Debating the blame on the role of teachers unions

Larry Sand, who heads the California Teachers Empowerment Network, or CTEN (see my blogroll), recently joined former Secretary of Education Rod Paige and education policy wonk Terry Moe in order to debate their counterparts over the role of teachers unions in education.

The topic was DON'T BLAME TEACHERS UNIONS FOR OUR FAILING SCHOOLS. Sand, Paige, and Moe were to argue against this motion. So who were the counterparts? The only one that really mattered to me was Randi Weingarten. She is the former head of the New York City teachers union and now heads the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), which is large nationwide teachers union almost on par with the NEA. She is also one of the most repulsive and despicable people to whom I have ever been exposed.

I will never forget when Weingarten was interviewed by John Stossel in his special on education, Stupid in America, and they had this exchange:

STOSSEL: Unionized monopolies like yours fail, and in this case, it's the children who you are failing.

WEINGARTEN: We are not a unionized monopoly, and ultimately, those folks who want to say this all the time: (at this point, she leans in and begins whispering with a sneering curled lip) they don't really care about kids.

Weingarten must have really released her charm on the audience, because at the end of the debate, the audience members who were already decided one way or the other still held the same opinion at the end of the debate, but the almost all the undecideds went with the Sand, Paige, and Moe team.

If you have an hour to spare, listen to the debate right here.

Good Day to You, Sir

And with that, if you have an hour to spare,