Union lies to its members about virtual schools

The OEA publishes a monthly magazine, The OEA Today. The June issue has a blurb about SB 767 in which they blatantly lie about virtual charter schools and what the bill does.

You would think that the OEA could manage to be honest when telling their own members what they are up to, but I guess they know if people - including their own members - were actually well informed about what the OEA actually does, that they would lose support fast.

Here is what the OEA says about virtual charter schools:

"Currently Oregon's virtual school providers are taking money that has been allocated to public school students and spending it instead on subsidizing home school students. This is a backdoor voucher scheme."

There is so much in error here, it isn't funny. All these schools are doing is using money allocated to educate public school students to educate public school students. The OEA doesn't happen to like the public school these kids and their parents have chosen (because the teachers are not unionized,) but these are public schools, NOT home schools.

How could this possibly be a backdoor voucher scheme? A voucher is a way to use public funds to pay tuition at a private school. Virtual charters are public schools. Their teachers are public employees. The students take all the same tests and are held to all the same standards as other public school students. To describe a virtual public charter school as a "backdoor voucher scheme" is just ridiculous.

The OEA knows this full well, but it thinks so little of its tens of thousands of members that it doesn't think they will realize they are being lied to.

But someone has to point it out.