This year has not been kind to the land of the free. Due to advancing ignorance and arrogance – a deadly combination – the basic tenets of our republic are in trouble, and public education is at the center of much of what is wrong. While we went through a similar socio-political upheaval in the...
“A public employer shall provide all public employees an orientation and shall permit the exclusive representative, if applicable, to participate.” – Excerpt from California State Assembly Bill AB 52, December 2016 In plain English, AB 52 requires every local government agency in California to bring union representatives into contact with every new hire, to “allow...
The way we pay our teachers is outmoded and needs to go the way of the horse-and-buggy. When I first began to substitute teach in Los Angeles in 1985, I learned about “incentive pay.” If a sub was willing to go to “schools in need,” he could earn about 40 percent more than a regular...
In announcing the end of the DACA program two weeks ago, President Trump seemed to fulfill a campaign promise to kill a program he once declared unconstitutional. But later, the president seemed to call for a permanent legislative solution that would grant resident status to people brought illegally to the country as minors. Tweeting that...
Thanks to collective bargaining, traditional public school teachers “get sick” way too often. It’s no secret that many teachers take advantage of the “sick days” that are part of a typical union collective bargaining agreement (CBA). Of course, while sick days are used legitimately by all teachers at some point, many (including yours truly, on...
Anti-school choicers are getting desperate. The traditional public education monopolists are using some truly bizarre arguments to ensure that children remain in government-run schools. In July, American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten intimated that parents who opt out of government schools are equivalent to southern segregationists. Then later in July, Katherine Stewart penned possibly...
There is no dearth of teachers; in fact, we may have too many. A nationwide shortage of teachers threatens quality education, according to the education establishment and its advocates in the media. But as with the population bomb, Y2K, and the devils of Loudon, the reality of the supposed crisis is quite different from its representation. A look...
Taxpayers are on the hook for the actions of irresponsible school districts, teachers who can’t find work…and very possibly, Tampons. The teachers unions and others in the education establishment love to point fingers at charter and private schools, claiming they’re “unaccountable.” But in reality, there is no entity in America that is less accountable...
Sacramento — Teachers’ union leaders hoping to discount the runaway academic success of charter schools have claimed charters lure the best-performing kids, leaving traditional, union-run public schools to handle poor-performing and struggling students. In its statement launching the anti-charter “Kids Not Profits” campaign, for instance, the California Teachers’ Association claimed that charters “cherry-pick the students...
The teachers union sees the Nazi rally in VA as an opportunity to further its radical agenda. The American Federation of Teachers is using the Nazi rally in Charlottesville on August 13th as an excuse to launch a massive propaganda campaign against Donald Trump, the right, the Republican Party and everyone else who does not...
Firing one employee is big news, while not firing hundreds is ignored. Without going through another weedy analysis of James Damore’s firing from Google – Holman Jenkins, George Leef and Nick Gillespie have done a fine job of that – let’s just say the Silicon Valley engineer was canned for stating what most scientists and...
Why is the California teachers union Association distributing political propaganda posters to teachers and other educators for display “in your school, classroom, and beyond?” The California Teachers Association doesn’t offer teachers a guide for the use of these posters in classroom instruction. Nor does it recommend the posters as catalysts for students to think about the nature...
There’s a rare note of dissent in the May-June issue of Educator, the usually doctrinaire magazine of the California Teachers Association. In a letter to the editor, Fremont Teacher Jim Brady questions the purpose behind official union posters appearing in public school classrooms across the state. As part of its 2017 campaign to “actualize the...
If you’re looking for evidence that Joe Biden is gearing up for a presidential bid, consider the line-up at the July 28 California Teachers Summit. Billed as their third annual, organizers said the event was broadcast live to an audience of some 10,000 participants in 35 locations throughout the state. Delivering the keynote address was Dr. Jill...