-Right. And one can't walk and chew gum at the same time, right? -Mental powers are limited.
Apparently, since a google search reveals not a single mention of the Colorado struggle over TABOR, arguably the largest progressive victory of 2005. So LBO mental powers appear to be quite limited to lambasting Colorado union leaders for their supposed failings, rather than their victories.
From: "Yoshie Furuhashi" <furuhashi.1 at osu.edu> -Would Colorado teachers feel free to discuss with students the 65% -Solution, TABOR, and other issues that threaten public education and -teachers' jobs? -The school management wants that power to narrowly circumscribe -teachers' speech, which they can and do use for anti-union purposes -as in the case of OSU in 2000, and unions should fight that.
Colleges and K-12 are very different places on free speech terms, both in substance and legally. College students choose their classes, while K-12 students have zero to very little choice in who teaches them.
Frankly, K-12 teachers shouldn't be allowed to use captive audiences to propagandize one side of a political argument, however meritorious. Should we also defend the free speech right of teachers to propagandize for their religious faith as well? Not only is allowing teacher propaganda anti-democratic in principle, but it's the kind of thing that feeds the anti-public school movement towards vouchers.
Instead, teachers in Colorado pooled their money along with other public employees through dues -- along with other progressive allies -- to launch a very large public education campaign that was in the end successful. http://www.coloradoea.org/WhatsNew/move_forward.cfm http://www.weac.org/News/2005-06/nov05/colorado.htm
So while folks here have trashed the CEA as selfish self-interested business unionists, they have been leading the fight that has given Grover Norquist and the rightwing anti-tax zealots one of their biggest defeats of recent years.
Nathan Newman