HSTA Needs To Rethink Their Political Affiliation

How ironic is it that the Teachers union historically always endorses democrats for governor? This is a mystery to me. Even after they went on strike against Ben Cayetano, they refused to endorse Linda Lingle. They did not endorse any candidate that year in 2002. Then again in 2006, HSTA endorsed Democrat Randy Iwase. In spite of the fact that Lingle never had support from HSTA, there were never in 8 years any contract issues that came close to resulting in strike. There was the furloughs, but the teachers did actually support that with an 80% yes vote.

Then came 2010 and HSTA endorses the eventual winner Neil Abercrombie. Look at the results. The teachers have not had a contract in over a year and talks of a strike are very real once again. How can these people who educate for a living not have the smarts to see this?

It is basic math. 100% of the time HSTA endorses democrats. 100% of the time there has been a strike has been with a democrat governor (John Burns in 1973 and Ben Cayetano in 2001). Now the possibility is very real under Abercrombie. The really ironic thing is that these are all guys HSTA supported. Then the one time there was a GOP governor, there were no major contract issues.

HSTA really needs to think about their political affiliation if they care about teachers and education. I have never understood the mindset of a teacher supporting the left to begin with. What do they tell kids? "Work hard to get a good education and achieve success so later we can penalize for it with higher taxes than the poor."