#RedForEd: Parents and Teachers ‘Scared to Disagree with Striking Teachers Unions’

Teachers unions in West Virginia claim to have walked out of their classrooms a second time in a year “for the kids,” but a resident journalist says many parents and teachers are keeping quiet about their distrust of that claim due to “overwhelming fear and intimidation related to unions.”

Jayme Metzgar — a 17-year West Virginia resident and a senior contributor at the Federalist — wrote Friday that many parents support both higher teacher salaries as well as school choice. Consequently, the unions’ mantra, during its second strike two weeks ago, that school choice options “will hurt public schools and kids” caused parents to question the justification for the strike.

Despite distrust of the unions’ motives, Metzgar said many of these parents and teachers decided to keep quiet, and an investigation into their reasons uncovered fear to challenge the striking teachers.

“This is especially true in the state’s southern coal counties, where organized labor has a long, proud, and sometimes violent history,” Metzgar wrote.

Her observation is especially noteworthy since the West Virginia strike was fueled by #RedforEd, a social media campaign that is the slogan of a socialist movement supported by the national teachers unions and first launched in Arizona by Marxist teacher Noah Karvelis.

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