The teachers unions’ fight against parental and teacher choice is not going well for them. Teacher union membership is dwindling. In fact, it has dipped below 50 percent nationwide, down from a high of almost 70 percent in 1993. Wisconsin, Michigan and Indiana, having become “right-to-work” (RTW) states over the past several years, have given...
Teacher union leaders want to keep poorly performing public schools open, but kill off thriving charters and voucher schools. Just last week it was announced in New York City that three failing public schools would be closing. With a total enrollment of 217 students, there really was no other choice. Indeed, it was such a...
As Dropout Nation reported last week, National Education Association has had to deal with declining rank-and-file numbers as well as prop up affiliates struggling with pension woes and other issues. None of this, by the way, includes the nation’s largest teachers’ union’s own virtually-insolvent defined-benefit pension. Yet as NEA has shown in its 2014-2015 financial...
Socialist teacher union honcho’s distortions about union political spending and “labor peace” are, well, par for the course. Shaun Richman, a former organizing director for the American Federation of Teachers, has written a bizarre piece for In These Times in which he claims that “the Friedrichs v. Calif. Teachers Association SCOTUS Case Could Actually Be...
New documents show, yet again, teachers unions’ disdain for American workers. If you Google NEA + middle class + Friedrichs, you will be barraged with a load of demagogic union bromides about how the Friedrichs case – which opposes mandatory dues payments to public employee unions (PEUs) as a condition of employment – will, if...
The National Education Association just filed its latest financial disclosure with the U.S. Department of Labor, and as you would expect, it spent big on its efforts to preserve its influence over education policymaking. The union spent $131 million on lobbying and contributions to what are supposed to be like-minded organizations in 2014-2015, just slightly...
Santa Ana Unified is California’s sixth-largest school district. Only 28 percent of SAUSD tested students scored at basic levels of reading proficiency – and just 19 percent in mathematics. SAUSD has more failing schools – and a higher percentage of failing schools – than any other Orange County district. Increasingly, parents are leaving SAUSD and...
If almost half the unionized workers at an auto plant could get a free Chevy as a company perk, but instead bought one made by non-union workers from a different car-maker, what would you think? A few weeks ago, Richard Stutman, head of the Boston Teachers Union, wrote a piece in which he delivered the...
America’s most powerful union bosses are running a national smear campaign against 10 workers who fund their paychecks. California teacher Rebecca Friedrichs and nine of her fellow educators are being vilified by executives of the country’s largest labor unions — including the National Education Association and American Federation of Teachers. Using money taken from workers’ paychecks, union bosses are portraying Friedrichs and...
Collective bargaining serves neither students, competent teachers, nor taxpayers. A new study reveals that collective bargaining for teachers has a negative effect on future earnings, occupational skill levels and hours worked. Writing in Education Next, researchers Michael Lovenheim and Alexander Willen dissect the long-term ramifications of states that mandate collective bargaining for teachers. While they...
The school reform movement was shocked last week when likely Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton declared to talk show host (and school reformer) Roland Martin that public charter schools fail to work with “the most challenging students”, and made other points about the schools that have no substance in fact. After all, the former First...
Using teacher union talking points, Mrs. Clinton badly distorts facts about charter schools. Coming on the heels of the Benghazi fabrication, the “dead broke” when she left the White House claim, and “servergate,” the latest Hillary blunder is a baseless sliming of charter schools. In a well-publicized gaffe, she told journalist Roland Martin, … the...
Numerous local K-12 school districts and community college districts throughout California have entangled themselves in controversies over facilities construction funded by borrowed money obtained through bond sales. These controversies include the irresponsible sale of Capital Appreciation Bonds, inappropriate expenditures using bond proceeds, and questionable contracts for bond underwriting, construction program management, and project delivery. There has even been overt...
The teachers unions continue to mislead its members and everyone else. In the latest issue of the California Federation of Teachers quarterly newsletter, CFT president Josh Pechthalt writes “The lawsuits that educators and unions must defeat,” which is referred to as a “special report” – special because it is especially filled with half-truths, omissions and...
