My latest battle against a teacher union leader…. Last month, Rebecca Friedrichs, lead plaintiff in a lawsuit against the California Teachers Association that was recently heard by the U.S. Supreme Court, and I were invited to talk about her case on Inside OC, a public affairs TV show in Orange County. Rebecca was given the...
Randi Weingarten promotes her union agenda in the guise of “cultural literacy.” Almost 30 years ago, education professor E.D. Hirsch wrote Cultural Literacy, in which he claimed that there are facts and cultural references that every American should know. His list was both celebrated and attacked, and is still controversial. While many approve of a...
Good luck getting a recertification bill passed in a state legislature owned and operated by the California Teachers Association. Republican California State Assemblywoman Shannon Grove, representing the 34th district (mostly Kern County), has come up a couple of interesting bills. (H/T Steve Frank.) AB 2753 would “require California’s public employee unions to post an itemized...
California’s teachers unions have been described as the most powerful force affecting state government. Recently, however, threats to the California Teachers Association and the California Federation of Teachers have arisen on a number of fronts, yet over the last couple of weeks those threats seemed to be minimized by political pressure, apparent sympathetic judges, and...
Karen Cuen has more than a casual interest in Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association, which was argued before the U.S. Supreme Court in January. She is one of the parties to a case whose future course became unclear following the Feb. 13 death of Justice Antonin Scalia. Cuen is a music, band, and choir teacher...
Educating students is far from the #1 priority of the school board and the teachers union in LA. On February 11th, LA School Report released an internal Los Angeles Unified School District document which stated that just 54 percent of seniors in LA are on track to graduate. The drop off from 74 percent last...
An education free market stalwart leaves us way too soon. On February 7th, Andrew Coulson tragically passed away at age 48 from brain cancer. As Senior Fellow in Education Policy at the Cato Institute, he led the charge for free market reforms in education. An unapologetic capitalist, he believed that the market would inevitably lead...
The Chicago teachers’ pension scam exemplifies what unions claim to hate most about corporations. Chicago, long known as the Second City, may still be second in some things, but it seems to be #1 in teacher union greed. As it’s time for a new contract with the Chicago public school system (CPS), the inevitable blather...
Last month a group of California teachers fighting mandatory union fees at the U.S. Supreme Court had, by all appearances, a good day. Supreme Court justices seemed receptive to the arguments brought by teachers in the Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association case. If the case is successful, Rebecca Friedrichs and other government workers across the...
Michelle Rhee’s teacher evaluation system has shown itself to be effective in D.C. public schools and has left the teachers unions on the sidelines…for now. Back in 2010, the Washington, D.C. public school system (DCPS) introduced IMPACT, an evaluation system whose goal was not only to identify and retain good teachers, but pay them bonuses....
Even a brief glance at the 1908 7th and 8th grade reading lists or the 1895 Salina, Kansas 8th grade exit exam graphically illustrates the profound decline in public education produced as a consequence of the progressives who dominate our academic institutions and federal government. Less obvious is the threat this presents to the future of the American Republic....
National School Choice Week aims to end our Zip-code Mandated Education System (Z MESS) and promote parent-power. You: I’m going out to dinner tonight. Me: You are going to the restaurant down the street from where you live, right? You: No, it’s not very good. I am going to a restaurant across town; it has...
In the Friedrichs case before the U.S. Supreme Court, the core of union-supporters’ argument is that government employees should be forced to pay fees to a union because they benefit from union activities. Not paying the union, they say, makes an employee a free rider. Or, as The Atlantic put it recently: “Rebecca Friedrichs is...
SCOTUS appears to be ready to dump mandatory public employee union dues payments. Last Monday, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the Friedrichs v California Teachers Association lawsuit. The case centers around whether or not teachers and other public employees should be forced to pay dues to a union as a condition of employment...