Left-Leaning Education Unions Not Just An American Problem
[February 18th] -- This is not an attack on the left. Although I am a Republican, I have always believed that for a democracy to work, all beliefs and values must be represented at the altar of government. I have lived in both Washington D.C. and the state of Idaho. Both have governments overwhelmed by a single party (Democrats in D.C. and Republicans in Idaho). I couldn't handle being in such a minority in Washington and moved to Idaho, where I would become part of the great majority. Well, it's a majority, but it's not "great" by any stretch of the imagination. My "side," unchecked by the "loyal opposition," make decisions every bit as damaging to the welfare of the people as do the "left-leaners" in Washington. The ideas are different, but the outcome is the same. And while conservatives have certainly done some damage in the world of education, it's the left that's trying to recreate it in their own image.
The National Education Association hasn't supported a Republican president since Richard Nixon. With each passing year, the NEA continues to align itself with groups that are well to the left of mainstream America. Groups that advocate abortion rights and the gay lifestyle are welcomed into the NEA's "big tent." That tent, however, is only big if you espouse an idea that the NEA supports. But the NEA isn't the sole education union trying to change the world by indoctrinating it's students with a liberal-specific lesson plan. Meet Pat Byrne.
Byrne is the President of the Australian Education Union, that country's equivalent of the NEA. She goes farther than does NEA president Reg Weaver in trying to change the world. She admits exactly what she is trying to do.
Byrne said that the world took a step backward two years ago when Australia, England and the United States re-elected their conservative governments. "This is not a good time to be progressive in Australia; or for that matter anywhere else in the world" she lamented soon after George Bush's reelection in 2004. Anyone familiar with AEU policies will know the teacher union, along with other cultural elite groups such as the ABC, teacher academics and assorted artists and intellectuals, consistently attacks Australian society as socially unjust and champions a range of left-wing causes. Teachers are no longer asked to teach the facts as written by science and history; rather, they are pushed down a road of political correctness and causes of social justice, often at the expense of reality. Australian children are "all winners" in the public schools as "feeling well" has replaced "learning well."
Worse than teaching children to just feel good about themselves are the new, anti-bias curriculums that are popping up throughout the western nations. Part of this new type of education is "enthnomathematics,' which emphasizes the sociocultural context of mathematics education and suggests that the study of mathematics (as it is traditionally known in western societies) may exhibit racial or cultural bias. The problem with this new way of learning is that there simply isn't any time left for 2+2 after the children learn the "warm and fuzzy" aspect of math.
If Byrne and the AEU were serious about strengthening government schools, the way forward, as in the US and England, is with innovations such as charter schools and vouchers. Empowering local communities by allowing parents to establish charter schools improves standards and builds the types of values embedded in social capital.
