Jul 12, 2015
Teachers Say No Freaking Way to AFT Endorsement of Hillary Clinton
On Saturday, July 11th - the American Federation
of Teachers (AFT) President, Randi Weingarten came under fire after her executive
council voted overwhelmingly to endorse Hillary Clinton for the democratic
primary for President of the United States. AFT is the parent organization of
Washington Teachers' Union, Local 6 and has 1.5 million members.
In an AFT press release, President Weingarten said "Hillary Clinton is a tested leader who shares our values,
is supported by our members and is prepared for a tough fight on behalf of
students, families and communities. That fight defines her career."
Weingarten added that Clinton is a "product of public schools and believes
in the promise of public education.... Hillary understands that policymakers
need to work with teachers and their unions. She's ready to work with us to
confront the issues of children and their families today, including poverty,
wage stagnation, income equality and the lack of opportunity."
Even though AFT's press release
explained the process of how members were polled, including several town hall
meetings, multiple surveys and a "you decide" website, the announcement of the
endorsement erupted a firestorm of outrage from AFT teacher members nationwide
on twitter.
In
the course of hours, many teachers
hurled questions at @Rweingarten and @AFTunion twitter accounts asking,
when was there was a poll of the membership and requesting links to all
of the polls.
Renowned NY Teacher *blogger, Arthur Goldstein (known as NYC Educator) said "...AFT Link
says they used telephone town halls and a web-based survey, I didn't even know
existed."
Katie Osgood, a special education
teacher from Chicago said "I know many AFT members too and have not heard
one person polled either." Mary Ahern called it "B.S. and queried how many
of the over 1 million members responded?”
Activist teacher members and others
lamented that the AFT endorsement of Clinton was a clear reminder of President
Randi Weingarten's autocratic leadership style that treats teachers like
passive herd-driven professionals rather than independent thinkers with a
voice.
Phil Soreneson tweeted to President
Weingarten, “glad I’m NEA, u don’t speak for me, u just made teachers’ look
politically inept. Thanks for nothing.”
Naturewoman tweeted to AFT,
"guessing you did not poll your members! No to Clinton who promotes Teach for America and
charters!" Mr. Stevens echoed "Clinton endorsement is a joke & local
union voices are being silenced to retain AFT union funding."
Minnsanity added, "AFT tried to
shove NCLB, common core, PARCC and now Hillary on us - we ain't buying."
Barmak Nassirian summed it up best in his tweet, "sad day when political
expediency trumps legitimate representation of members' real
priorities."
Within hours teachers demanded fellow
members to contact AFT and demand they rescind the Hillary Clinton endorsement.
Teachers began adding their comments to Diane Ravitch’s education blog where
she posted AFT’s press release on the Clinton for President endorsement. So far 147 comments have been posted, to date.
Given
no one could locate AFT’s poll of
members', the Badass Teachers Association (BAT) took matters into their
own hands by
conducting a poll on Face Book. So far 1240 teachers endorsed Bernie
Sanders and only 84 endorsed Clinton. One teacher said "Weingarten has
this thing about giving false information via polls... It's scary."
Some
of our AFT members are taking matters into their own hands and have
created a petition to demand AFT rescind their Hillary for US president
endorsement. Click on LINK for the petition. So far 1,109 had signed on.
I too was up in the wee hours of the
morning watching all of this unfold. Right here in DC, as an active member of
WTU local 6 and elected General Vice President- I wondered how I had never been
polled or invited to participate in AFT’s web based town hall or knew of
members who had?
I concur with Aixa Rodriguez’s tweet,
“it is 2:23 am and I am so mad at
AFT’s #prematureendorsement I cannot sleep. And so I tweet. And all my friends are up too….”
Don’t get this twisted, in the words
of Lace to the top, “The story isn't Randi Weingarten and
AFT’'s endorsement of Hillary Clinton. The story is all the
amazing teachers saying no freaking way!!!!”
© Candi Peterson 2015
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