01 Nov 2004 Schools are for Politics

Like Whitney Houston, NCPPR executive director David W. Almasi believes that children are our future:

Almost every public school in the DC area will be closed on Election Day. Some are closed the day before as well. It is allegedly for teacher workdays and conferences, but I can imagine there is also a political motivation for the timing. After all, teachers’ unions are one of the major players in liberal politics.

When I was in school, seeing the steady stream of adults coming to our school to cast their ballots helped instill in me my duty to vote. I don’t think sending them home to watch television or hang out at the mall instills quite the same civic duty.

There’s another reason why I am bothered. They close the schools in our area at the mere threat of snow. As a result, kids sometimes worry they are going to be in classes into July (and then parents and administrators begin worrying about schools without air conditioning being too hot). Previously-set holidays like spring break often get shortened, enraging parents who already made deposits on trips with the expectation of no school. Despite this happening on pretty much a regular basis, administrators never seem prepared for it. With this in mind, it appears selfish to seemingly put kids second and politics first. But politics seems to be the main concern of the unions these days — not their employees or, in this case, the students their members are charged with teaching.