(Editor's Note: Here's an answer to union co-optation efforts.)

By Maui TEA Party www.hawaiiteaparty.org

Please plan to attend the Save Our Schools Rally this Friday, Oct 23, from 8 AM to 10 AM at the State Building in Wailuku. Please wear your TEA Party gear and bring your flags but leave the TEA party signs at home.

1. This rally has been organized by concerned Maui parents particularly Makawao School PTA, and includes other important PTAs and elements. It's their show and they have the lead.

2. Hawaii TEA Party is participating in a supporting role only (details at www.hawaiiteaparty.org). We are helping to call attention to the furlough problem and we are providing resources and practical nonpartisan solutions that work both immediately and in the long term.

3. Hawaii's economy is in trouble. The unprecedented massive federal deficit and rapid expansion of the federal government, combined with the unsustainable new high taxes coming from federal and Hawaii state government, and the counterproductive socialist rhetoric and policies coming from Washington DC all point to a delayed and jobless economic recovery. The teacher furloughs are just a taste of the problems to come. We need to work together to implement real solutions now.

The HSTA union bosses and the top-heavy DoE brass chose the furloughs as a way to convince us that they are indispensable and to justify raising more taxes, including a 20% jump in state excise taxes. More taxes will only deepen the recession and make things worse.

The union and DoE bosses' strategy is backfiring. More and more parents are asking why we need the DoE and the HSTA when they put union elites and the bureaucracy ahead of the classroom teachers, the parents and the students.

There is a better solution. Frontline classroom teachers are the last DoE employees that should be furloughed. Instead, we should cut the fat from the DoE bureaucracy and use the money to keep classrooms open.

During the crisis, Hawaii TEA Party is joining with community partners and forward-looking local-level school officials and teachers to organize community volunteers to staff the classrooms and keep them open on furlough Fridays.

The longer term solution requires real change. The teacher furloughs demonstrate that the DoE and the HSTA bosses can't make the right decisions and can't deliver the education that we paid for.

The time is long past due to dismantle the centralized and bloated DoE and move power over policy and spending to each schools' parents and teachers. This will greatly improve our education, cost less, and put more money where it belongs: in the local schools and with the frontline classroom teachers.

The teacher furloughs are a frightening crisis. They are also a tremendous opportunity. It's time to stop relying so much on government which has proven it can't do this job. It's time for we, the citizens, to stand up, to work together, and to take responsibility. This is the way our ancestors built this great nation. And it's the way out of this financial mess and into a bright, prosperous and exciting future.

Marc Hodges

President

Hawaii TEA Party

www.hawaiiteaparty.org 

808.281.3508

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Furloughs: How Unions and the DoE aim to co-opt protesting parents

Hawaii TEA Party: Let teachers come back paid by parents