Students Need Us To Work Together [Or, We're The Pot, AFT Is The Kettle]

Rheelink

We should be working together, not attacking each other.

Earlier today, the AFT issued a press release five days after the anonymous attack website Rheefirst - which has been passing itself off as a grassroots voice in opposition to reform - was exposed as being started and run by the teachers' union. In the release, they condoned the site saying it was not "a big deal."

In our view, it's disappointing the AFT would in one breath call for greater civility and in the very next breath condone a website that launches anonymous personal attacks as not 'a big deal' after its true authorship has been exposed. If it wasn't a big deal why not release the site under their name to begin with? Why did the AFT try to hide their connection to the site by laundering it trough multiple IP addresses?

But more importantly, we think our kids deserve better than the brand of poisonous discourse and negative attacks that the AFT thinks aren't a 'big deal,' but which unfortunately are typical of old Washington special interest politics. We hope that the AFT will join us in shifting the tone of the debate, as well as the substance, so that it no longer focuses on what's best for the adults in the system, but instead what's best for the students in our classrooms.

Teacher-union advocates and student advocates should be working together to improve our schools, not attacking each other.