Western Thumb Tea Party Group A non-partisan citizen action network.

Letter to the Editor, Saginaw News

After waiting patiently for almost one year, I have finally had the opportunity to watch “Waiting for Superman”, a documentary directed by Davis Guggenheim. He also directed the much-publicized documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth”, so I do not think he can be characterized as a crazy conservative. If you know of this Documentary, you must be paying attention below the radar, because it has not received the publicity it deserves. This Documentary has just been released for home movie rental.  I encourage all who are interested in the teacher union protests in Wisconsin, Ohio and, today, in Lansing to order this film and to encourage your state lawmakers to watch it as well.

I was a teacher when teacher unions were in their infancy. I appreciate what they have done to improve teacher salaries. It was needed. What I did not appreciate, even then, however, was the demoralizing system of teacher tenure. It was frustrating and disheartening to work all year to ignite a spark of interest and motivation in at risk, low income students only to see them passed on to tenured teachers who had given up teaching years earlier but who, because of tenure, could not be removed from the classroom. These “burned-out” teachers do as much harm to dedicated teachers as they do to students and to our nation. It is my opinion that teacher union’s persistence in treating tenure as their “holy grail” and their refusal to consider a merit/performance based pay scale is the reason our public schools have deteriorated steadily since the 1960’s.

As you will learn from the documentary, teacher unions are the single highest source of political contributions (both Democrat and Republican) of any political lobby group. Witnessed by recent news events, any elected official brave enough to challenge them does so at his/her peril. This bravery deserves our support.

We all have fond memories of dedicated teachers who awakened our curiosity, enriched our understanding of the world and who perhaps even gave meaningful direction to our life. We all, also, have experienced the deadening effect of wasting a year with a teacher who was merely “putting in time”.

I do not now know the result, if any, of the vote on SB153-158 that was being protested today in Lansing. I have, however, read the bill. It provides for temporary State appointed management of financially distressed municipalities and school districts. It allows for nullification of previously negotiated (and unaffordable) union contracts. I understand why unions would resent this loss of power by fiat, but it is not as draconian as the unions have portrayed it to their members. If unions can be forced to acknowledge the financial realities of their municipality or school distract, maybe they will also start to look at what their “all teachers are equal” stance has done to our education system.

I can only hope. On Wisconsin!

Sandra K, Saginaw