Teachers’ union protest in Washington is a flop

It’s really rather humorous.

Back on July 30, 2011, the country’s two main teachers unions and a group called Save Our Schools (SOS) held a rally in Washington, DC to push back against badly needed pressure being put on schools across the nation to improve their performance.

The SOS group expected a 5,000 to 10,000 person turnout, a trivial drop in the bucket when you talk DC rallies. That is especially true when you consider the latest data in the 2010 Digest of Education Statistics shows in 2008 there were 3.2 million school teachers in the United States.

According to Education Week, only around 3,000 actually attended the SOS rally. That’s just 0.09 percent of the nation’s teachers who were excited enough by this event to show up.

In fact, the 2010 Digest of Education Statistics shows that in 2008 there were more than 5,000 teachers just in Washington, DC alone.

Of course, the SOS march in DC was spotted for what it was even before it happened.

Groups like the Association of American Educators (AAE) and the Washington-based Center for Education Reform denounced the rally and claimed that the teachers involved didn’t want the American education system to progress.

Certainly, the lackluster turnout for this highly touted union event hints that it’s the union itself and its status quo policies that many of our nation’s more forward-looking teachers want to be saved from.