One of the current trends that is vogue in the politics of K-12 education is to bash teachers and claim that they do not care about the quality of education they are providing and that they are solely responsible for poor outcomes in schools in impoverished communities.
After passing a new bill that would make it much more difficult for the North Carolina Association of Educators to collect dues from its members, North Carolina House Speaker Thom Tillis (R) said at the state’s GOP convention that teachers who oppose the new legislation — which could dramatically harm teachers’ collective bargaining organizations — don’t care about kids and only care about their jobs and pensions:
Tillis drew applause also when he said the legislature planned next week to adopt both a bill requiring voters to produce a photo identification, and a bill that would bar the state from collecting dues for the N.C. Association of Educators, the group that lobbies for teachers and other groups. “They don’t care about kids. They don’t care about classrooms,” Tillis said. “They only care about their jobs and their pensions.”
It’s highly ironic for Tillis to claim that the state’s teachers do not care about the education their children are provided, given his own actions on education during the budget debate. Tillis and his Republican colleagues cut over a hundred million dollars from K-12 spending, including $92.2 million from textbook purchases alone. 13,000 education jobs are expected to be lost as a result of these cuts. Local news station WCNC reviewed some of these cuts in a special report. Watch it:
While teacher-bashing may be vogue at the moment, one would hope that cynicism that involves cutting the state’s education budget by nine figures and then claiming that it’s teachers who don’t care about kids would not be acceptable to North Carolinians. (h/t: @21stprincipal)
Last week, the Obama administration announced that Fiat has 
