Last week, the United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA), arguably one of the most militant union groups in America, told their members who belong to their private Facebook group that they should “keep their spring break trips out of the public eye.” The Facebook post reads:” Friendly reminder: if you are planning any trips for Spring Break, please keep that off Social Media. It is hard to argue that it is unsafe for in-person instruction, if parents and the public see vacation photos and international travel.”
According to Gallup, “Nearly one year into the pandemic, an estimated one in three K-12 students in the U.S. do not currently have any options for in-person schooling.” Furthermore, Gallup’s latest data “find 79% of parents of K-12 students in the U.S. favor in-person learning in their communities right now” including this remarkable number: “A majority of all partisan groups support a return to class “right now”.”
Yet we have radical union leaders that recently demanded that the following policy list be enacted before their 30,000 members returned to in-person classroom teaching:
- Defund the police;
- Single-payer, government-provided health care;
- Full funding for housing California’s homeless;
- A shutdown to publicly funded, privately operated charter schools;
- A new set of programs to address systemic racism.
To pay for all this, they want a 1 percent wealth tax, a 3 percent income surtax on millionaires, and increased property taxes on businesses. They also want $250 million from the federal government.
It’s hard to take teachers’ concerns about COVID-19 seriously when their leadership is more concerned about enacting their radical, left-wing agenda and hiding photos of teachers frolicking on the beach while parents struggle to teach their kids at home.
