Teacher Union Fat Cats - Feeding At The Trough

While many public school teachers face lay off's and pay cuts and the average teacher in America earns $44,000, their Fat Cat union leaders earn nearly $500,000 a year and about 600 staffers working for the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association, the nation's two largest teacher unions, earn six figure salaries.  In fact, total compensation and benefits for Randi Weingarten, President of the American Federation of Teachers and Dennis VanRoekel, President of the National Education Association are nearly $500,000.  

Clearly, these union Fat Cats and supporters of Socialist President Obama are feeding at the trough, in this case, at the expense of their teacher union members.   Of course, I am sure that Weingarten and VanRoekel could argue that they have been responsible for getting teachers compensation, benefits and especially pensions in place that are bankrupting several states.  In addition, Weingarten and VanRoekel could also say that they have made it almost impossible to fire an incompetent teacher.  Further, these union Fat Cats could also say that they have pushed back any reforms holding teachers responsible for academic performance and results.   Most important, Weingarten and VanRoekel have spent millions of dollars fighting any kind of school choice initiative that would provide poor kids, in particular, School Vouchers allowing them to escape failing public schools to go to private schools, just like President Obama and most politician's kids.    

Fat Cat union leaders would justify their high compensation packages, making as much as many CEO for major companies, by all the things they have done for public school teachers that are contrary to the interests of parents and kids.  In that sense, a case could be made for these exorbitant salaries because they have done their jobs well. 

The United States spends more on public education than any other nation in the world, yet we produce poor academic performance and results.   These poor results have coincided with the growth of teacher unions in the last 40 years.   We need to eliminate tenure so that poor teachers can be fired.   We need to provide poor kids School Vouchers to allow them to escape failing inner city public schools.  We need to implement Merit Pay to reward good teachers for outstanding results.  Most important, we need to hold principals and teachers responsible for student's academic performance.  Until these things happen, we will never see any improvement in our public schools.  Of course, teacher unions will never allow these things to happen as long as collective bargaining is still in place, which is the reason we must eliminate collective bargaining for all public employees. 

Public school union teachers will comprise more than 50% of the delegates at Obama's up coming Socialist Convention in North Carolina.   The President and his Socialist pals, at all levels of government are owned, lock, stock and barrel by the teacher unions.   You can bet any time Fat Cats Weingarten or VanRoekel want to talk to President Obama, he will take their call and kiss their feet, or maybe some other parts of their anatomy.   We have to sweep Socialists, at all levels of government, including President Obama, out of office in 2012 and 2014 to improve our public schools.  

We can do it.   We must do it to preserve our freedom, our nation and way of life for the sake of our children and grandchildren.   Failing public schools are a Socialist legacy.  The only way to impose the reforms needed for our public schools is to elect Conservatives, not beholden to the teacher unions.   We need to elect Mitt Romney, President of the United States and take control of both Houses of Congress to improve our public schools.  Otherwise, poor kids in particular, are destined to suffer in failing public schools.  It is what it is.

P.S.  To donate to Mitt Romney's Campaign to make Obama a one term President just go to mittromney.com and click on Donate.  Once on that page, look for the box that says, I know my Referrers number and type in 8544, the National Freedom Forum Referral Number to make our voices heard.  Give as much as you can to take back our country.