Teachers Hope to Erase Union Dues That Deny Free Speech
Fourth-grade teacher Rebecca Friedrichs doesn’t support a new state law allowing self-identifying transgender children in the public school system to choose which bathrooms, locker rooms and shower facilities they will use.
Allowing these students to occupy the same private space with classmates who don’t share their biological traits, Friedrichs believes, puts the interests of a few ahead of those of the many — and is potentially embarrassing and damaging for other students. She says she feels the same way about permitting transgender children to join all-male or all-female teams as they see fit.
Frankly, she says, “it’s hard for me to protect the modesty of other children.”
Friedrichs, a 27-year teaching veteran who works in Anaheim, Calif., also thinks it is a mistake for the state teachers union to push so hard for tenure to protect bad teachers. She supports school choice for parents because it helps poorer families get more out of the educational system.
And she backed Proposition 8 — the 2008 ballot initiative that upheld marriage in California as the union of a man and a woman — because she believes it is bad for society.
“If the union is on one side, it’s a sure bet I’m going to …read more