Teacher Unions vs Parental Choice 7/24/98

NYSUT President Thomas Hobart's, July 19th opinion piece (A Bigger Better Teachers' Voice) is nothing more than divisive political doublespeak. It is full of the same old disjointed rhetoric, which has been responsible for inflaming emotions and stifling constructive debate.

If my response does nothing else, I would like it to cause interested readers to go back and read how Mr. Hobart indiscriminately uses the two mutually exclusive terms, "public education" and "public schools". While this may seem a trivial distinction to far too many people, those who are capable of rational thought will notice that "public schools" are only part of "public education". The other parts being private and parochial schools. It seems to me that Mr. Hobart, like all union leaders who advocate the methodical defunding of private and parochial schools, are guilty of undermining "public education". By perpetuating public schools' funding monopoly, they are also perpetuating expensive mediocrity.

The union President goes on to claim that it is a union goal to encourage bottom-up improvement and change. Really? Why then do teacher unions oppose elimination of the federal Department of Education? Why did they ever make a deal with Jimmy Carter to create a cabinet position in the first place? If the union President wants people to think that his union is interested in serving the needs of parents and kids, why does the union oppose even the most modest forms of bottom-up parental empowerment such as tuition tax credits or education savings accounts?

Mr. Hobart even goes so far as to call these kinds of reform and other systemic improvements such as school choice, "fads". Seeing as Vermont citizens have enjoyed school choice since 1782, the label "fad" would more appropriately be applied to the concept of unionized public school teachers. Moreover, an NEA report of a national poll of 56,051 teachers in which they ranked themselves on the degree of influence they think they have on issues such as discipline, ability grouping and curriculum, Vermont teachers were first in each category. Teachers, get your union representatives under control, we'll all be better off.
-DRC