in Porterville. Or did he previously forget that he lives in Springville? On the other (third?) hand, perhaps he moved from one town to the other between bouts of letter-writing.
Re “Cartoon is ignorant” (Letters, July 18): I just received an email from the California Teachers Association suggesting that I express my outrage over the July 14 Tom Meyer cartoon depicting how teachers were protected in the recent budget. So here goes: I am outraged that every time the overpaid, self-serving, self-important CTA union bureaucrats get attacked, they try to turn it into an attack on teachers.
CTA does not represent students, period. For that matter, it does not even truly represent teachers. While every public school teacher in California is required by law to pay dues to CTA, only those members who pay extra to support political candidates of CTA's choosing are allowed to vote in CTA elections. Does that sound like representation to you?
Like virtually all organizations with power, its primary goal is securing more control over those issues they deem important – many of which have nothing to do with education.
—Kinsey Blomgren, Springville
Not only is Mr. Blomgren uncertain of where he lives, he appears not to understand that unions are accountable to their members—and Blomgren prefers not to be one. He pays a representation fee because CTA is obligated to represent him in any grievances he might file against his school, but he has chosen not to become a full member and therefore does not have a voice in choosing the CTA leadership. His choice.
I think it's probably a rational choice by Blomgren. The “political candidates of CTA's choosing” are never going to be right-wing politicians who attack public schools (like the one Blomgren teaches in down in Tulare County) and Blomgren would be doomed in his attempts to garner majority support among his fellow teachers for a reversal of CTA policy. One might as well try to organize chickens to endorse Colonel Sanders.
Thus Mr. Blomgren's complaint about “representation” is rather pointless. He has embraced what is certain to remain a minority viewpoint within his profession. He can rail against CTA all he likes, but it's not an anti-democratic organization. It's also not an anti-Democratic organization, which may be Blomgren's real complaint.
I won't deny that unions have sometimes descended into thuggery and strong-arm tactics, but that's pretty rare. Modern-day examples are not easy to find. (The pointing and screaming by Wisconsin's teabaggers is pure anti-union propaganda.) Fortunately, there's a dead giveaway for when unions start to go bad: They endorse Republicans.
Addendum
Today (July 22) a thoughtful letter-writer shares an informed perspective of the California Teachers Association and its role in representing anti-union faculty like Mr. Blomgren:
Clarifying CTA rules
Re “The real outrage on cartoon” (Letters, July 20): Whether or not the California Teachers Association does a good job of representing teachers and students is a matter of opinion for another letter; however, there are some problems with the facts in this letter.
First of all, every public school teacher is not required by law to pay dues. In each district, the teachers must vote to form a union, then vote whether they want to affiliate with CTA. Even then every teacher only pays dues if they vote for an agency “fair pay” agreement. Not all districts have unions, and not all local unions join with CTA; some affiliate with AFT or only have a local union. Secondly, CTA members are still voting members even if they opt out of paying for political action.
—Steven Smith, Rocklin
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9 comments:
The most reasonable explanation is that Mr. Blomgren lives in both Porterville and Springville. When you are a millionaire, it's easy to own several homes.
Perhaps Mr. Blomgren figured that liberal San Franciscans are too stupid to find Springville on a Google map, so he associated himself with the nearest Big Town.
Zee, how do you know that Kinsey isn't a "she"? That was my initial reaction.
Kathie, I used a tool called "the Internet." ;-)
Oh Zee, you sly boots ;-)
Zeno added:
"...Blomgren could always consider moving to one of the idyllic 'Right to Work' states where he could cheerfully work with lower pay and less job security. I hear Texas is hiring..."
Not only that, if the religious-righties there keep pushing hard enough, Blomgren might even get to teach geocentrism in his Physics courses someday!
Then there's this aspect of the Texas curriculum:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/shawn-lawrence-otto/rick-perry-abstinence_b_904115.html
My favorite line re sex-ed is near the end of the article, where Perry vouches that "I'm just going to tell you from my own personal life, abstinence works."
Texas isn't in a heat wave. It's called summer.
I'm not so sure preventing closed shops is such a bad idea. If you want to join a union and take advantage of its benefits, you can. The UAW has just as strong a foothold in Arlington TX as it has in Detroit. If, however, an individual doesn't want to avail him/herself of a union's benefits that choice should be available and there should be no compulsion to pay.
In many things I am a liberal - in the case of unions I tend to be in more of a "take 'em or leave 'em" position. Historically, they were good things, but I'm not so sure that they keep the big picture in sight any better than your average politician does.
Texas isn't in a heat wave. It's called summer.
The Department of Meteorology at Texas A&M says that June 2011 was the hottest June in recorded Texas history, so I think I'm sticking with the notion that Texas is in a heat wave as well as a well-documented drought.
Texas? No, we ain't hiring teachers, 'specially none o' them California nuts.
We're two weeks from teachers heading back to school, and in Dallas, there is not yet a decision that there won't be new layoff notices before then.
It's against the law for teachers to do anything like collective bargaining, or that looks like collective bargaining, in Texas -- especially striking. We're allowed to affiliate with the national unions, and it's a good idea because they will provide support and representation if a student or anyone else complains -- and as God and Rick Perry know, the schools will never support a teacher in a dispute (including disputes over such things as whether that student had the right to murder the teacher).
I used to wonder about people who don't like teachers and make up stories about how easy they have it, and how they deserve to be kicked around. I thought, perhaps, they got bad grades as a child.
After 8 years of teaching in the public schools, I recognize they are just stupid, probably stupider than I thought they were when I was a student and when I worked education policy in Washington.
Teachers are being hired in communities around a certain nuclear power plant in Japan, I hear -- but nowhere else in the U.S. is hiring considered good.
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