Union leaders grumble when non-members get union perks; here’s a way out. As a result of the Janus decision in June 2018, workers are no longer forced to pay any money whatsoever to a public employee union as a condition of employment. While teachers and other government workers were freed from paying union dues or...
One of the most financially mismanaged school districts in California has found a solution to their financial challenges – borrow more money, and let the voters pay more in property taxes. Scheduled to appear on the March 2020 local ballot for voters living within the West Contra Costa Unified School District, Measure R, a “classroom modernization...
In 2004, following decades of poor student performance and gang crime, parents at San Diego’s Gompers Middle School and the school’s principal used a little-known state law to convert their campus into a public charter school. The new school, called Gompers Preparatory Academy, thrived. Campus safety improved, test scores rose, and students and teachers lined...
Radical teacher’s movement picks up some steam in 2019 and national unions join in. #RedforED began as a grassroots teachers’ movement that was organized on Facebook in early 2018. Cooked up by Noah Karvelis, a 24-year-old music teacher and socialist from Arizona, its raison-d’etre is ultimately class warfare. Karvelis’ own words are ripped from The...
The new Prop. 13, very much unlike the iconic original, hurts taxpayers. There is yet another potential tax grab coming to California in the form of a school bond, which will be on the March 3rd ballot. The ironically named Prop. 13, a “School and College Facilities Bond,” would authorize $15 billion in general obligation...
The clamor over for-profit charters has no substance whatsoever. Among the many vapid rallying cries in the 2019 presidential follies is the one that stresses the importance of eliminating for-profit charter schools. In October, Elizabeth Warren released her education plan that proposed eliminating them, and using the IRS to investigate existing schools that may “actually...
Americans are losing confidence that public schools will improve, but a Supreme Court case could pave the way to greater parental choice. A recent in-depth survey by RealClearPolitics concludes that a majority of registered voters are dissatisfied with the performance of America’s education system and “have little confidence that public schools will improve any time...
The NEA grills POTUS candidates on the issues, and Elizabeth Warren is outed as a world-class hypocrite. In an attempt to be transparent about its endorsing process, the National Education Association is recording interviews with all the 2020 Democratic presidential candidates. And Elizabeth Warren’s effort is right in line with her talk in Atlanta, in...
Sanders stands firm on the issues; Warren and Booker are chameleon-like; Biden is meh. As I wrote in May, several of the Democratic presidential hopefuls were tripping over each other in an effort to secure the endorsement of the teachers unions. These candidates were most pointed in criticizing any form of school choice. Bernie Sanders...
When trying to understand why Californians continue to elect liberals, several explanations routinely surface. Chief among them is the theory that conservatives forever alienated California’s diverse electorate by championing “discriminatory” policies. The early example of this was Prop. 187, passed in 1994, which banned providing government services to illegal aliens. Most of Prop. 187 was overturned in...
“Bargaining for the common good” is really an attempt by teacher union elites to turn America socialist. In June, 2016, unions across the country were expanding their focus to the broader community, an effort which they call “bargaining for the common good.” The new strategy originated when public employee union leaders and community organizations gathered...
Better pay and working conditions for teachers can be achieved, if only the unions would get out of the way. We live in striking times. In 2018 there were state-wide teacher work stoppages in West Virginia, Oklahoma, Arizona, et al. And this year, we have seen strikes in Denver, Los Angeles and Chicago. Not surprisingly,...
An analysis of school shootings by the U.S. Secret Service doesn’t really tell us anything new. A report released last week by the U.S. Secret Service National Threat Assessment Center on “targeted school violence” doesn’t add much to what we already knew. Nearly every attacker “experienced negative home life factors.” Most were victims of bullying...
The L.A. teachers union may officially support Bernie Sanders for president next week. Back in September, the United Teachers of Los Angeles board of directors began a process to endorse Bernie Sanders for president, and on November 14th there will be a formal vote by the union’s House of Representatives. UTLA president Alex Caputo-Pearl is...