REFORM: IEA plays the bully

Marty Meyer writes in “REFORM: That’s not the way it is” (July 22) that the Students Come First laws should be overturned so that “educators through their professional organization can work together with parents and lawmakers to craft legislation that truly puts students first.”

Unfortunately, the Idaho Education Association’s record reveals less collaboration and more bullying when it comes to other associations. The Heartland Institute School Reform News exposed the tactics that teacher unions routinely use to inhibit teachers from joining or speaking out about non-union teacher associations such as Idaho’s own Northwest Professional Educators (NWPE). The article cited numerous examples revealing “a pattern of repression and discrimination akin to the bullying among youngsters.”

Joy Pullman, author of the Heartland article, states, “The incidents reveal how teachers unions use aggression to retain power and keep teachers ignorant of nonunion competitors, and how they place themselves within every crevice of the teaching profession to ensure the same, from graduate schools of education to pressure on administrators. They also reveal how unions maintain their grip on education by restricting the information teachers receive, even when teachers fight to share it. They create an undercurrent of fear through threats, creating unpleasant social situations, and taking action against teachers who speak out, so this widespread repression remains little-known.”

Collaboration is a great, but mutual respect for all teachers and their professional organizations, union and nonunion alike, must precede it.

CINDY OMLIN

Spokane