This Sunday’s News And Observer’s Letter To The Editor
This week the featured Letter to the Editor focuses on the Republican’s veto override of a bill that Governor Purdue. If you remember, the Republican controlled House called a special midnight session in order to vote on the override. That veto override was successful and now the bill becomes law. In short, the North Carolin Association of Educators can no longer require that dues be collected straight from the paycheck of teachers.
Our citizen points out, correctly in my opinion, this:
I’m not a public school teacher, and I’m in awe of the job they do with my kids every day. Teaching should be an honored profession.
Very few people I know dispute this fact. However, it’s a common setup for the real point:
House Speaker Thom Tillis and his Republican colleagues are targeting these hard-working public servants. They are punishing the N.C. Association of Educators for standing up against budget cuts to the public schools.
Point of fact, the Republicans are not targeting teachers. Rather, they are working to prevent the state from acting as a private organizations bill collector. Imagine if a church required the state to deduct weekly offerings from the paychecks of public employees. Even if they didn’t belong to the church.
Our citizen continues:
To those of us who want high-quality public schools for our kids, however, this is far from a game. The NCAE stood up against budget cuts to our already underfunded schools, and now they are paying the price. Let’s stick up for the teachers who are sticking up for our schools.
The problem is that teacher’s unions don’t care about educating children. They care about power. They care about taking as much as they can while giving as little as they can. These same unions prevent poor teachers from being fired. They prevent merit pay. They prevent innovation.
We all love excellent, proficient and capable teachers. We do not love poor under performing teachers. And we certainly don’t love organizations that are hell bent on protecting those poor performers.