The yearly NEA convention was as blatantly left-wing as ever, and conservative teachers are staying put. When a bunch of teachers gather for a yearly convention, you might think that education matters would be front and center. But when the National Education Association convenes for its yearly wingding, politics is the centerpiece. And this year’s...
The axis of public sector unions and the identity politics industry has come up with a new way to increase their power and profits – force college students to take a class in “ethnic studies” if they want to graduate. To do this, AB 1460 was introduced earlier this year by California State Assembly Member Dr. Shirley Weber,...
As anyone who’s been a public school teacher can tell you, plenty of false messages circulate about union membership: whether it’s required, why it exists, and whom it benefits (or harms). Free to Teach wants you to know what’s up. Below are six of the most common issues the major state and national teachers’ unions don’t...
Finnish schools are unionized. American schools are unionized. The similarities end there. Randi Weingarten, Lily Eskelsen García and other teacher union leaders have on many occasions extolled the virtues of Finland’s education system, and, at every turn, they remind us that their teachers are unionized. They are right. Finland does have a highly regarded education...
The great education spending swindle is never-ending for the teachers unions. Their whine never stops. While I and many others have been writing about the enormous sum of money spent on education for years, the “investicrats,” those who constantly demand that even more must be allocated, show no sign of leaving the building. Perhaps the...
As parents of students in failing schools attempted to move their children to better districts nearby, a top official in one district lobbied his colleagues to block all the exits. His reason: a decline in enrollment equals a drop in district revenue. “As we’ve shared with you, we are denying most transfer requests,” Jaron Fried,...
LAUSD parcel tax measure goes down, and the district is still in charge…for now. If you live in Los Angeles, the thud you heard last Tuesday was the Los Angeles Unified School District’s parcel tax measure crashing to earth. Its goal was to raise $500 million annually over a 12-year period. Thus, owners of large...
Two bills that would have deeply wounded the popular schools of choice are dead…for now. Last week, two seemingly sure-shot bills were deep-sixed in the California legislature. AB 1506 would have placed a ceiling on the number of charter schools allowed in the state – the magic number being those in existence at the end...
Democratic contenders attempt to lock in teacher union endorsements to the detriment of taxpayers and the neediest students. A full year before the 2016 Democratic National Convention, the American Federation of Teachers endorsed Hillary Clinton for president. This infuriated many teachers who preferred Bernie Sanders, rightfully feeling they had no role in the decision. So...
Assembly bill would eliminate the successful TFA program in CA, a state which desperately needs more good teachers. Assembly Bill 221 in California would prohibit school districts from entering into a contract with a third-party organization that employs teachers “who commit to teaching in the organization for less than five years.” This is an obvious...
During the Los Angeles teachers strike earlier this year, an article in the far-left publication The Nation offered an excellent glimpse into the mentality of strikers and their supporters. The article begins by describing a scene in front of an LAUSD middle school on day three of the strike. A truck driver has arrived to make a delivery to...
Renegade locals fight California state NAACP and national board over anti-charter school stance. Nearly 68 percent of all black public school students in California perform below their grade level in English and language arts, and more than 80 percent fail to meet the state’s proficiency mark in math, according to the latest California Assessment of...
Research shows that technocratic reforms have made no difference in alleviating the achievement gap. A new study by Eric Hanushek et al. for the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) shows that all the top-down fixes – No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top, etc. – piled on by the education industrial complex have...
Blue states oppress black people too. Nowhere is this more obvious than in policing and public education in California. California’s Legislature is grappling with these issues this session. Assemblymember Shirley Weber (D-San Diego), a progressive voice and chair of the California Legislative Black Caucus, is authoring AB 392, which seeks to change the use of...