American Federation of Teachers’ president Randi Weingarten’s new line is, “suddenly, everyone’s an education expert.”
She first trotted this phrase out in response to a positive review of the upcoming documentary film, “Waiting for Superman,” posted on the liberal Huffington Post. Produced by the director of Al Gore’s, “An Inconvenient Truth,” the new movie and the education reform movement has now breached the teachers unions’ Bastille: the American Left.
Weingarten’s objective seems to be to dismiss anyone outside of the Education Blob as little more than a naysayer who obviously doesn’t know what they’re talking about. She’s attempting to insulate herself and the education system from increasing criticism over spending habits and flatlining results.
From Weingarten’s recent AFT convention speech:
And I never thought that I’d see a documentary film about helping disadvantaged children in which the villain wasn’t crumbling schools, or grinding poverty, or the lack of a curriculum, or overcrowded classrooms, or the total failure of No Child Left Behind.
No, the villain was us.
Look, I can take it. It’s part of my job.
But taking abuse shouldn’t be in the job description of more than 3 million public school teachers who work hard every day to do right by their students.
She also dismissed the critics of the bloated system:
And I remain hopeful. Hopeful that we can overcome the formidable obstacles before us: an economy that has battered families and state budgets, an energized and concerted movement to tear down public service and public institutions, and a growing pundit class that has engaged in the browbeating of unionized teachers and public schools in other words, affixing blame rather than fixing schools.
So to the Queen of Gall, I say this: yes, everyone IS an education expert.
WE know what is best for our children. You do not. And until we no longer have to foot the bill for your pay and outrageous budget-busting benefits, we will continue to speak up.
If your union can figure out a way to pay for the system yourselves, then we’ll let you run the show and gladly seek school alternatives. Until then, taxpayers WILL have the final say – and what are you going to do about it? Have another protest? Brandish your brass knuckles?
Your organization, Randi, despite billing yourselves as “a union of professionals,” chooses to be associated with the AFL-CIO and in solidarity with the UAW. So allow me to put it in terms that I’m sure you’ll understand. The guy working on the line doesn’t have the expertise to run a Fortune 100 company. He knows how to play his role. Teachers may think they know what’s best for the classroom, but when your members, Randi, hold up Detroit, Chicago, Washington, D.C., or any of your other districts as examples of “union teachers know best,” let’s just say it makes me a wee bit skeptical of leaning on you for policy-making advice.
But the consumer, who you, Randi, would prefer to exclude from influencing the system via parental choice, knows if the end product is a lemon. Most consumers read reports on which car is the most reliable, has the highest resale value, and other factors that mean quality. So do consumers of the education system.
We know. And that’s why, Randi Weingarten, we can see your gall is showing.
You see, Randi, the huge taxes that I, and many other hard-working Americans, pay has purchased our ability to criticize the blackhole that is the American public education system. And the fact that you want to limit my options as a parent, force our children into a failing system and keep my mouth shut as that system inches ever closer to financial collapse has, in fact, turned me into an education expert. Live with it, Randi, because there are a whole lot of us I think you’d rather not rile up.
As Bob Dylan once said, “you don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.” Similarly, you don’t need to be an academic to know the current system isn’t working.