All over the country, American workers are subsidizing unions with tax dollars. In St. Charles, IL, a teacher is paid $141,105 not to teach. In Philadelphia, “ghost employees” who don’t do work for the state collect benefits from the state. In Kalamazoo, MI a former teacher is collecting a government pension of $85,903 a year...
Labor leaders and their friends start a new “progressive” organization … as George Orwell rolls over in his grave. We live in strange times when a man can decide that he’s a woman and someone born freckled and blonde declares with great conviction that she is African-American. Following the trend, we have organized labor leaders...
The Palm Lane Elementary School parents and their attorneys squared off against the Anaheim City School District and Anaheim City Board of Education on June 15th in Courtroom C11 in the battle to determine whether the parents will succeed in their efforts to restart the academically troubled school as an independent charter school. The parents are...
Given the assertions you make in your latest “Where We Stand” column, we need to talk! So it’s been a year since I last wrote to you. You sure have been busy! Defending mandatory voting laws and Hillary Clinton, railing against cheese sandwiches and Jeb Bush, it’s totally understandable that you may be getting a...
The state known for flashy neon, quickie divorces and Wayne Newton shows is now ground zero for private school choice. On its website, the Nevada State Education Association informs us that vouchers (and other private school options) are unworthy because, among other things, they offer “no real ‘choice’ for the overwhelming majority of students.” This...
The teachers union is determined to purge the Koch brothers from our college campuses. The National Education Association’s mission to drive Charles and David Koch, the two wealthy philanthropist brothers from Kansas, into the sea is showing no signs of slowing down. According to its latest Labor Department filing, the nation’s biggest union gifted $150,000...
Using testing as a backdrop, NEA president promotes 1950s industrial-style education. The American Enterprise Institute’s education policy maven Rick Hess has been traveling around the country promoting his new book The Cage-Busting Teacher. So last week he left his Education Week blog in the hands of National Education Association president Lily Eskelsen García. Interesting choice,...
If the parent activists at Palm Lane Elementary School are successful in their battle to invoke SB54, the Parent Trigger Law, they would be well advised to study the network of high-performing charter schools in New York City founded by former teacher and City Councilwoman Eva Moskowitz as the template for the school it must...
A union-led initiative wants to eliminate Prop. 13 benefits for businesses. California’s Prop. 13, wildly popular on both sides of the political aisle, is under siege by unions. Using the Orwellian name “Make It Fair,” a coalition led by the California Teachers Association, California Federation of Teachers, SEIU and their friends has decided that they...
The competition-phobic teachers unions are still trying to decimate charter schools. As I wrote a couple of years ago, the teachers unions vacillate when it comes to charter schools. On odd days they try to organize them and on even ones they go all out to eviscerate them. But the organizing efforts haven’t gone too...
Palm Lane Elementary School in Anaheim, a failing school for at least the past decade, has become a battleground in the war against union power and its unconstrained efforts to retain absolute control over public education. At stake may be America’s future itself. Palm Lane parents, disheartened by the school’s abysmal academic record and the...
… and continue to block any and every meaningful reform the California state legislature has to offer. On May Day (how fitting!) the California Teachers Association and the California Federation of Teachers filed their appeal of the Vergara decision. In that 2014 ruling, Superior Court Judge Rolf Treu struck down California’s teacher tenure, layoff and...
Other than school choice, no issue riles the teachers unions more than class-size. A couple of weeks ago, Edunomics Lab, a university-based research center that focuses on “exploring and modeling complex education finance decisions,” released a report in which it claims to have figured out a way to pay some teachers more without taking money...
Over 40 years ago, California’s Supreme Court recognized that a child’s access to an adequate education – regardless of race, ethnicity or wealth – is a fundamental right of the highest order. In Serrano v. Priest the Court affirmed “education is a major determinant of an individual’s chances for economic and social success in our...
