One would hope the Big Two teachers unions and their joint Montana local would disavow support for Sen. John Walsh after the New York Times revealed last week that he had extensively plagiarized a 14-page grad school thesis he wrote while studying at the Army War College seven years ago.
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One would hope in vain, of course.
The National Education Association and American Federation of teachers local are staying above the fray. Their local with the ungainly name the Montana Education Association-Montana Federation of Teachers has doubled down its support, completely blind to the horrible example it sets for the children being taught by its teachers.
In a message posted last Friday on its Facebook page, MEA-MFT President Eric Feaver declared that Walsh still deserved the union’s support because of his support for public-sector unions as well as the fact that he is, well, a Democrat.
Proclaiming Walsh “a man of the people,” Feaver then baldly wrote that the senator’s plagiarism “has harmed no one but himself.” Better to back Walsh, in spite of his lack of integrity, than to back his Republican rival, Congressman Steve Daines, who Feaver claims “could give a rip about union and collective bargaining”.
Wrote Feaver in a bit of understatement: “Walsh is in his own words ‘no academic.’ His bout with plagiarism proves that.”
Meanwhile Feaver sidestepped other troubling issues. This includes Walsh’s preposterous claim that his plagiarism result from suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, as well as the revelation that Walsh claimed to graduate from the State University of New York’s flagship Albany campus when he actually received his degree from Regents College (now Excelsior College), which issued sheepskins under the auspices of the Empire State’s Board of Regents.
Instead, Feaver accused Daines and his staffers of trying to “swiftboat” Walsh.
MEA-MFT isn’t the only player in Democratic Party politics still backing Walsh’s increasingly longshot Senate bid. Walsh’s Big Sky State colleague, Jon Tester, reaffirmed his backing last week by claiming that there was “no malice” in what he did. Colorado Sen. Michael Bennett, who chairs the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, thought that voters would let Walsh off the hook because of his military service.
That the teachers unions are still backing a known plagiarist when classroom teachers are supposed to uphold ethical academic behavior isn’t exactly surprising. The Montana union endorsed Walsh last year in spite of the fact that he was censured by the U.S. Army. He had used his job as head of Montana’s National Guard to cajole lieutenants into helping him win a leadership post in an influential military association.
MEA-MFT has been able to rally some of its members to Walsh. Some, but not all. In one response, teacher Lynde Roberts pointed out that “Walsh isn’t apologizing or trying to make it right,” while an MEA-MFT member, Kyle Hartse, proclaimed that “it is a bad example for a teachers union to be supporting plagiarism.”
As for NEA and AFT? It surely isn’t the first time the two unions have turned a blind eye to unethical behavior. Three years ago, AFT President Randi Weingarten let teachers in Atlanta Public Schools accused of widespread test-cheating off the hook by blaming their misbehavior on the very existence of standardized testing. Her NEA counterpart, Dennis Van Roekel, made the same argument.
The fact that test-cheating is rare (found in just five percent of elementary schools every year) made both Weingarten’s and Van Roekel’s arguments come off very badly.
But, of course, they would find excuses for teacher misbehavior. After all, AFT and NEA are both opposed to using data from standardized tests in evaluating teacher performance, mostly because it will lead to poor-performing teachers being shown the door. The two unions are willing to condone unethical behavior if it means stifling reforms that would hurt their bottom lines.
And if the unions are willing to condone test fixing by teachers, how much of a stretch is it for them to back an acknowledged and unrepentant plagiarist? They are clearly following Tammy Wynette’s advice to stand by your man.