The cover echoes the outrageous and inflammatory rhetoric of so-called “reformers” who falsely claim educators’ due process protections are harming our nation’s schools. AFT on October 23 launched the nation-wide petition demanding Time‘s editors apologize for playing the teacher “blame game” to boost magazine sales.
“Obviously, we can debate a lot of things about public education,” Weingarten said at the event. “We can debate if there’s enough money. We can debate how to attract, retain and support teachers. We can debate the kind of parental engagement we need. We can debate whether we need more art and music. We can debate the role of testing. What shouldn’t be debatable is whether a cover that suggests that teachers need to be smashed is appropriate. A cover that suggests that teachers need to be smashed is dead wrong. And that’s why more than 100,000 people have signed petitions this week asking Time to apologize for its cover.”
Weingarten was joined by United Federation of Teachers (UFT) President and AFT vice president Michael Mulgrew, New York City teacher and UFT member Sara Berger, New York City parent Natasha Capers and North Bergen, N.J., teacher and AFT New Jersey member Laurie Troiano.
Since the petition delivery, more than 10,000 additional petition signatures have been collected, bringing the total to over 110,000.
Click here for national press coverage of the petition delivery.
