If that school’s “turn the other cheek” policy sounds like an invitation to classroom chaos, teachers throughout America need to brace themselves. Like the old song says, “You ain’t seen nothing yet.”

The American Federation of Teachers – the nation’s second largest teachers union – is linking arms with a collection of social justice organizations to promote the “Solutions Not Suspensions” campaign. The campaign is calling for a “moratorium on out-of-school suspensions and for schools to adopt more constructive disciplinary policies that benefit students, classrooms and communities.”

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Dignity in Schools, the social justice consortium that’s spearheading the campaign, believes public school officials are too quick to punish students who act out in class and too willing to issue out-of-school suspensions and expulsions. The activists say the “harsh” punishments unfairly target minority students.

AFT President Randi Weingarten issued a press release a day after the campaign officially launched, explaining why the union is supporting the initiative.

“Children cannot learn if they are not in the classroom,” Weingarten said. “Nor can they or their peers learn, or teachers teach, in a school environment that is not safe, stable and engaging. The Solutions Not Suspensions coalition is boldly shining a light on a problem that is discussed too little and ignored too often.”

Weingarten doesn’t explain how keeping troubled students “in the classroom” ensures a safe and stable learning environment for other students. But that’s not the only contradiction she fails to address.

Some rank-and-file union members would surely be interested in knowing how keeping disruptive and potentially dangerous students in their classroom squares with the union’s goal of creating better, safer and more dignified working conditions for educators.

Are profanity-laced tirades from students now considered just part of the job?

Members would also like to know how a moratorium fits with the union’s emphasis on providing students with more individualized attention – a key argument in the AFT’s quest for smaller class sizes. If out-of-school suspensions and expulsions are no longer options, many of those students will remain in class, causing chaos and distractions that lead to less overall learning.

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Are AFT leaders unable to see the inevitable consequences of this policy?

We doubt that very much.

That begs the obvious question: What is the AFT hoping to accomplish?

It’s about left-wing politics

The AFT’s support of “Solutions Not Suspensions” can be partially explained by the union’s entrenched left-wing political agenda.

Political progressives have kept their distance from the education reform movement because they don’t agree with the reformers’ focus on school choice, charter schools and linking teacher evaluations to student learning.

But last spring, progressives found a school reform they could get behind: reforming “exclusionary” school punishments.

It’s not a particularly new issue, but it was given renewed emphasis when the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights released a report that found African-American students are suspended or expelled at three-and-a-half times the rate of their white peers. Hispanic and disabled students are also disproportionately affected, according to the federal government.

“The undeniable truth is that the everyday educational experience for many students of color violates the principle of equity at the heart of the American promise,” U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan said in a press release. “It is our collective duty to change that.”

Mac Donald reported in her recent article that Duncan has directed the DOE to investigate “at least five school systems because of their disparate black-white discipline rates.”

Despite charges by some that DOE’s analysis of the discipline data is flawed and its motives political, the AFT has quickly adopted this cause as its own. That’s not surprising. The union’s commitment to left-wing social justice activism is so strong that it even trumps what many would perceive as the best interests of its members.

… and about money

The other reason Weingarten has committed her union to the “Solutions Not Suspensions” campaign is found in the sixth sentence of her press release: “… (S)chool districts continue to eliminate school counselors, mentors and other services that are crucial to helping students succeed inside and outside the classroom.”

It’s obvious that the union is climbing aboard the “Solutions Not Suspensions” bandwagon largely for self-serving purposes. A moratorium on suspensions and expulsions is only possible if schools add an army of new staff members to assist teachers and staff in-school suspension programs. And hiring new staff members is only possible with more K-12 dollars, which happily leads to new AFT members who’ll be forced to contribute more dues dollars into union coffers. It’s a brilliant plan.

Weingarten has been clamoring for more education money for years, but she knows Congress has no appetite for another multi-billion “edujobs” bailout, like the one that passed two years ago. This new-found concern about excessive school suspensions gives the AFT’s perennial money request a fresh sense of urgency.

And then there’s the rest of Dignity in Schools’ “vision,” which extends far beyond scrapping out-of-school suspensions. The social justice group just released a report, “Model School Code on Education and Dignity,” that calls for establishing “a right to education for all children and youth from birth to age 21.” Central to the plan is “a universal pre-k program.”

It doesn’t take a Big Labor leader to see how such a plan would be a bonanza for school employee unions. If anything, “Solutions Not Suspensions” is a gateway spending drug that’s designed to lead to a massive amounts of new public school spending – just the thing to prop up an ailing and beleaguered education establishment.

And if a moratorium causes union teachers some tough times in the classroom, well, that’s just the price they’ll have to pay to help advance their union’s political and financial agenda.