Pro-Union, Elite Harvard Students Against Teach for America, School Choice

We’ve all heard the stories about how smart, ambitious, and
clean-smelling Harvard students are, right? I mean, Harvard is like
the Cadillac of college (and I mean back when Cadillac
meant high standards and luxury, not whatever it might mean today),
the gold standard in a world of fiat currencies. And the students
come from money, with over
45 percent hailing from families pulling in $200,000 a
year.

So you can rest assured that Harvard students know what they’re
talking about. And these days, they’re trying to get the university
to pull out of Teach For America if it doesn’t start only placing
its participants in unionized public schools.
The Harvard Crimson reports that the school’s Student
Labor Action Movement (SLAM) sent a letter to President Drew Faust
that went like this:

The letter to Faust addresses three areas in which students hope
to see reforms to Teach For America: demanding the organization
only send students to areas in which there is a teaching shortage,
providing corps members more education and training, and cutting
ties with corporations the students think threaten teachers unions
such as Exxon Mobil and JPMorgan Chase.

Failing that, reports the Crimson, SLAM “asks that Faust sever
ties with the organization.”

Because we all know, right, that protecting teachers unions is
more important than, you know, offering educational options to
kids.

The Harvard effort is part of a larger one directed by the
student group United Students
Against Sweatshops (USAS), which equates education reform
solely with stronger teachers unions. Seriously:

Corporate-backed behemoths like the Walton (Walmart) and Fisher
(Gap Inc) foundations are pouring millions into manufacturing a new
pro-corporate education reform consensus on our campuses, propping
up groups like Teach for
America, Students for Education
Reform, and countless sponsored academic research
programs. Their goal? To privatize our public education system,
turning over a major public good into private hands, in the process
smashing the only organized force that has dared to stand up to
them: teachers’ unions.

Emphasis in original.

The Harvard prodigies and the organizers at USAS are about the
last people standing who think that unionizing teachers is the
last, best hope of improving American education, especially for
students from lower-income, higher-risk-for-failure backgrounds.
Good luck to them as their reactionary attitudes leave them further
and further in the rear-view window as the rest of the country
moves into a future of increased options for all, regardless of
family income and ability to pay.

Watch Reason Foundation’s education expert, Lisa Snell, explain
3 Reasons School Choice is Growing: