Sept. 10, 2012, Fairfax, VA—Americans for Limited Government President Bill Wilson today issued the following statement on the teachers union strike in Chicago:
“The Chicago Teachers Union is striking to protect the jobs of bad teachers. This is all you need to know about the priorities of the teachers unions. They are the problem in our education system and if we want our nation’s children to be competitive in the international economy, we have a responsibility to wrest control of the public schools from the AFL-CIO affiliated American Federation of Teachers, the National Education Association and their local cohorts.
“Parents need to be given real choices to opt their children out of the schools, and good teachers should be allowed to deny the mandatory collection of their dues money by local and state government. We know when parents have choices, everyone benefits because public schools must compete to survive, and when teachers have the choice of whether to pay union dues, and they are empowered to say no to their union bosses.
“In the end, it is about the children and our nation’s future. We can no longer sit idly by and allow teachers unions to put the security of terrible teachers ahead of the education of children.
“It is truly sad for the 350,000 children in Chicago who are being denied an education while the local teachers union throws a temper tantrum. Hopefully, a national outcry will come from this example of the union’s bad priorities, and it puts one more nail in the teachers union coffins, so our nation can get back to teaching kids how to read, write and do arithmetic free of union coercion.”
Interview Availability: Please contact Rebekah Rast at (703) 383-0880 or at rrast@getliberty.org to arrange an interview with ALG President Bill Wilson.
###