“The teachers unions don’t just screw over kids, they also screw over new teachers. Millennials beware.” The above tweet from Mike Petrilli, president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, pretty much tells the dismal story. To followers of Pension Tsunami, UnionWatch and Transparent California, the looming pension disaster for taxpayers is not news. But what has gone...
Since November, Kentucky has joined the right-to-work club and four new employee freedom cases have emerged. On January 7th, Kentucky became the 27th right-to-work state in the nation. The term “right-to-work” (RTW) very simply means that workers don’t have to pay dues to a union as a condition of employment. In a few short years, the movement...
When it comes to promoting their pernicious agenda, the teachers unions have the market cornered on fake news. Those railing against “fake news” would have you think that it is a new occurrence, something started a couple of years ago by assorted agenda-driven websites. Turns out, ironically, saying that fake news is a new phenomenon...
In a case that will cheer education reformers, four Pennsylvania teachers today sued their unions, school districts and district officials for making union membership a condition of their employment. “Teaching is my calling, but I fundamentally disagree with many teachers’ union stances on personnel and political issues,” said lead plaintiff Gregory J. Hartnett, an art...
It’s award season and the teachers unions have entered the crowded field. The Oscars. The Grammys. The Tonys. And we now have new award for the teachers unions: “The Phonys.” Ask any teacher union leader about what they stand for, and you will get an earful about how they champion kids, parents and, of course,...
“All Government employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service. It has its distinct and insurmountable limitations when applied to public personnel management.” The above caveat about government unions – usually known by the kinder and gentler “public employee unions” – was not issued...
They may not have won a Nobel Prize, but California taxpayers and students are awarding ten retired University of California professors an attractive consolation prize: pension benefits amounting to more than $300,000 each per year. Topping the list of UC pension beneficiaries is Fawzy I. Fawzy, M.D. a Professor of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences at UCLA. He received over $354,000 in 2014, an amount that will continue to grow each year with cost of living increases. Recently, Dr. Fawzy generously helped his junior colleagues by explaining their compensation and pension benefits in a lecture uploaded to YouTube. His knowledge of the ins and outs of the UC payroll and retirement systems is truly impressive.
The disconnect between many workers and union leadership is wider than ever. For years, former Executive Director of the National Education Association John Wilson wrote a regular blog post for Education Week. Never shy about his political leanings, the far-left Wilson composed “Teachers and Teacher Unions Are the Same” in 2012, in which he accuses...
In a recent op-ed, California Federation of Teachers (CFT) President Joshua Pechthalt calls out special interests for pouring money into California elections in support of charter schools. He writes: The charter association spent better than $24 million in relatively few races this year. Oakland, where previously $20,000 was a lot of money for a school...
Teachers and their unions are front-and-center in advancing Trumpocalyptic fearmongering. Worse than anything Donald Trump ever said, the backlash to his election has been horrifying. While the hysteria and teddy-bear-clutching over the election of a Republican president is nothing new – remember “Bushitler?” in which some on the left equated W to Der Führer –...
Los Angeles teachers union turns down millions of dollars from the philanthropist earmarked for schools that work. Last year, the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation formed Great Public Schools Now (GPSN), an organization whose goal was to create 260 new charter schools in Los Angeles. The plan was to enroll at least 130,000 students in...
Alberta teachers union pushes a radical sexual agenda on kids. Earlier this year, several doctors tore into new guidelines that promote transgenderism in the Canadian province of Alberta. These MDs haven’t fallen for the uber-progressive fairytale that “gender is a social construct” and insist that identifying one’s gender as different from one’s biological sex is...
How does the San Diego County Board of Education become dubiously entangled with the owner of a solar company and a labor union boss? It’s For The Children… Yeah, right. In 2012 and 2014, the American Federation of Teachers labor union local 1091, led by union boss Jim Mahler, financed the take-down of community based...
Teachers union and Hillary Clinton team up to tackle the (nonexistent) bullying epidemic. For several weeks now, the National Education Association has been running ads in in nine swing states on the so-called “Trump effect.” The six-figure campaign maintains that Donald Trump’s inflammatory campaign rhetoric has caused a substantial uptick in bullying in schools. NEA president...