If kids grades one to 12 could vote, Barack Obama would be our next President. In a recent non-scientific poll conducted by the academic publisher Scholastic, 57% of nearly 250,000 youngsters voted to send the Democratic nominee to the White House. But how much of students’ opinions are a reflection of their teachers’ political preferences? And is that kind of influence a bad thing?
Those are the questions central to a federal lawsuit filed this month by New York City’s teachers union. The United Federation of Teachers has sought a temporary restraining order against a district policy that bars teachers from wearing campaign buttons in the city’s public schools. The prohibition, union officials argue, is a violation of teachers’ First Amendment rights to free speech and political expression. “It doesn’t matter whether you support Obama or Republican Senator John McCain,” UFT president Randi Weingarten said at a press conference. “As voters, we all should have the right to express our views.”
