Look, It's a Northwest Professional Educators Sighting!

I guess they really do still exist.

Cindy Omlin of the Northwest Professional Educators popped up in the Spokesma-Review this morning with one of the sillier letters she's done over the years. It's worth parsing the whole thing:

Not all teachers agree with the Idaho Education Association’s position on the education reform bills, but you’d never know it. Many teachers are afraid to speak out for fear of harassment.

I've talked with IEA staffers about the very vivid and livid arguments that have gone on involving policy. What Cindy is doing here is accusing teachers of cowardice, which isn't exactly a very good way to push your agenda.

Exclusive bargaining by IEA has transformed schools from the “free marketplace of ideas” to Big Labor’s pulpit and collection basket. Idaho’s students and educators are suffering for it.

Idaho? Big Labor? Jiminy Cricket, Cindy, have you ever even been to Idaho? Taking brickbats to the IEA, which has done they best they can in a deep red right to work state, is similar using a flamethrower to get a haircut. It's what people like Cindy do to raise money--pretend there's a monster in the closet. Be afraid!

Often, union representatives intimidate teachers to join. If they don’t, they make nonjoiners out to be selfish freeloaders. They tell them their views are harmful, offensive and anti-education. They denigrate nonunion teachers in fliers, articles and emails. They prevent nonunion teachers from communicating in school mailboxes, on bulletin boards and in school meetings about their professional association. They threaten administrators who might inform nonunion teachers of their rights and options for professional support. This unchecked bullying by teacher union representatives has solidified the NEA’s monopolistic control over public education.

Shorter: "It's bad that the selfish, arrogant, child-hating union says things I don't like. Why won't those jerks stop with the namecalling?"

The fact that Cindy uses Idaho to make her case is especially funny. Tom Luna, blatant political hack who got the Superintendents job despite never having done jack-all in education, thinks that trading teachers for laptops is perfectly sound educational policy. It's a paradise where being 50th in the nation in per-pupil funding is still too high; where being 39th in average teacher salary is a sign to go lower; where being dead last in the nation for the number of doctors means that you should slash the funding that would education, well, doctors.

Everything that is wrong about eduation reform can be seen on display in what Cindy is praising Idaho for doing. It's a concentration of power into the hands of a very powerful few who get to be above it all and sneer at those in the trenches who try to make it all work.

Our members have a variety of views on the education bills. I can assure you, however, that not all teachers agree with the teacher union’s point of view as was clearly evident in our member survey.

I see member surveys, too. As president of my local, I get it from all sides on the big issues of the day. This is part of the attack strategy, though--pretend that the teacher's union is a monolith. It's makes the denigration work much better.