Mine did too. I live in Chesterfield. As for Unions the last time I checked 80 percent of the nation’s more than 4 million teachers belong to unions. Now I’m not certain what percentage of Virginia educators belong to them but I’d be surprised to find if a majority did not. Don’t get me wrong I’m not only mad at teachers unions, I’m mad at all unions. There are some good alternatives to the politically driven unions that are growing but we have a long way to go. If we do not erode the influence of unions we will never improve the quality of education and protect our children from liberal social indoctrination.
Unlike Delaware, where I came here from, the VEA is not a union in the same way as the DSEA. Delaware teachers are unionized, Virginia teachers are not. It is one of the major reasons we are and not DE or MD (there are other counts against both, but we’re talking schools here.)
What grades are your children in and what type of school do they attend?
As rural and poor and backwards (according to many) that Accomac County is, I will pit any 5th grader I know against 5th graders in even the best of the public schools in Delaware.
The VEA looks out for its members, as any professional association should, but it sure as heck doesn’t have the kind of legislative clout in Richmond that the DSEA has in Dover.
I am also anti-union, but I accept the fact there are exceptions to every rule and even some union members are trying to work from within to make changes. However, I do not agree with impugning all of a group, in this case pubic school teachers, because of a particular subset of them.
I have dealt with good teachers and I have dealt with bad teachers, thankfully since I’ve lived in Virginia I have dealt with very few of the latter.