KANSAS CITY – It’s no secret that conservative teachers are often intimidated by their liberal colleagues and local union representatives.

Many are nervous to speak their mind about important school issues for fear of stirring the wrath of the teachers unions – which have consistently resisted education reforms and innovative ideas to transform public schools.

Kansas City teacher Andrew Palmer is trying to change that dynamic.

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“What tends to happen is we have no voice and we’re so overshadowed by the (National Education Association) and the (American Federation of Teachers) that we keep our mouths shut,” the middle school English teacher told EAGnews.

Several years ago Palmer experienced the political bias of his state teachers union as a first year teacher in a suburban Kansas City school district. During orientation, the Missouri National Education Association representative made a presentation on union membership for new teachers, and although Palmer had no intention of joining, he was shocked by the rep’s rabid liberal politics.

At one point in the union’s “dog and pony show,” the MNEA official referred to Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker as a “douche bag,” Palmer said.

The “valueless behavior” Palmer said convinced him to look for an alternative to the teachers union, and he joined the Association of American Educators – the country’s largest non-union teacher association. He also began to seek out others who disagreed with their union, and he discovered the Conservative Teachers of America.

“Conservative Teachers of America was started as a Facebook group two years ago … by a special education teacher in Iowa,” said Palmer, who got more involved and eventually took over as editor.

In the years since, he’s helped to develop a website and build a following online through social media, including Facebook and Twitter.

“The reason I took it to where it is, is it’s a way for conservative teachers to know there are a lot of us out there,” Palmer said, adding that the Conservative Teachers Facebook group has slowly grown to over 1,000 members. “We do exist, but a lot of times we get boxed into a corner.

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“No teacher should be forced into a union.”

Hot topics

Union membership is one of several reoccurring education issues Palmer said conservative teachers are passionate about, and the group’s online forums are giving them a venue to speak out.

“Most of the people who post in our forums generally have a distaste for unions,” Palmer said, but “we tend to find there are a lot of educators … who buy into the mythology that the union does something” for them.

Some “try to fight the good fight from within the union,” while others are unaware that membership is optional, he said.

“A lot of teachers don’t know how to get out of the union, or know that they can,” Palmer said. “One common theme is frustration with the union, the outrage. It tends to be, ‘Why do I have to give my money to people who are destroying our country?’”

The direction of public education, and the country in general, also hits home for a lot of conservative teachers. Many believe teachers unions and their liberal allies are leading the country down the wrong path, in part through a lack of focus on history and economics, he said.

“Every problem we have in America right now is a product of extreme ignorance and outright misinformation about the history of our country,” Palmer said.

Common core standards

Lately, much of the focus on the Conservative Teachers forums has centered on Common Core State Standards – the push to nationalize standards for all students in U.S. public schools.

Recent blog posts include missives on how Common Core is an insult to the teachings of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and President Abraham Lincoln, the potential for it to become a financial disaster, and a lack of science behind the standards.

“When you look at opposition to Common Core, it’s not ideologically driven, it’s across the map,” Palmer said. “Educationally, there are some (elements of Common Core) that are not a bad thing … but the more I dig into it the more I realize there is something driving this thing.

“It’s all being driven by the federal government,” Palmer said. “The Common Core has been hijacked by the (political) left in a lot of ways.”

Common Core standards have been a difficult issue for those in the education reform movement. Many reformers see the need to increase student performance through higher standards, but that goal is often at odds with the reform principles of increasing local control of schools.

Articles and discussions on the Conservative Teachers website, however, make a compelling case for why Common Core is a bad idea.

“We need to knock out these stupid standards … and really let the market function,” Palmer said.

He believes parents are best equipped to know their child’s educational needs, and that they should be allowed to choose the school that best meets those needs. He questions whether parents will have true school choice if common core forces them all to ascribe to the same standards.

“I think the biggest problem with education is not teachers … it’s politicians,” he said. “They all have theories and think they know what they’re talking about … and they constantly have us chasing our tails.”

The lively discussions on the Conservative Teachers forums make it clear a lot of conservative teachers agree with Palmer’s perspective.

More information on the group, conservative views from the classroom and non-union alternatives for teachers are available at ConservativeTeachersofAmerica.com.