Naming Names: America's Schools' Problems Lie with Teachers' Unions

In his 2007 book, Outrage, Dick Morris said it best: “There’s nothing wrong with America’s schools that breaking the power of the teachers unions wouldn’t cure.”

Few have had the courage to put it that directly. Our organization’s similarly blunt language puts a target on our back, but when you deal with organized labor, you know that comes with the territory. Expecting unions to act like professional organizations is like expecting the government to be frugal. It’s not in their DNA.

As Education Action Group Foundation chronicles daily on NEAexposed.com and AFTexposed.com, the national teachers unions and their state affiliates bully and punish school boards and administrators during contract negotiations and school elections. They work aggressively to elect union sympathizers to local school boards, then up end up negotiating friendly contracts with the candidates they just helped to elect. It’s a corrupt system that works to the detriment of children, parents and taxpayers.

And the teachers unions’ answer for school financial problems is always “more taxes,” rather than offering a few concessions that would save schools a ton of money.

When I was invited to speak to the Americans for Prosperity Tax Day rally at the state capitol in Lansing, Michigan last week, it was a first for me. I had never spoken at such an event. It was probably one of the few speeches around the country that zeroed in on the pirates of public education: the teachers unions.

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The understanding that teachers unions are the problem, not the cure for our public schools, is finally starting to sink in with the public. Even President Obama, whose campaign collected millions from the teachers unions, has come out in favor of school reforms that the unions violently object to.

The time for change in our public schools is now, and it will start with curbing the power and influence of the teachers unions. Public schools belong to the people, and we’re in the process of taking them back.