https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/11/teachers-unions-are-serpent-cradle-americas-jim-mccoy-and-lloyd-pettegrew/
Abraham Lincoln once warned us that “The philosophy of the classroom in this generation will be the philosophy of politics, government and life in the next.” It is no secret that the founding fathers had grave concerns about the new emerging federal government becoming too large and intrusive in the lives of our nation’s citizens. In fact, over-reach by those serving and administering in the central government almost seemed to be a predictable outcome. As a result, the founding fathers took very specific steps to limit the powers of the new federal government. The Supremacy Clause of our Constitution is found in Article VI, Section 2, specifying which powers the federal government has and which powers are retained by the state and local governments.
President Andrew Johnson signed legislation creating the first Department of Education in 1867. Its main purpose was to collect information and statistics about the nation’s schools. However, due to concern that the Department would exercise too much control over local schools, the new Department was demoted to an Office of Education in 1868. Until 1979, the organization and administration of education in America was solely in the hands of each state government and its local communities. With this model, America’s public education system became the envy of the world…until October 1979, under the Jimmy Carter Presidency, when Congress passed the Department of Education Organization Act (Public Law 96-88), amalgamating offices of several federal agencies, and creating our present serpent in the cradle—the DOE in May 1980. This has become the mindless federal bureaucracy beholden to national teacher unions.
A true political democracy in America requires an educational system and processes that are free from overt political pressures and prejudices. As Thomas Sowell recently pointed out, the social and political institutions and traditions need to be objectively taught, along with science, mathematics and the language arts. Screed like Marxism and CRT have no place in state-sponsored schools. An example of the teacher union mindset comes from New York School Talk that pushes the educational union point of view. They say, ”Every adult in a school building gets a union. Most are members of the United Federation of Teachers, and together they are incredibly powerful and effective. They negotiate all the rules. They can influence hiring and firing procedures, and everything about teaching.” Absent in their “objective” talk line is anything about students’ and parents’ educational interests.