I decided to keep track of how the unions conducted themselves over a few weeks during the winter and found:

• A virtual union riot at a meeting of the East Providence School Committee meeting.

• Efforts by teachers in Johnston to sabotage an important new science program. [They have since decided to accept it.]

• News in Warwick that the schools performed above the state average and yet, at the best school, only 24 percent were proficient in math and barely half were proficient in writing.

Is this how our teachers unions prepare our children for a tough future?

What is especially discouraging is that in a state that considers itself liberal, so much power is wielded by one of its most reactionary forces, the teachers unions.

Charter schools, school vouchers, mayors’ schools, school consolidation — all progressive, enlightened steps designed to give parents and students a choice in their education opportunities and put the focus on the child — are constantly attacked and thwarted by teachers unions, which make it clear that they come first. The first question asked when change is proposed is not “Will the child come out better” but “Will the union come out better.” If the answer to the latter is no, consider the issue dead.

JOSEPH H. WEAVER

Warwick