Teachers Unions Push Families Out of Public Schools. Kids are beside the point when government officials and union leaders keep them waiting on labor negotiations that serve everybody but students and their families.

Reason ^ | September 4, 2020 | J. D. Tuccille

[karpov]

New York City residents still dependent on public schools received good-ish news this week. The teachers' union—which threatened to strike unless the city met its demands for COVID-19 precautions—finally came to an agreement with Mayor Bill de Blasio and Schools Chancellor Richard A. Carranza. Under the deal, union leaders get to say they protected their members' interests, while city officials get to claim that schools are safer than ever. And parents get to figure out what to do with their kids during unplanned days of idleness as the beginning of classes is pushed back a week and a half.

"Under the terms of the agreement, all New York City public school buildings will remain closed to students until Sept. 21, while final safety arrangements are completed, including the assignment of a school nurse to every building, ventilation checks and the presence of sufficient protective and cleaning supplies," boasted the United Federation of Teachers (UFT) labor union. "The decision on whether to reopen a building to students will be based on the UFT 50-item safety checklist, including social distancing of student desks, the availability of masks and face shields, and a room-by-room review of ventilation effectiveness."

"This is a great day for every public school student in New York City," insisted de Blasio. "We face a return to school unlike any in our city's history, but New Yorkers have made it possible because of their extraordinary work fighting back COVID-19. Our agreement puts the health and safety of our 1.1 million students, teachers, and school staff above everything else."

The announcements resolved weeks of uncertainty for students and parents that saw the UFT threatening to strike as recently as the day before the deal was finalized.

[karpov]

Vouchers let parents decide how to educate their children. The current quasi-monopoly of government schools is designed for the benefit of people working in them.

[mewzilla]

Kids are just grist for publik skrewl diploma mills.

[ronnie raygun]

Higher ed is a scam, education in general is a criminal op that is rotten to the core all done by the rats with a smile on their faces

[msrngtp2002]

Get rid of the requirement that one have a teaching certificate from a 4 year college indoctrination center so otherwise qualified people can teach and lots of this goes away.

Also this mask crap needs to go away. Neighbors kid goes to school where they have to wear a mask. They do, yet somehow a quarter of the class has caught some cold like virus (not covid-19)! How can that possibly happen? Aren’t the masks supposed to stop that?

So teacher unions are using fear of covid-19 as a lever to extract more money claiming their job is hazardous? They should go work on an oil rig or become a lumberjack to see hazardous!

[Mouton]

Teachers unions holding out for more money because of CCP virus remind me of tale where guy says to woman will you go to bed with me for a million$. She says yes. He says now that we have determined what you are let’s negotiate the price.

[stanne]

What is the big push her? Government schools are the biggest problem. They have been indoctrinating our kids to not think for themselves, separate from family, God, and from our history.

I never relied on government schools for my family. I don’t get it.

[hardspunned]

We need to get personally involved at the local school board level. I’m addressing mine next week about BLM indoctrination and bullying in my local district when the kids get back to class. The teacher union teachers are more prone to bullying the students than other woke students. I got a response from Rand Paul when I wrote him regarding my concerns about BLM advocacy in the classroom. His response was basically that his hands are tied, this is a local board issue. No point bi+ching about it on FR after its a done deal. Join with me and get to your next board meeting to try to protect our kids.

[antidemoncrat]

I remember the “Good old days” when teachers cared more about kids than politics.

[Steven Tyler]

Will the school nurse, a union employee, have sole discretion to wildcat and shut down a school????

[olivia3boys]

I have gotten involved at the district and board level. The district blames the board, the board blames the county, the county blames the state.

I can’t wait to try to vote out our board, county, and state officials—but they aren’t up for reelection for years.

I’m in CA where not only public schools but PRIVATE schools have been ordered closed indefinitely for 80% of Californian K-12, except for a few elem waivers that have been approved by the state.

Our lazy district-which has “me too” clauses with the unions, won’t even APPLY for those elem waivers! Awful. My teens are pretty unhappy. They miss high school, and deserved better than this. But they don’t vote (well, my senior will turn 18 in OCt, just in time to cast his first presidential vote for Trump.

[Polyxene]

“New York City public school buildings will remain closed to students until Sept. 21”......

And when Sept. 21st comes, they will have another excuse to keep the schools closed................

[blam]

"I remember the “Good old days” when teachers cared more about kids than politics."

Yup.

I remember when teachers were decent people too.