Another MEA Member Responds: Stop Propagandizing for the Mackinac Center!

From MEAMatters

Go to hell, Mary!
How dare you spam my work email with your propaganda, while I’m working hard to wrap up another great year with my students.

The union has always supported me, but then again, I’m a hard working, competent teacher.

Like any organization, the union is not perfect, but it works hard for its members and fights for quality education. We don’t just stand up for our members, we stand up for kids and quality education. We believe in best practices based on real educational research, not the unproven claims of the Mackinac Center.

Mary, I’d like you to put your rampage and propaganda on pause for a moment and image a world without unions. Go back 100 years. How well off were your ancestors? How well off were most people, when whole towns were owned and operated by the wealthiest people in the community? Unions helped build and are the last front for the middle class. They fight to protect quality education and to allow teachers to support themselves. Without the union, we’d all be worse off- even private sector workers.

We live in a very concerning time, where corporations and individuals are so busy seeking high return, short-term profits, they don’t care about the long-term viability or risks. We’ve seen it all too many times: risky actions that lead companies to massive profits, followed by its collapse. Someone walked off with major returns, but it wasn’t the hard working people of the company who no longer have jobs. Is this how you want the world to function, including education?

Back to unions, if they have failed you, you must be one incompetent moron, with no legal ground to stand on. Watch out for karma. I’d never wish ill on anyone, but once the union is gone, you’re really going to be worried about needing legal representation. But that’s okay, I’m sure you have a backup plan to work for the Mackinac Center after you’re fired, and truly know what it is like to not have representation. You think the union failed you, you failed yourself and the union.

But go right ahead propagandizing for the Mackinac Center. When you lose your teaching job, or can’t afford the slashed, unlivable wages when the union is gone, maybe they can hire you full time to write bills and set up “conferences” for our lawmakers to be wined and dined and go back to Lansing to enact more Mackinac Center laws. They can continue to privatize education, for profit. On that topic, Mary, as a special education teacher, have you looked at the outcomes for the majority of these profit-making charters, particularly online schools? The statistics are not very good, especially for special education students. But, then, I’m sure you’ll find a way to blame unions for that too.

I hope your campaign to destroy the union is unsuccessful. But, if you succeed, don’t be surprised when quality education (and the middle class), disappear. But, hey, as long as those associated with the Mackinac Center have cashed in in the process, I’m sure you’ll feel a sense of accomplishment.

Sincerely,

Rob Ritter
Mathematics teacher
Forensics Co-Director
And Proud Union Member

P.S.: As an independent whose core beliefs have run conservative for most of my life, I used to vote for republicans almost exclusively, and I’m not alone. But, once the idiots running our state starting adopting Mackinac Center policies as laws, attacking unions, defunding our schools, defunding our local governments, and giving out tax breaks to companies with zero accountability, I and many of my formerly Republican neighbors, (some even NRA members), had our eyes opened to the fact that the Republicans in office today don’t really support our conservative values of local government and local control, and they certainly do no support quality education for our children.

Originally posted at MEAMatters