Tax Freedom Day is April 17th. Freedom from teacher union extortion? To be announced. The National Education Association has thrown itself full force into the “corporate loophole” demagoguery campaign. According to the NEA, children are being victimized by avaricious corporate types who don’t pay their fair share of taxes. The NEA exhorts the American people...
With teacher union enabling, child abuse goes on unabated. A male business owner joking about life for homosexuals in prison, forced a junior accountant to bend over a desk, lined up behind him to simulate a sex act, then quipped, “I’ll show you what’s gay.” An insurance company middle manager who had been warned about...
California’s public schools continue to lay-off teachers, and the process by which they do this is as convoluted and illogical as one would expect in a bureaucratic system in which the needs of the students falls fairly low on the list of priorities. That’s my take-away from a new report by the state’s Legislative Analyst’s...
The release of teachers’ VA rankings should not be viewed as an attack on teachers, but as a wake-up call for the rest of us. The recent release of teachers’ value added (VA) rankings by the New York Times reignited a controversy which began when the Los Angeles Times did the same thing in 2010....
The American Federation of Teachers President’s half truths and hypocrisy can’t hide an obvious agenda. In a slam against those of us who believe that part of a teacher’s evaluation should be based on how well their students perform on standardized tests, American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten wrote an article for the Huffington...
Julius Caesar came to a bad end on March 15th, the same date many good teachers were warned that they may be unemployed in June. “Nearly 20,000 Teacher Pink Slips Statewide Show Drastic Need for More Education Funding” screamed the headline on the California Teachers Association website. First, let’s straighten out the union spin. Typically...
Teachers unions, known for fighting to keep pedophiles in the classroom, try to get rid of good teachers in Seattle. Last week, I wrote about the particularly egregious case of a teacher in Rochester, NY who sent sexually charged emails to her principal and was subsequently jailed for ignoring a restraining order. Upon her release,...
Parents send their children to school assuming that kids are its number one priority. But as recent events have shown, public schools are Ground Zero for a culture that puts children last and doesn’t hold adults accountable. In Waiting For Superman, Michelle Rhee stated that it took her a while, but she finally realized that...
As evidence mounts that the government/union education monopoly is failing our children, 2012 should see ramped up efforts to advance school choice. Last week, Education Week published “What Research Says About School Choice,” in which nine scholars analyze the results of various studies concerning “school choice” – the quaint notion that parents should be able...
The California Teachers Association is seeking cover in the Occupy Wall Street movement. The OWS crowd doesn’t understand that CTA and other public employee unions are a major part of the problem. Last week, part of my post concerned itself with the March 5th “Occupy the Capitol” protest being promoted by the California Teachers Association....
When teachers unions wear their duplicity like a bright red bandana, it shows the whole world what they really are about. Last week, New Jersey Education Association Executive Director Vincent Giordano, who makes over $500,000 a year in salary and assorted perks, shoved his foot in his mouth big time. Appearing on “New Jersey Capitol...
The California Teachers Association can’t realistically unionize all charter schools, so it promotes laws that limit their numbers. In Golden Missed Opportunity, recently published in City Journal, I examined the options that families in California have if they want to remove their children from failing public schools. The pickings in the Golden State are rather...
Children in the Golden State will get a better education when teacher quality becomes a priority. In perhaps the most in-depth study on the subject to date, three Ivy League economists studied how much the quality of individual teachers matters to their students over the long term. The paper, by Raj Chetty and John N....
Busting LAUSD and every other school district in the state for negligence should help kids, but it’s anyone’s guess as to when. In the meantime, giving families more educational options would be a great help, but don’t hold your breath, California. With National School Choice Week underway, we see many positive things happening across the...