After national affiliates and union activists around the country fought to get Central Falls High School teachers their jobs back last winter, it does not help when news breaks of excessive teacher absences by any measure.
I'm feeling right now like the defense attorney whose client leaves the courthouse to go rob a bank. Sometimes the people you help make it much harder to do your job tomorrow for the next person who needs help.
Addendum: See the next entry for more context. The publicly-known details are evolving this week, and since most school district offices around the country are closed next week, I suspect we're not going to know much more until January.
This post is offensive. The teachers in Central Falls have already been scapegoated for their students being poor. They will not be scapegoated for having their morale destroyed.
Jonathan,
Your and my dues went to protecting these teachers’ jobs. I have absolutely no problem with my affiliate dues having done so, but I’d think that if your or my job had been saved in a national effort to defend bargaining rights, neither of us would undermine that by excessive absenteeism.
Incidentally, if any of these teachers’ jobs is threatened again, I STILL have no problems with my affiliate dues going to protect their due process. But I’d still think it was a damned foolish thing for them not to take some basic precautions such as, oh, showing up for work. That’s not scapegoating: it’s hard-nosed common sense.