Posted on 11/02/2022 10:18:55 AM PDT by John Leland 1789
We are wondering whether someone can help us with some statistics?
What percentage of public school teachers in the USA are members of the National Education Association (NEA)?
What percentage of public school teachers in the USA are members of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT)?
And then, if someone has state-by state stats, can you give us those? We are particularly interested in our own state of Indiana.
We have made many phone calls today to both the Indiana Department of Education and to the National Education Association, and they are alike extremely difficult to contact with any questions of this nature.
We are doing some writing that would be greatly enhanced to have those statistics. We have been doing a lot of reading behind Christopher Rufo, and have learned about the NEA's Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer + Caucus. Web site: nea-lgbtqc.org We hope to eventually discover what percentage of NEA members in Indiana are members also of that caucus.
These days we have been writing to the three school boards and other prominent elected officials in our county (with copies to our state legislators) to discover what LGBTQ+ materials are now to be found in the school libraries and classrooms in our county, and how property tax payers (who fund the public schools) may conduct our own surveys to find out.
Statistics seem very guarded. We would be grateful to those who may have already covered some of this ground for any help.
With Appreciation!
John Leland 1789
the teachers union along with all other government employee unions needs to be outlawed and disbanded.
Freedom of association means you can’t outlaw them. But this should also include freedom not to associate. Nobody should be forced or coerced to join a union to work. In an ideal world a union would be an ad hoc venture, temporarily formed to advocate for specific workplace changes on a voluntary basis by workers for workers. 100+ years ago when there were few workplace rules I can see unions being necessary. Now with many workplace laws, rules and regulations they are not necessary as full time ventures imo.
Have you sought the information utilizing the Freedom of Information Act? The law requires a response.
I taught for decades in an urban pubic school district. Permit me to offer my two cents.
Most northern states are “closed shop” states. This means if a union is representing workers, all workers must either join or pay a “fair share” instead of dues. That fair share number is high. So most folks decide to go ahead and join the union.
This covered teachers, too. Then a couple of years ago the Supreme Court ruled that government employees (including teachers) cannot be forced to pay any money to a union. That was a good ruling. But most teachers - I’d guess more than 95% - opted to stay in the union anyway. I did, too (very reluctantly).
I dislike our union. It is corrupt, leftist, and undemocratic. But an insane principal can hurt you much more, especially when he knows you don’t have union protection. A couple of my non-union friends were fired that way. They were both excellent teachers, but rubbed the principal the wrong way.
All this applies to those northern states. I don’t know what it’s like in the south.
As to what is taught in the schools, it is a mistake to think unions have any say in the matter. They don’t. Union leaders can huff and puff, and they can issue position papers. Just like anyone else can.
But it’s the school board that makes all the decisions. In my experience, the school board never once asked for union input.
Now here’s the problem. Today’s school boards get much of their guidance from goofy outside sources like leftist professors and special interest groups. That guidance ranges from hopelessly naive to truly terrible.
We will do that eventually if need be, but our articles can’t wait ‘till then. We are making educated guesses (and labeling them as such) while we see whether either the NEA or the Indiana DOE will call us back. Thanks so much for suggestion, though. It will be considered.
Reagan fired the air traffic controllers, that was the way to handle public sector unions IMO.
If I recall, they were fired because they did not show up for work.
Agree JFK gave them the right to unionize what could go wrong.
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