Educators don’t get much for their $1,200 yearly dues. In the aughts, after blindly being a dues-paying National Education Association member for years, I opened my eyes, and discovered that I’d been wasting my money. The teachers unions were primarily about politics, all of which went in a leftward direction. One in-your-face example at the...
Many American schools of education are not worthy of existing. On June 29, the California Department of Education, in cooperation with the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing and the State Board of Education, announced the first-ever release of statewide teacher assignment data. The report revealed that as of the 2020-21 school year, “83.1 percent of teacher...
SCOTUS declares that if a state subsidizes private education, it cannot disqualify religious schools. The latter case revolves around Maine’s town tuitioning law, which allows parents living in districts that do not own and operate elementary or secondary schools to send their children to public or private schools in other areas of the state, or even...
“Many teachers have left the profession and gone into other work of various kinds because they could make more money. Frequently the best teachers are the ones who have left the profession because they have been able to command exceptional salaries elsewhere.” (H/T Tom Gantert.) The above quote is taken from the front page of the...
Internal California Teachers Association documents reveal the union has far fewer members than it claims – and that union leaders expect that number to drop farther. Investigative journalist Mike Antonucci reports that union’s 2022-23 fiscal year budget has the number at 267,270 – a loss of 42,730 members or nearly 14 percent. The California Teachers...
According to a study released in mid-May by The Century Foundation, a progressive think tank, “one in six students attend a school where over 90% of their peers were of the same race in the 2018-19 school year.” The publication of the report was timed to mark the 68th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, the U.S. Supreme...
It’s no secret that education in America has been in bad shape for some time, and now, low student proficiency has been exacerbated by the hysterical response to the Covid outbreak. Most recently, the results of a Harvard University study, which investigated the role of remote and hybrid instruction in widening gaps in achievement by...
This article originally appeared in For Kids and Country. It has been a decade since the landmark Vergara lawsuit was filed, and its denial in the courts has led to ongoing failure in California schools. Back in 1975, I lost my 6th-grade teaching position in New York City. As a newbie, it was explained to...
As the 21st century careens its way towards more geopolitical and economic uncertainty than most people alive today have ever known, with constant and transformative change the only constant, optimists among us still hope that some elements of California’s labor movement will begin to throw their weight behind policies and politicians that offer stability and...
In just three days in early May, California’s teachers unions opened the vault and moved $1.2 million into Tony Thurmond’s campaign for Superintendent of Public Instruction. Thurmond has earned their favor. In nearly four years as the incumbent, he has advanced the unions’ demands to end charter schools, and endorsed teacher strikes — which, in...
This article originally appeared in For Kids and Country. Social Emotional Learning (SEL) was always a bad idea, and now that it is politicized, it’s a nightmare. As a longtime teacher, I have seen firsthand that education is a fad-filled field. Culturally responsive education, inventive spelling, new math, experiential learning, balanced literacy, etc. are educational...
Most California school districts and their labor unions have finally come to terms on COVID-19 protocols, reconciling federal and state funding and mandate issues with the funding given them in several relief packages. Now, a new round of labor unrest is percolating across the state as new compensation contracts are negotiated. Teachers expect sizable raises,...
This article was originally on For Kids and Country. In California, parents are abandoning the k-12 system, college enrollment is down, and now the state is trying to lure 4-year-olds to transitional kindergarten. According to just released data from the California Department of Education, the state has lost 110,000 students this school year, and has fewer...
The organization behind some of California’s most out-there education initiatives announced it’s splitting from the national group that helped it promote the “parents are terrorists” campaign. In a low-profile statement, the California School Boards Association says its leadership approved the divorce from the National School Boards Association on March 26. In the press release, the...