STUMP » Articles » Teachers at it again: New Jersey Teachers Union Antagonizing Parents....Why? » 19 August 2022, 09:54

From the NY Post we hear:

New Jersey teachers union condemns parents as ‘extremist’ in new ad

A New Jersey teachers union condemned parents who confront school officials at school board meetings as “extremist” in a new advertisement this week.

The New Jersey chapter of the National Education Association (NEA), the largest teachers union in America, posted the short ad on YouTube. The ad flips back and forth between colorful photos of teachers with students and black-and-white photos of parents, arguing that the latter are trying to fuse politics with education.

Okay, this is stupid. I’m not going to have reporting on the ad. I have absolutely no problem running their ad right here:

It’s a 51-second ad, they’re not allowing comments (no comment), and if you want to see the “reporting” of what’s in the ad, you can go to the NY post article which is just a republication of this Fox News piece.

What is hilarious to me is that as of me typing this post, the stats I can see on YouTube says there are over 93,400 views of the ad…. and 5 thumbs up on it. That’s to contrast the opera video I watched immediately afterward that has over 1,000 likes.

Man. Could they not even get union members to thumbs up on it?

They recommend the supposed “extremists” to “take it somewhere else” in the ad.

These “extremists” actually are the parents of the kids in the schools. They live in NJ. Are they supposed to move to Florida, and take their tax dollars with them?

Are they supposed to take it to the ballot box, is that where the NJEA wants them to take it?

What, exactly, is the purpose of the ad? Who are they trying to convince?

Point 1: Governor Youngkin in Virginia

From the article:

The ad comes amid a nationwide movement from conservatives to allow parents to be more directly involved in their children’s education. Republican governors in states like Virginia and Florida have signed legislation aimed at empowering parents to prevent the teaching of critical race theory and gender theory, especially for young students.

….
Republican candidates have found great success in prioritizing the issue, with the most notable victory being Republican Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, who homed in on parents after his opponent dismissed their role in influencing curriculums.

Look, this sort of approach was tried in Virginia, and the people pushing it in Virginia lost.

In the Virginia gubernatorial election of 2021, parental control in curricula of public schools was made a big deal. The Democratic candidate, Terry McAulliffe, he of Clintonian background, stepped in it when he said, “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.”

Terry McAuliffe: "I don't think parents should be telling schools what they should teach." pic.twitter.com/rs6pSWZw79

— Corey A. DeAngelis (@DeAngelisCorey) October 27, 2021

It’s Governor Youngkin now, not Gov. McAuliffe.

The argument could be that Virginia is a more conservative state, but the area where the issue blew up, Loudon County, was near Washington, D.C., where a bunch of federal employees live, a group not known for being particularly conservative or pro-Republican.

More to the point, parents who considered their concerns to be very valid and who showed up at school board meetings to bring up their concerns, found that not only their concerns were dismissed but also they were branded as domestic terrorists (though they, unlike Antifa and others, had not burned down any buildings of any sort but merely disagreed with teachers unions).

They, understandably, were very angry.

NJ teachers unions – why do you think this tactic is going to work any better in NJ than Virginia? Think about this for a moment.

Point 2: Teachers’ pensions funds are grossly underfunded

I brought this up in January when teachers’ unions agitated for remote work.

Teachers – it’s bad enough you’re going to antagonize current parents and taxpayers.

You really need to look at this from the Public Plans Database. Just two slices of information on the NJ Teachers Pension Plan.

First, the contribution history — the red bar height is what should have been contributed, but the blue is what actually was contributed:

The key thing is the result — the funded ratio:

Less than 40% funded.

That’s through FY2021, so we don’t have the recent market drops. I’m sure it’s less than that now. This is not a good sign for future ability to pay pension benefits.

Take it elsewhere?

Teachers, do you want those parents and taxpayers to take their money elsewhere? Then where is your pension money going to come from?

Do you think the federal government will bail you out because the multiemployer pensions were (partially) bailed out?

[those numbers are from 2021, not from now… for 2022, that hole would be a lot bigger.]

I assume the point of this ad is to try to convince parents to butt out, but I don’t see that this is going to be effective. It didn’t work when they showed up at the meetings, and if anything, I can imagine this ad would inspire more parents to show up.

Maybe they think this ad would inspire Democrats to come forth to support the teachers union?

Except a lot of the people showing up for these school board meetings are Democrats.

Or, at least, they were Democrats.