During his speech on education at the Latino Coalition's Annual Summit, Mitt Romney made the following comment:
“The teachers unions are the clearest example of a group that has lost its way. Whenever anyone dares to offer a new idea, the unions protest the loudest. Their attitude was memorably expressed by a longtime president of the American Federation of Teachers: He said, quote, ‘When school children start paying union dues, that’s when I’ll start representing the interests of children.’ ”
Let's set aside for a moment the disconnect between his point - unions, especially teachers' unions, are bad - and the unrelated quote he uses to support it. A president of the AFT supposedly said something bad so he has to find a way to repeat it somewhere. But who said it and when?
The Washington Post's Fact Checker has done some digging to find out who said this, and when.
The presumptive GOP presidential nominee claimed that President Obama has bowed to powerful teachers unions, which he blamed for maintaining the status quo with failing schools.
The quote Romney cited could represent a serious indictment of teachers unions and their priorities, but only if the Republican candidate is correct in saying that it came from a longtime president of the American Federation of Teachers. We searched for evidence that a former head of that educators’ group, the second-largest of its kind in the United States, had really made such a statement.
Their first cite of the comment regards its appearance on a billboard in WI and a DKos
diary on the subject by Mark E Anderson.
Their next cite is from Wikepedia, in an entry on Albert Shanker's page (former president of the AFT), under the heading 'Disputed Quotes'. They helpfully comment that this should have been Romney's first red flag.
They go on to cite examples of where the quote appeared, in articles and editorials, but never in its original form, only as a reference to it having been made. The Shanker Institute was never able to pin down the origin of the quote:
The Shanker Institute has noted that none of the authors who ever used the alleged quote “bothered to provide a source — a date, an event, anything.” The group consulted Shanker’s former staff members, who suggested the former union leader might have said something to this effect: “I don’t represent children. I represent teachers.… But generally, what’s in the interest of teachers is also in the interest of students.”
They consulted the Library of Congress database from 1979 to 1986:
Shanker is not on record as making the statement any time between 1979 and 1986. If the union boss uttered those words in 1985, or even a few years before then, as the Meridian Star suggested, it didn’t happen at a congressional hearing.
The end result being the WP's Fact Checker gives Romney two Pinocchio's for making this statement. And given Romney's record on lying, this is practically the unvarnished truth.