Teachers union given `F' for truth in lobbying ads

The unions do indeed have plenty of chutzpah, as our lobbyist, Michael Tobman, points out:

An advertising campaign by New York's largest teachers' union that criticizes Gov. Eliot Spitzer's call for more charter schools and an income tax break for families with children in private schools is drawing a failing grade for honesty.

"It's factually inaccurate," said Michael Tobman of Teach NYS, a private and parochial school lobbying group, about the ads by the New York State United Teachers running this week. "Where I grew up, they called that chutzpah."

Good to see the Catholic church calling the union on this:

"Governor Spitzer has ... offered a modest tax deduction for families in nonpublic schools worth about $50 to $80 per family," said Dennis Poust of the New York State Catholic Conference. "The fact that the New York NYSUT is opposing this deduction when their members are being showered with new spending is about the biggest example of shameless greed I have ever seen."

"They are not interested in children," Poust said of NYSUT leaders. "They want to eliminate the competition because they are embarrassed that the competition does such a better job with so few resources. The public school system in New York is failing our children."

Here's the Education Gadfly's take on it:

Perfidy parade

Witness the gall of the New York State United Teachers. After watching Governor Eliot Spitzer shower an extra $1.4 billion upon the state's public schools in his budget, the union showed its thanks by waging a campaign of disinformation aimed at Spitzer's proposal to raise the Empire State's charter-school cap from 100 to 250. Among the union's erroneous claims, which it plastered on billboards and broadcast in radio ads, is that charter schools are "unregulated." When a New York Daily News columnist pressed union President Richard Iannuzzi on that claim, he waffled: "They're not unregulated, no," he admitted. "'Unregulated' would not be the word." Unfortunately, it was his word; he said it. Spitzer's office reportedly thought that by boosting state aid to schools over the next four years, it could buy some goodwill from the unions on charter school reform. Doesn't look that way. No doubt this steamroller governor will think twice before making such deals in the future... we hope.

"Teachers Open a Campaign Against Spitzer," by Jacob Gershman, New York Sun, March 6, 2007

"Teacher union ads flunk the honesty test," by Bill Hammond, New York Daily News, March 6, 2007

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Teachers union given `F' for truth in lobbying ads

By MICHAEL GORMLEY
Associated Press Writer

March 6, 2007, 4:28 PM EST

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/newyork/ny-bc-ny--teachersunion-spi0306mar06,0,4526752.story?coll=ny-region-apnewyork

ALBANY, N.Y. -- An advertising campaign by New York's largest teachers' union that criticizes Gov. Eliot Spitzer's call for more charter schools and an income tax break for families with children in private schools is drawing a failing grade for honesty.