If you want to understand Teachers Unions, take this quote by long time American Federation of Teachers president Albert Shanker and spray paint it on the side of a school: "When school children start paying union dues, that's when I'll start representing the interests of school children." Get it? The Pipe Fitter's Union represents Pipe Fitters, not pipes. Same fucking thing. When you send your little pipes off to school, the teachers might care about them, but the Teachers' Union... is a fucking Union.

In his 2009 farewell address, the National Education Association's General Counsel Bob Chanin made it perfectly clear... it's not about the kids, it's about the power:

   “Despite what some among us would like to believe it is not because of our creative ideas. It is not because of the merit of our positions. It is not because we care about children and it is not because we have a vision of a great public school for every child. NEA and its affiliates are effective advocates because we have power.”
    “And we have power because there are more than 3.2 million people who are willing to pay us hundreds of millions of dollars in dues each year, because they believe that we are the unions that can most effectively represent them, the unions that can protect their rights and advance their interests as education employees.”
    “This is not to say that the concern of NEA and its affiliates with closing achievement gaps, reducing dropout rates, improving teacher quality and the like are unimportant or inappropriate. To the contrary. These are the goals that guide the work we do. But they need not and must not be achieved at the expense of due process, employee rights and collective bargaining. That simply is too high a price to pay.”

That's right, any loss of union power is too high a price to pay for doing their fucking job and teaching kids. All the shit going on in Wisconsin makes a little more sense when you look at it from their point of view. Given the choice between helping kids or union power... they choose union power.