By Victor Skinner
EAGnews.org

NASHVILLE – A prominent Tennessee radio host is highlighting a union “shell game” that’s costing taxpayers across the country millions each year.

The scam, known as “union release time,” is one EAGnews has documented in the vast majority of teachers union contracts we’ve reviewed in recent years. In most agreements, one or more local public school teachers are released from their duties at taxpayer expense to work for the union, either full-time or part-time. Sometimes the union reimburses the public for a portion of the expense, sometimes not.

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“We can find examples of this … practice right here in Tennessee,” Steve Gill, a Nashville-based syndicated radio personality, wrote for Education News. “For example, in Nashville, Metro Schools agreed to honor an old contract provision paying half of (union) president Stephen Henry’s $66,103 salary and half of … vice president Erick Hutch’s $85,620 salary in 2011-2012.

“These men focus ALL of their work on UNION business rather than educating Nashville students – but taxpayers pick up half the tab for their salaries. This is being replicated in several of the 137 school districts across the state,” Gill wrote.

Education reformers in Colorado, Michigan, Wisconsin, California, Arizona and other states have called their teachers unions out on “union release time” – which they insist is an unnecessary union expense that should be eliminated … forever.