-We're all making assumptions here; you that any questioning of NEA priorities -is uiltra-left blather and me--at least--that an unfortunate remark by one NEA -character is indicatve of a trend of union thinking and acting. But, come on, -Nathan, you're not doing PR work here, among us chickens..
I probably would be more questioning of the CEA strategy myself outside the LBO chicken shed, but here just defending the idea that unions have limited resources and have to make choices on how to allocate those funds is a radical idea.
People here think union-bashing is okay if unions act in the interest of their members. No group is required to be benevolent to justify their existence-- I'd prefer unions to be progressive-minded and they tend in that direction by their nature, but I frankly see nothing wrong with a bunch of teachers who are struggling to build a union in a hostile state saying that they are busy fighting the fights they have collectively agreed on and don't have the time or money to fight on behalf of someone who didn't think it worthwhile to contribute to the collective struggle.
-Cut the shit. The case, as Mike Yates describes it, has ramifications for teacer unionism.
Maybe-- although the right of teachers to teach stuff off the curriculum has never been a core part of most teacher unionism. Teachers unions defend teachers from being punished for what they say OUTSIDE the classroom, but academic freedom in the K-12 classroom has never been the strongest place for any teacher union to fight.
Josh Freeman in his Working Class New York tells the story from early fights by the New York Teachers Union to get a teacher fired who praised Hitler to her students and made anti-semitic remarks. The speech of teachers is deliberately circumscribed in a whole range of ways that many unions -- within reason -- have supported. Certain restrictions on what teachers can teach -- both rightwing and leftwing mandates -- are somewhat the price for having public schools. There's infinite criticism that such restrictions often make classroom readings and discussion a bit lifeless, because teachers have to teach such thin ideological gruel, but that problem is hardly something new with this case.
Just from a legal viewpoint, the teacher involved has little chance of prevailing on free speech grounds, since the relevant Court of Appeals has stated, "the caselaw does not [**19] support Miles' position that a secondary school teacher has a constitutional right to academic freedom." Miles v. Denver Public Schools, 944 F.2d 773 (1991). An earlier case by the same appeals court found that a teacher could be fired for teaching from a book that the school board had not approved. Cary v. Board of Education, 598 F.2d 535 (1979).
I'm glad the students walked out in support-- in this case, they are the ones whose interests are probably more primary than the teachers, who in principle should not have the right to a captive audience for his political views. This whole thing is far more a community issue of what parents and students want taught in their classroom.
But protecting the right of K-12 teachers to present their political views to a captive audience of students is not a basic principle of teacher unionism and shouldn't be. Teachers should be protected against harassment for their political beliefs, and differential punishment for some teachers speech in class while other teachers are allowed more license could be evidence of such harassment. But on basic legal and union principles, this teacher doesn't have much of a leg to stand on unless he can show rightwing teacher proclamations were tolerated.
-- Nathan Newman