New low for the MTA

To its great shame the Massachusetts Teachers Association has snubbed a Dorchester teacher who last month was named national Teacher of the Year, rejecting an effort to honor her at the union’s state convention last week. What a shabby way to treat a devoted teacher — and for the simple reason, it seems, that she doesn’t belong to the union.

Commonwealth Magazine last week reported that the MTA voted down a motion to formally congratulate and pay tribute to Sydney Chaffee, a ninth grade humanities teacher at Codman Academy Charter Public School, who was recently honored at the White House for her selection as national Teacher of the Year — a first for Massachusetts.

“I was disappointed that, as an organization of educators, we couldn’t for the moment put aside the charter school issue and national politics and just recognize this individual for her accomplishments and her work with children,” Peter Mili, a retired Cambridge teacher who sponsored the motion, told Commonwealth.

We’re disappointed, too — but not particularly surprised. The MTA has declared all-out war on charters, most recently spending millions to fight a very modest charter expansion. Perhaps union president Barbara Madeloni and her team think that by simply acknowledging Chaffee, their members will catch charter cooties?

Even the MTA’s national union, the National Education Association, has invited Chaffee to speak at its annual convention in June, Commonwealth reported, in keeping with its tradition and without regard for her lack of union membership.

That leaves the MTA on a very lonely island.