{"id":15685,"date":"2012-08-30T14:56:55","date_gmt":"2012-08-30T18:56:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/?p=15685"},"modified":"2012-08-30T14:56:55","modified_gmt":"2012-08-30T18:56:55","slug":"on-the-shamelessness-of-teacher-unions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/15685\/on-the-shamelessness-of-teacher-unions\/","title":{"rendered":"On the Shamelessness of Teacher Unions"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ve posted here on the blog <a href=\"http:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/15294\/louisiana-teachers-unions-fight-a-desperate-rearguard\/\" target=\"_blank\">before<\/a> about the ongoing fight over Governor Bobby Jindal&#8217;s bold education reforms in Louisiana, which have left the Pelican State&#8217;s teachers unions incensed. And <a href=\"http:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/index.php\/commentary\/54-state-of-affairs\/1561-the-democratic-betrayal-of-african-american-voters\" target=\"_blank\">in my column this week<\/a>, I discussed the relentless tendency of liberals to rhetorically exploit African-Americans while supporting policies that harm black communities. Yet even though these two trends are not new, I&#8217;m still gobsmacked that it has come to this shameful nadir. From <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.heritage.org\/2012\/08\/30\/teachers-union-african-american-school-choice-group-supports-kkk\/?utm_source=twitterfeed&amp;utm_medium=twitter\" target=\"_blank\">the Heritage Foundation&#8217;s <em>The Foundry<\/em><\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>A major state-level teachers union accused a group promoting school choice for African-American families of supporting the notorious white supremacist group the Ku Klux Klan in a series of statements on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>The Louisiana Federation of Teachers accused the Louisiana Black Alliance for Educational Options (BAEO) of advancing a \u201cpro-KKK agenda,\u201d in the words of <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/LaFedTeachers\/status\/241174867460894720\">one tweet<\/a> sent from the union\u2019s official Twitter account. Another <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/LaFedTeachers\/status\/241031084815568896\">claimed<\/a> that the group \u201cendorses teaching that the KKK is good.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The BAEO works to \u201cincrease access to high-quality educational options for Black children by actively supporting parental choice policies and programs that empower low-income and working-class Black families,\u201d according to its website.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>In response to this filth, the head of the BAEO put out a statement reading, in part:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>BAEO and its allies fight every single day to give children from low-income families access to the best educational options possible. We fight to overcome the institutional bigotry that has sentenced thousands of black children across the country to a substandard education. It\u2019s a sad day when an organization like the Louisiana Federation of Teachers, which says it cares about kids, is among the organizations using degrading, race-baiting tactics to demean the very people who are doing their best to give kids hope.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Unfortunately, we&#8217;re well past the point when the teachers unions&#8217; arguments were about the kids. These days, it&#8217;s about nothing more than holding on to power. The children are little more than collateral damage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ve posted here on the blog before about the ongoing fight over Governor Bobby Jindal&#8217;s bold education reforms in Louisiana, which have left the Pelican State&#8217;s teachers unions incensed. And in my column this week, I discussed the relentless tendency of liberals to rhetorically exploit African-Americans while supporting policies that harm black communities. Yet even [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1448,376,754,526,3092,172,3351],"class_list":["post-15685","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-posts","tag-bobby-jindal","tag-education-reform","tag-liberalism","tag-louisiana","tag-racism","tag-school-choice","tag-school-vouchers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15685"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15685\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15688,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15685\/revisions\/15688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}