UPDATE: California Teachers Union Pulls Back Protest Plans

The militant “community organizers” who run the California Teachers Association union have been forced to pull back on some elements of their controversial plan for a Wisconsin-type takeover of the state capitol after it was exposed here on BigGovernment.com.

The Sacramento Bee reports that once the news media and the public got to see just how extreme the union’s plans are, leadership decided to pull back on some of the more “creative” (read: kooky) elements of the plan set to be implemented the week of May 9 – 13.

“Some of the union’s ideas went beyond the usual letter-writing and rallying,” the Bee reported this morning, but, “By Wednesday, the more creative ideas on the list had been removed.”

The union’s plans to provoke a major confrontation in the state capitol to force the legislature to raise taxes were exposed in this 10-page plan, which contains instructions for using public school facilities and children to which the union has direct access in the campaign culminating in a takeover of the capitol in Sacramento.

While union officials have not backed down on their plans to take over the building and yank thousands of teachers out of classrooms and put them into protests, they are awkwardly running away from plans to use the kids.

The Bee reports a CTA spokesman “said the list was ‘brainstorming’ from the union’s 800-delegate state council, and that CTA is not suggesting students be used as props.”

Really? That’s exactly what they were suggesting throughout this published plan. In “State Council Ideas for Potential Activities” the CTA document suggests: “Take mug shots of teachers and students to make point that prisons receive better funding.” Taking photos of students and use them in the campaign — How is that not “suggesting students be used as props.”?

The official document from the union includes these proposals for using kids:

• Student letter drives to representatives, including students telling their own personal experiences with teachers and their schools.

• Take 1/2 photo of Assembly members and have kids draw the other half with a message stating what they want for their teachers.

• Work with SCTA and other student organizations to set-up voter registration tables on campus.

• Hold “fax the legislator” events where college students, faculty and staff sign faxes to the targeted legislators and fax them hourly.

• Have students and parents do informational picketing for one hour outside their school site.

• Have parents and students camp in front of schools all night.

• Faculty post an extra credit question on your final asking students to respond to a writing prompt such as: “What is the value of a higher education?” “What would happen to this town/city if our college or university would close tomorrow?”

• Visual of how 3 classrooms are shuffled into two; kids sit on floor with no books, chanting, “We need a teacher”

• “Penny drive” where kids empty piggy banks to support teachers and deposit it at the state capitol.

• Hold a day without public higher education dollars and ask students not to shop at all.

• Hold “lunch-ins” on campus, so that students and faculty do not buy lunch on-campus.

• Coffins filled with letters from students, teachers and parents to coincide with “Day of Mourning”

• Encourage mass participation of all college students at CTA rallies local to them. Wear gray and educate public about the death of higher education by sharing stories and them

• Homeless encampments of students and teachers as they can afford a place to live

• Teacher/School Staff and Student Walk-In: All educators and staff from a school or students and faculty from college meet at certain point and walk onto campus

• Student Video Contest: Have contest for youth to create a video about what education costs would mean to them

That’s a lot of references to kids and students for a document the union now claims wasn’t suggesting kids be used as props in their campaign to raise taxes.

Here’s a question: if the use of kids in the union’s campaign is such a bad idea, how did dozens of proposals for using them make it into an official CTA document, featuring the union’s logo as well as that of the National Education Association, for distribution? The union publicly distanced itself from these ideas only once they were made public. Whatever process the union has for distributing protest plans among its leaders certainly doesn’t require screening out the use of kids in such a blatantly political manner.

As Drudge would say, “Developing…”