Weingarten and Van Roekel Represent the Antithesis of Social Justice Unionism

Bob Peterson has in interesting piece at Common Dreams on the need to move teachers' unions toward social justice principles and practices.  I could not agree more.

However, near the bottom of the piece, Peterson offers this fabrication, or thought disorder, claiming that Weingarten and Van Roekel represent and promote social justice:

Support for these types of move towards social justice unionism appears to be coming from the highest levels at both the NEA and AFT.

At the 2012 NEA Representative Assembly NEA Executive Director John Stocks called on members to become “social justice patriots.”  NEA President Dennis Van Roekel has promoted the Great Public School initiative that encourages unions to move in these progressive directions.

Randi Weingarten has been arrested protesting school closings in Philadelphia, and this past March she spoke at the newly formed Network for Public Education conference in Austin, Texas, during which she announced she would recommend that the AFT no longer accept money from the Gates Foundation.

Here is my brief response posted at Common Dreams:

Dennis van Roekel and Randi Weingarten are the greatest stumbling blocks to the kinds of social justice unionism that your piece would seem to advocate. Both of these misleaders support the central tenets of corporate education deform, including test based teacher evaluations and bonus pay, segregated charters, Common Core, and more intrusive data collection. With leaders like this selling teachers and public education down the river, who needs Bill Gates? Until the members of NEA and AFT dump the six-figure traitors that represent the antithesis of everything that social justice stands for, the national teachers' unions will remain part of the problem.