For some reason, the American Federation of Teachers released a statement Friday on the United States’ missile strike in Syria.
“Syria’s barbaric use of chemical genocide required an immediate response, which President Trump’s missile strikes accomplished last night,” Randi Weingarten, president of the labor union, said in a statement, though it’s unclear why. “While we believe Trump should have gone to Congress first, I find it curious that many members of Congress who are applauding the U.S. strikes had opposed former President Obama when he sought congressional approval for similar action.”
In the style of a personal Facebook musing from January, Weingarten added America “needs a long-term plan for the tyranny of Syrian President Bashar Assad,” and it should include a more “open” refugee policy that would return America to its place as the “world’s moral conscience in defense of the world’s most vulnerable.”
Weingarten also cut and pasted her feels on Judge Neil Gorsuch’s elevation to the Supreme Court today, distributing them publicly ostensibly on behalf of the 1 million teachers she represents. Again, her reasons for this are not readily apparent.
The American people deserved a Supreme Court justice with a record of upholding precedent, respecting existing law, and standing up for regular folks instead of corporations and special interests. Justice Neil Gorsuch has said he would meet that standard, but his actions as a jurist say otherwise. Moreover, it’s a dark day when one political party thwarts both the constitutional process and the traditions of a legislative body to ensure the confirmation of an ideological friend.
Neither of these statements mentions how these issues affect the constituency of K-12 teachers for whom she’s allegedly working. Neither even tries to tie the news of the day to the concerns of educators in America. They both, however, employ the talking points and arguments of most left-leaning, political interest groups.
Several school districts similarly jettisoned any pretense of prioritizing education of students over liberal politics by closing their doors during the “Day Without Women” strike in March, organized by the same women who put on the “Women’s March” as a protest of Trump’s inauguration.
“This is publicly funded partisan politicking,” Joy Pullmann wrote at the time. “That used to be off-limits because both sides didn’t want the other doing it, so we called a truce. But the truce has long been a lie for public funding only for Leftist causes. This strike is yet another example of that reality, and therefore a reason to end the charade and let families direct their tax dollars to schools that fit their values.”
In a Trump administration, with a fan of education reform sitting atop the Department of Education, public teachers and their lobbyists and union representatives are constantly screaming about how Secretary Betsy DeVos and her abetters are bound to let private schools, homeschooling options, and voucher programs eat their lunch.
As a mom who is currently considering where to send her own children, may I suggest acting like pure political activists instead of like teachers who are interested in educating my children is turning people off faster and more effectively than any Trump administration policy change could.
