The yearly NEA convention was replete with the usual bogeymen, rah-rah talk, weird new business items and a bit more angst than usual. This last year should have been a pip for the National Education Association. Antoni Scalia’s death killed Friedrichs and kept forced unionism alive and well in half the country. And the inevitable...
Forced unionism may soon be illegal, but a mandatory union propaganda law is now on the books in California. The public employee unions, especially the teacher union variety, are very jittery over the prospect that the Janus case, if successful in the U.S. Supreme Court next year, could free government workers from paying forced dues...
When it comes to school districts, bigger is not necessarily better. The number of public school districts in the United States has fallen sharply since the early 20th century: declining from 117,108 for the 1939-40 school year to 13,672 in 2014-15. While school district consolidation has slowed in recent years, the general trend continues. This...
Sacramento —A recent action by one of nation’s largest public-employee unions illustrates the importance of an Illinois case that might make its way to the U.S. Supreme Court sometime next year. The technical dispute involves the complex process by which public-sector unions assess dues to those who don’t want to be members. But the real...
From California to Africa, teachers unions fight the “for-profit” bogeyman. Well, I guess we can all rest just a bit easier now that California is on the verge of banning for-profit charter schools. Sponsored by the California Federation of Teachers, AB 406 is making its way through the California State Senate, having glided through the...
Union dues take a large bite out of the paychecks of California teachers. We estimate that newly hired, full-time teachers will pay $37,000 in dues over a 30-year career. Further, if new teachers could fully opt out of the union and instead save their dues in an Individual Retirement Account, they would each have $228,000...
Sacramento Legislators announced a budget deal last week that spends a record $125 billion in the general fund. But most interesting isn’t what’s in the deal, but what isn’t. There’s plenty of new spending, of course, but not so much that it outpaces the rate of inflation. There are controversial “trailer” bills that attempt to...
Teachers unions continue to bash charter schools in spite of their success and popularity. When it comes to charter schools, the teachers unions are nothing if not relentless. From Mike Antonucci we learn that the California Teachers Association is in the process of developing and promoting resolutions, which local unions can introduce at school board meetings...
Sacramento On first blush, the latest effort by Gov. Jerry Brown and Democratic legislators to give public-employee unions access to public agencies to hold “orientation” seminars with new hires is an unfair special privilege not normally provided to private groups. It’s even more disturbing that the legislation authorizing such access is being rammed through the...
Large school districts are often less responsive to the needs of students and the hopes of parents than smaller districts. Public educational behemoths – such as Los Angeles Unified – are more likely to fall under the influence of well-organized interest groups such as teachers’ unions. By breaking up large districts into smaller ones, parents...
Three of the nation’s five most expensive schools are in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Each ranks among the lowest performing schools in California. With a $578 million price tag, Robert F. Kennedy Learning Center is the most expensive school ever built. Boasting an auditorium modeled after the famous Coconut Grove nightclub, a state-of-the-art...
Trump’s proposed budget includes some minor cuts; union leaders launch hyperbolic grenades. Did you know that the Trump/DeVos budget is manifestly cruel to children and catastrophic to public schools? Are you aware that Trump/Devos are planning to slash funding for public schools, and use voucher schemes to funnel taxpayer dollars to unaccountable private schools? Well,...
Billionaires weigh heavy on the mind of the president of the California Teachers Association (CTA). During his brief May 21 speech at the 2017 California Democratic Party convention, CTA president Eric Heins referred to billionaires four times. He didn’t refer to reading, writing, or mathematics at all. It appears the CTA leadership has discovered a legion...
Retired LA schools chief Ramon Cortines received pension benefits totaling a remarkable $238,383.67 last year, possibly through a controversial pension-spiking practice known as “air time” – the purchase of credit for time not worked.