A prominent teachers union in Colorado recently passed a resolution declaring that economic capitalism “inherently exploits children, public schools, land, labor, and resources.”
According to Fox News, the final draft of the resolution passed by the Colorado Education Association (CEA) argues that capitalism exploits children and fails to address “systemic racism.”
“CEA believes that capitalism requires exploitation of children, public schools, land, labor, and/or resources. Capitalism is in opposition to fully addressing systemic racism (the school-to-prison pipeline), climate change, patriarchy, (gender and LGBTQ disparities), education inequality, and income inequality,” the draft states.
The Colorado teachers' union just passed a resolution against capitalism, stating:
"CEA believes that capitalism requires exploitation of children, public schools, land, labor, and/or resources. Capitalism is in opposition to fully addressing systemic racism (the school to… pic.twitter.com/VkFKcsLeiw
— Sage Naumann (@SageNaumann) May 5, 2023
A screenshot was leaked of an earlier draft which contained an extra phase added at the end of the paragraph. The line declared that the CEA’s goal would be “to dismantle capitalism and replace it with a new, equitable economic system.”
In the discarded version of the resolution, a separate line was added, saying, “We are constantly using band-aids and minor reforms to make things better, which is good, but the system itself is the problem, and it needs to be named.”
A former federal official leaked the screenshot of the original draft to an outlet called “The Lion.” The official received the image from a CEA member who opposed the resolution.
The outlet met with CEA director of communications Lauren Stephenson, who acknowledged the legitimacy of the leaked image and the resolution, admitting it was passed secretly because of concerns about “process” and privacy.
The CEA is a Colorado affiliate of the National Education Association (NEA), which has also demonstrated left-leaning tendencies in recent years. NEA’s president, Becky Pringle, recently declared that “racial justice,” “social justice,” and “climate justice” must become “pillars” of her organization’s mission.
“For us at the NEA, education justice must be about racial justice, it must be about social justice, it must be about climate justice. It must be about all of those things. For our students to be able to come to school ready to learn every day–We can never think of education as an isolated system because everything connects to our students’ ability to learn,” Pringle said.
“So, we have to necessarily talk about housing justice, food inequality, and the reality that we all just went through a global pandemic together, and of course, it was the most marginalized communities that were already suffering from the inequalities in every single social system in the country and every country,” Pringle added.
