{"id":1383212,"date":"2022-03-16T07:44:23","date_gmt":"2022-03-16T11:44:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1383212"},"modified":"2022-03-16T07:51:19","modified_gmt":"2022-03-16T11:51:19","slug":"minneapolis-teachers-federation-says-their-fight-is-against-capitalism-and-patriarchy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/minneapolis-teachers-federation-says-their-fight-is-against-capitalism-and-patriarchy\/","title":{"rendered":"Minneapolis Teachers Federation Says Their Fight Is Against Capitalism and Patriarchy"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">22<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fminneapolis-teachers-federation-says-their-fight-is-against-capitalism-and-patriarchy%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1383212&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>Minneapolis teachers were striking for a fourth consecutive day Friday on bridges and overpasses throughout the city. <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.fox9.com\/news\/minneapolis-teachers-strike-day-3-union-and-district-leaders-in-mediation\">Some 4,500 members<\/a> of the Minneapolis Teachers Federation and Education Support Professionals are demanding more compensation, improved working conditions, and smaller class sizes.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur fight is against the patriarchy, our fight is against capitalism, our fight is for the soul of our city,\u201d said Greta Callahan, head of the Minneapolis teachers union.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Greta Callahan, head of the Minneapolis teachers&#8217; union, says the district told them this morning that they had no offers. Says she&#8217;s been doxxed but fight is all of them: &#8220;Our fight is against patriarchy, our fight is against capitalism, our fight is for the soul of our city.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Jon Collins (@JonSCollins) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/JonSCollins\/status\/1501642924873981953?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">March 9, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<h2>Dire Working Conditions?<\/h2>\n<p>For the average person, particularly the average Minneapolis parent trying to send their child to a decent school, such language is startling. After all, what does your child\u2019s education have to do with fights against capitalism and \u201cthe patriarchy\u201d?<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s one thing to say you want more money, smaller classrooms, and better working conditions (even if we\u2019re not talking about working in coal mines here), but to cite abstract grievances like capitalism and the patriarchy is confusing and a little bizarre.<\/p>\n<p>But let\u2019s first take a look at the salary and benefits of Minneapolis teachers. According to Salary.com, <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.salary.com\/research\/salary\/benchmark\/public-school-teacher-salary\/minneapolis-mn\">the median salary<\/a> of a Minneapolis public school teacher is $65,000 a year. According to Indeed.com, the mean salary for a Minneapolis teacher is <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.indeed.com\/cmp\/Minneapolis-Public-Schools\/salaries\/Teacher\/Minneapolis-MN\">$76,000 a year<\/a>, \u201cwhich is 98% above the national average.\u201d They also receive full healthcare coverage and are eligible to receive <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.teacherpensions.org\/state\/minnesota\">a lifetime pension<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>And as far as job security goes, few have it better than Minneapolis teachers. It\u2019s been a running joke in Minnesota for years that it\u2019s all but impossible to fire teachers, even really bad ones, because of the sheer expense of the process and all the red tape.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe dismissal process can take months, cost districts tens of thousands of dollars, and require countless hours to collect evidence to convince an arbitrator that the teacher can&#8217;t or won&#8217;t improve. Students, parents and other teachers can be called to testify,\u201d <em>The Star Tribune<\/em> <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.startribune.com\/state-s-bad-teachers-rarely-get-fired\/93201809\/\">noted in an investigation years ago<\/a>. \u201cIt&#8217;s more common for teachers to leave on their own once school districts start the firing process or encourage their departure with financial incentives. This results in a puzzling system cloaked by data privacy laws, where few track how many teachers are pushed out the door. Some leave with promises of letters of recommendation.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>None of this is to say Minneapolis teachers are overpaid or underpaid. After all, in Econ 101 we learn that <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/fee.org\/articles\/subjective-value\/\">value is subjective<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>But the great thing about a market economy is that people have choices. Every single day in America, people who feel undervalued quit jobs they don\u2019t like and pursue other ones they believe better reflect their worth, interests, and skills. Indeed, in January alone <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2022\/03\/09\/the-great-resignation-is-still-in-full-swing.html\">more than 4.3 million Americans<\/a> quit their jobs as \u201cthe Great Resignation\u201d shows little sign of abating.<\/p>\n<p>But while <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/magazine\/2021\/10\/18\/teachers-resign-pandemic\/\">media reports say<\/a> many teachers are \u201cthinking about quitting,\u201d it\u2019s worth pointing out that the Great Resignation <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cnet.com\/health\/parenting\/the-great-resignation-hasnt-hit-school-teachers-yet-heres-why-it-still-might\/\">has not hit school teachers<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>\u2018The Paralysis of Government\u2019 <\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Since I live in the Twin Cities, I\u2019ve observed the recent teachers strike a bit more closely than most people. I won\u2019t deny that I\u2019ve found the anti-capitalist language to be jarring and ugly. But the hardest part is listening to all these grievances and hearing so little about those who schools are supposed to be serving: the kids.<\/p>\n<p>How are they doing? What best serves them?<\/p>\n<p>Putting salaries and the like aside, it\u2019s worth noting that Minneapolis schools have not exactly been doing a bang up job. Minneapolis schools <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/patch.com\/minnesota\/southwestminneapolis\/mn-high-school-graduation-rates-how-minneapolis-ranks\">graduate only 74.2 percent of high school students<\/a>, far below the state average (83.8 percent) and <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.thinkimpact.com\/high-school-statistics\/#:~:text=It%20is%20estimated%20that%203%2C650%2C000,%2C%20an%20all%2Dtime%20high.\">national average<\/a> (85.3 percent).<\/p>\n<p>It takes some chutzpah to go on strike when you\u2019re in the 98th percentile in salary while near the bottom in doing your job: teaching students enough so they can graduate.<\/p>\n<p>But this is precisely what labor unions do. Labor unions by their very nature protect inefficiency. As economist George Reisman <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/mises.org\/library\/how-labor-unions-hurt-workers\">has observed<\/a>, \u201cvirtually as a matter of principle\u201d unions oppose innovation, competition, and improved productivity \u201con the grounds that it causes unemployment.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>This is why many of the most successful entrepreneurs, such as Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, have resisted unionization efforts, and why just 6 percent of the private-sector US labor force is unionized. (<a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bls.gov\/news.release\/pdf\/union2.pdf\">The union rate<\/a> of public sector workers, however, is 34 percent.) But instead of cutting into the profits of corporations, unions brought inefficiency and strife into public schools\u2014which explains <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/fee.org\/articles\/the-failure-of-public-schooling-in-one-chart\/\">their dismal track record<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Even Franklin D. Roosevelt, a champion of progressive causes, saw the danger in such a situation, which is why he opposed public sector unions.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSince their own services have to do with the functioning of the Government, a strike of public employees manifests nothing less than an intent on their part to prevent or obstruct the operations of Government until their demands are satisfied,\u201d Roosevelt wrote in <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.presidency.ucsb.edu\/documents\/letter-the-resolution-federation-federal-employees-against-strikes-federal-service\">a 1937 letter<\/a> to the president of the National Federation of Federal Employees. \u201cSuch action, looking toward the paralysis of Government by those who have sworn to support it, is unthinkable and intolerable.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The teacher strike in Minneapolis shows precisely how prescient FDR was in this respect, and demonstrates the disharmony labor unions create when they pit workers not against CEOs but taxpayers.<\/p>\n<p>Ms. Callahan can claim she\u2019s \u201cfighting capitalism\u201d with her strike, but in reality she\u2019s simply showing how dysfunctional and radicalized public schools systems have become after years of rule under government and labor unions.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s time for <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cato.org\/commentary\/fund-students-instead-systems\">a new way forward<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Minneapolis teachers were striking for a fourth consecutive day Friday on bridges and overpasses throughout the city. Some 4,500 members of the Minneapolis Teachers Federation and Education Support Professionals are<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1383212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1383212","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1383212"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1383212\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1383212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1383212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1383212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}