Los Angeles Times: No Broader Movement in #RedforEd Teacher Strikes

The Los Angeles Times analyzed the ongoing wave of teachers strikes across California and the nation on Sunday, and determined that there is no broader movement — even though “#RedforEd” organizers might beg to differ.

The phrase “Red for Ed” did not feature once in an extensive article by Anita Chabria and Sonali Kohl, though teachers on the picket lines have told Breitbart News directly they saw their strikes as part of that broader effort.

The Times explained the wave of strikes across California — which was preceded by strikes in West Virginia, North Carolina, Arizona, and Colorado  — as the outcome of “local problems” that teachers happen to have in common:

There’s no doubt the L.A. Unified strike emboldened teachers in other parts of California and that teachers unions north and south have shared information with each other about their tactics. In Oakland, members of United Teachers Los Angeles were on hand to help with messaging and organizing. But teachers and labor leaders say there are unique problems at the district level that, in their view, will be addressed only if school administrators are confronted.

In contrast, Breitbart News reported last week:

A well-funded and subversive leftist movement of teachers in the United States threatens to tilt the political balance nationwide in the direction of Democrats across the country as Republicans barely hang on in key states that they need to hold for President Donald Trump to win re-election and for Republicans to have a shot at retaking the House and holding onto their Senate majority.

This teachers union effort, called #RedforEd, has its roots in the very same socialism that President Trump vowed in his 2019 State of the Union address to stop, and it began in its current form in early 2018 in a far-flung corner of the country before spreading nationally. Its stated goals–higher teacher pay and better education conditions–are overshadowed by a more malevolent political agenda: a leftist Democrat uprising designed to flip purple or red states to blue, using the might of a significant part of the education system as its lever.

The movement takes its name from a political organizing tool first seen in Florida in 2010, when teachers union members wore red to express political opposition to public school reform proposals under consideration at that time in the state and encouraged parents and political activists from other unions to join them.

The Oakland strike is continuing into this week, as talks between the union and the district broke down Sunday.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. He is also the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, which is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.