NEWARK, N.J. – Now let’s see. Teacher unions and many of their members hate charter schools, because they siphon students away from awful public schools and typically don’t hire union teachers.

The unionized teachers of Newark are particularly upset by a plan being pushed by state-appointed school Superintendent Cami Anderson to close several failing traditional schools, lay off some union teachers and allow some charter schools to locate in traditional school buildings.

These same union teachers are in front of thousands of students every day, and are not afraid to voice their opinions in their classrooms.

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So is anyone surprised that hundreds of brainwashed Newark students walked out of class Thursday to protest Anderson’s plan?

“They said (the plan) will make Newark schools better,” one student, Jose Leonard, said in a story published by CommonDreams.org. “They’ve been saying that for 20 years and we haven’t seen anything. It’s like they don’t care about the students.”

Leonard’s anger is pointed in the wrong direction. For 20 years (and even longer) Newark’s traditional schools have been failing their students, and show few signs of improvement. Charter schools have come along more recently, and offer alternatives to the unionized failure factories that students have been trapped in for decades.

“The Anderson administration is not afraid to take quality schools away but is scared of students engaging in their right,” said Kristen Towkaniuk, president of the Newark Students Union

Quality schools?

In 2012-13 state tests, fewer than 50 percent of Newark’s  third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth graders tested proficient in English language arts. Fewer than 50 percent in all of those grades – plus 11th grade – tested proficient in math.

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Poor academic results were the reason the state took over the district, and has continued to operate it, since the 1990s. The school’s miserable record of teaching kids was the reason Facebook Mark Zuckerberg gave $148 million to help the district recover.

Anderson is trying to fix education in Newark. She couldn’t do much to damage it, even if she wanted to, because the traditional schools in the city couldn’t get much worse.

The students should be protesting against the greedy union teachers who have been putting their automatic annual raises and other fringe benefits before student learning for years. The teachers have failed in their assignment to help kids learn – period

But all the students know about this situation is what their unionized teachers tell them.

So nobody is surprised that the kids are parroting their teachers, and nobody is probably listening to them, either.