It’s Not About Your Union – It’s About Our Kids!

Parents at Desert Trails Elementary School in Adelanto mutiny against what they see as gross negligence.  Evoking the “Trigger Law,” they attempt to take over a school where “Just 31 percent of third-graders are proficient in reading and 14 percent score in the lowest level, “far below basic,” in the state testing.”  Unfortunately, these determined parents are discovering why many consider the teachers’ union to be the most powerful organization in this country.  What should have been a slam dunk victory for the parents and students is now an all out battle that will likely end up in the courts.

I find this story interesting for three reasons.

These parents are inspiring…
 They have stepped up to the plate and are fighting to take the reins of their children’s education back into their own hands.  Not having the time to home school, nor the money for private school, or the luck for a charter school, these courageous parents were forced to face down the behemoth NEA and to demand the unthinkable – that the schools actually teach children something!

Low income minority parents are the favored whipping-boy of the NEA.  When schools fail to meet even the most basic standards they quickly blame the low-income-minority status of their students.  It is simply assumed that low-income-minority parents just don’t care and so their children are impossible to teach.  “These children have bad role models, they come from poor families, and their parents do drugs…therefore we teachers can’t really be held accountable for their academic failures,” the union complains.  It is almost as if these students are destined to fail and so it is excusable when they do.  Well, the unions can’t have their cake and eat it too.  Either the poor minority students can’t be educated and therefore school is a waste of funding, or poor minority students can be educated and therefore the school is wasting our funding because they are failing to teach them.  Either way, schools that can’t educate for whatever reason should be permanently closed – whether the teachers have tenure or not.

That said, while poor income families may be harder to educate for a variety of reasons,  clearly these parents do care.  They care so much that they have been fighting the school system for nearly two years.  In this case, it is the “Union” that doesn’t care about the children, not the poor-minority parents.

Is there no shame?  This particular school is failing to teach the majority of their students to read.  At some point, don’t they feel a little foolish.  Aren’t they a little bit embarrassed to continue to collect a pay check when they can’t do something as simple as teach nine and ten-year-olds to read?  The question is: How can this school have the audacity to demand a paycheck when nearly 70 percent of the parents and students are demanding it be replaced by a private charter school because of the school’s absolute incompetence?  The answer is:  Because the Union is Strong – so strong that parents and students don’t matter anymore.  In fact, the Union is so strong schools don’t even need to teach!

That is why I am rooting for the students and parents of Desert Trails Elementary School.  Let the courts up hold the “Trigger Law.”  And for just once let’s see the parents come out on top to send a resounding message to the NEA – It’s not about your union- it’s about our kids!!!!!!!!