My encounters with tenure, aka permanence, aka undue process for teachers. In an article posted recently, Harvard professor and editor-in-chief of Education Next Paul Peterson asks, “Do Teachers Support the Vergara Decision?” More specifically, he discusses tenure, which is on hold in California due to Judge Rolf Treu’s ruling. The tenure statute is the part...
Assuming Judge Treu’s rulings survive the appeals process, what will replace the offending statutes? In last year’s Vergara case, Judge Rolf Treu ruled that the state’s archaic seniority, tenure and dismissal statutes were unconstitutional, adding that the evidence submitted “shocks the conscience.” The judge’s ruling is now being appealed by the state of California, the...
On January 14th the Orange County Board of Education will meet to consider, among other things, approving a 2% increase for the Orange County superintendent’s salary. Using data provided by the Orange County Dept. of Education to Transparent California, it can be seen that in 2013 the superintendent, Al Mijares, earned a base salary of...
NEA president praises Finland, Singapore and Canada, conveniently omitting facts about school choice and competition. The “global education reform movement has failed” … or at least that’s what National Education Association president Lily Eskelsen García told a group of businessmen in Detroit last month. Spouting the usual edubabble, the union president told the Detroit Economic...
With a big assist from the teachers unions, the small class size myth lives on. “The sky is falling” is well-known throughout the world as an admonition to be wary of hysterical claims. While we appreciate the silliness of the Chicken Little story, we fail to recognize its relevance in many of the myths perpetuated...
Chances are that you don’t think that New York City Patrolman’s Benevolent Association President Patrick Lynch has much in common with Randi Weingarten of the American Federation of Teachers. In fact, after Lynch sparred earlier this year with Weingarten protégé Michael Mulgrew, the president of the union’s United Federation of Teachers local, over the unit’s collaboration...
The Chinese zodiac is transitioning from “horse” to “sheep,” but in the U.S., where school choice is involved, the species in 2014-2015 is “lawyer.” School choice comes in many flavors, but the privatization kind is the most threatening to various special interests because government-run schools are money-makers and power bases for them. Teachers unions, entrenched...
As more Dems demand education reform, the teachers unions find themselves increasingly isolated. Going back to 2009, I have written many times about the relationship between the teachers unions and the Democratic Party. It’s no secret that the party and the unions were at one time synonymous, but this is rapidly becoming history. Quite clearly,...
A teachers union giving an award for social justice is like Miley Cyrus handing out a medal for modesty. The term “social justice” has gone through many permutations over the centuries, but these days it refers essentially to a progressive vision of the world. Its paramount issues include income inequality, sexual discrimination, the mere existence...
November’s electoral outcomes at both the Anaheim City Council and Anaheim City School Board provide a potentially refreshing new start for transforming chronically underperforming city schools while simultaneously opening the door to a new era of respect for parents leading these efforts. The potential arises because two long-serving ACSB members will no longer oversee responsibility...
Coca Cola, Teach For America, Walmart and banks are the latest targets of Big Labor. Attempting to get over the millions of dollars they spent backing losers in the November election, America’s teachers unions are on a mission to find new bogeymen. First victim: Coca Cola. Yup, the American Federation of Teachers has adopted a...
The California Senate Legislative Counsel issued last week a sweeping opinion, concluding a controversy as to whether a school district – Los Angeles Unified, in this case – can proclaim itself exempt from California’s historic Parent Trigger law, which enables parents of kids in chronically underperforming schools to transform it if a majority of parents...
“The ‘recovery’ is largely an illusion created by the effects of zero percent interest rates, quantitative easing, and deficit spending. The asset bubbles that have been created as a result of these policies have primarily benefited the owners of stocks, bonds, and real estate (the rich), while simultaneously deterring the savings and capital investment that...
Sometimes you win by losing. That’s precisely what occurred last week, when the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted the motion by Rebecca Friedrichs’ attorneys to decide her case (Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association) on the basis of the pleadings, without a trial or additional oral arguments. The “loss” actually means that plaintiffs –...