BATON ROUGE, La. – Taxpayers finally know what keeps Louisiana’s teacher union leaders awake at night.

It’s not the alarming percentage of Louisiana children who can’t perform grade-level work.  Nor is it the alarming number of students who pass from grade to grade, despite being functionally illiterate.

The union isn’t even troubled by the reality that many of these kids will face harsh, fruitless futures once they leave school.

MORE NEWS: Know These Before Moving From Cyprus To The UK

The only thing that gets the union leaders’ blood pumping is the realization that Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal’s new voucher program will allow students to flee failing, union-controlled, government schools in favor of effective, private schools – some of which are affiliated with faith-based groups.

That not only violates their entrenched left-wing worldview, but it poses a real financial threat to the union. Fewer students in public schools means fewer unionized teachers, which means fewer dues dollars for the union, which translates into less political clout in the state capital.

Louisiana Federation of Teachers leaders are so threatened by the state’s new voucher plan that they’ve become unhinged. They’ve even decided to play the race card.

Earlier this week, LFT leaders took to the “twitterverse” to claim that by supporting the voucher plan, the Louisiana Black Alliance for Education Opportunity is really supporting the Ku Klux Klan, according to the Washington Examiner.

“LaBAEO supports pro KKK curriculum via vouchers,” the Louisiana Federation of Teachers tweeted. The union also said that the reform group is “delusional [because they are] a black special interest group supporting curriculum that teaches the KKK was good. YOU do that! It’s nuts,” reports the Examiner.

Just who is teaching children that the KKK was good? It seems like something so outrageous would have come to the public’s attention by now, even if it was occurring in a private school. We think the union needs to substantiate that claim if it wants anybody to take its rants seriously.

MORE NEWS: How to prepare for face-to-face classes

Kevin Chavous, former BAEO chairman, accused the union of “race-baiting.”

“It’s a sad day when an organization like the Louisiana Federation of Teachers, which says it cares about kids, is among the organizations using degrading, race-baiting tactics to demean the very people who are doing their best to give kids hope,” Chavous said, according to the Examiner.

We agree that the LFT is attempting to link vouchers with ugly racist ideas in order to turn some citizens against the program.

We doubt the ridiculous effort will succeed.

But the LFT’s twitter outburst just might succeed in showing citizens what a low-class, self-serving group the teachers union really is.