by Dr. Eowyn
Teachers’ unions across America are vehemently opposed to reopening public schools — they want to continue the COVID-19 lockdown of schools, although they are in favor of #BLM protests.
Who knew the Wuhan virus is so discriminating that it’ll only infect children attending schools, but not if they participate in public protests?
Arizona Educators United (AEU) is a political activist group for school teachers.
On its Facebook page, this is how AEU describes itself:
…a coalition of teachers, education support professionals, administrators, and those who care about the state of education in Arizona…. This is a group for organizing Arizona educators for action.
Founded on March 4, 2018, AEU claims to have more than 45,100 members, but is a “private group” on Facebook — “Only members can see who’s in the group and what they post” — which makes one wonder why it is so secretive.
AEU’s hashtag is #REDforED, and encourages its members to wear red in protest events. Red is the color of communists and communist parties.
AEU’s Facebook page gives two websites for the group:
- arizonaeducatorsunited.com/: A dead link that brings you this message: “404 Page not found”.
- redfored.com: A website called “Arizona Parents & Allies United” — a public group with 14.8k members.
Previously, Arizona Governor Douglas Ducey, a Republican, had ordered that the state’s public schools re-open on August 17 from the COVID-19 lockdown, which was opposed by many teachers as too soon.
On July 23, 2020, Ducey issued an executive order with a revised plan to reopen the schools (azcentral.):
- The Arizona Department of Health Services is tasked with setting a metric for reopening schools by August 7, using health data. For example, New York will reopen schools in communities where the daily COVID-19 infection rate remains 5% or lower over 14 days.
- When schools reopen, everyone will be required to wear masks, with some exceptions for students.
- Schools will be required to reopen for on-site learning on Aug. 17 for students who have nowhere else to go. That means school districts must open at least one site for students to go, but do not have to open every school or require every teacher to show up to work in-person.
- Schools must begin instruction on the planned first day of school. If they cannot open in-person safely, then instruction must happen virtually on that first day and beyond.
- Whether schools reopen or not, teachers are guaranteed their full salary for the school year, with an additional $370 million in federal CARES Act money for schools.
Arizona Educators United is so opposed to reopening schools that the group is resorting to deceit — it is encouraging its members to write fake obituaries to Governor Ducey to protest his reopening order.
Cory A. DeAngelis is an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute, director of school choice at the non-profit Reason Foundation, and executive director of the Educational Freedom Institute.
Yesterday, August 2, referring to Arizona Educators United, DeAngelis tweeted that “An Arizona teachers union is telling their members to write fake obituaries to the governor to protest reopening schools,” and is circulating this template for the fake obits:
These are the people who are educating your children.
H/t DCG
~Eowyn