Teachers unions turn to “facts” as they desperately cling to their monopolistic, anti-privatization narrative. Last Thursday the “non-partisan” Center for Tax and Budget Accountability rolled out a report that slammed vouchers, claiming that there is “no statistical evidence proving that students who use vouchers perform better than their public school counterparts.” The “study,” as reported...
Bain v. CTA is the latest lawsuit to challenge teacher union hegemony. For the third time in three years, a lawsuit has been filed in California that challenges the way the teachers unions do business. In May 2012, eight California public school children filed Vergara et al v. the State of California et al in...
When it comes to dealing with California’s successful, independent charter schools, powerful, monied special interests – and the lawmakers they fund – prefer a twist on the adage “If you can’t beat them, join them.” Their version: If you can’t beat them, destroy them. This was manifested last month when four Democratic lawmakers trumpeted their introduction...
NEA rolls out its plan for what to do in case its worst nightmare – worker freedom – comes to pass. Last July, the California Teachers Association released “Not if, but when: Living in a world without Fair Share,” a 23-page PowerPoint presentation unearthed by Mike Antonucci. The document revealed that teacher union honchos in...
With the sincerity of an elixir hustler, NEA boss pretends to be objective about the 2016 election. The National Education Association is serious about the 2016 presidential election. The union is serious about every election of course, but this time the union’s leader is actually asking for input from viable candidates even if they haven’t...
Do you want your local high school to offer a Labor Studies class to prepare the next generation of union organizers? In California, students soon might have that opportunity, if the state’s Instructional Quality Commission adopts a recommendation from the California Federation of Teachers and the California Assembly Speaker’s Commission on Labor Education. California continues to be...
… or at least that’s what protection racket leader Randi Weingarten wants us to believe. My goodness! From the response in certain quarters, you would think that Wisconsin governor Scott Walker breached national security – and then maybe tried to lie his way out of it! But no. All he did last week was sign...
After failing miserably for almost ten years, a rare union-run charter school is mercifully shuttered. In September 2005, New York City’s United Federation of Teachers (UFT) president Randi Weingarten was frustrated and wanted to prove a point. She explained that the union was opening two charter schools so that it could “reclaim” the original charter...
UTLA is planning to walk out over a mess that it helped to create. The case is being built for a teachers’ strike in Los Angeles. The next step in the contract negotiation process is mediation, whereby a state-appointed mediator will try to get the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) and the United Teachers...
Sylvia is a single mom with two daughters who attend Palm Lane elementary school in Anaheim. She one of the parents who signed the petition to convert Palm Lane into a charter school under California’s parent trigger law. She told the Anaheim City School Board that one of her daughters is in fourth grade but reads...
Teachers unions are losing members, but stubbornly stick with the same old product. Earlier this month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics informed us that in 2014 – for the second year in a row – that there are fewer unionized than non-unionized teachers in the U.S. The reasons for this are many: more right-to-work states,...
Elected officials, the courts and John Q. Public are supporting worker freedom these days; teachers unions and other public employee unions are on the run. Last Monday, Illinois governor Bruce Rauner issued an executive order that, if it stands, will absolve state workers from paying forced dues to a union. As The Wall Street Journal...
Just after Groundhog Day last week, the Brookings Institution released its annual Education Choice and Competition Index report, grading 110 school districts on the degree to which they empower parents with easily accessible, broadly available, publicly funded school choices and the degree to which the choice system results in greater access to quality schools. The...
What would you say to someone who displayed extraordinary courage and initiative to stand up for a law you wrote? “You’re fired” is probably not the first thing that comes to mind, but that’s what happened to Arturo Garcia on January 29, after he stepped onto some very big toes. Garcia, a full time district...
