From California to Africa, teachers unions fight the “for-profit” bogeyman. Well, I guess we can all rest just a bit easier now that California is on the verge of banning for-profit charter schools. Sponsored by the California Federation of Teachers, AB 406 is making its way through the California State Senate, having glided through the...
Teachers unions continue to bash charter schools in spite of their success and popularity. When it comes to charter schools, the teachers unions are nothing if not relentless. From Mike Antonucci we learn that the California Teachers Association is in the process of developing and promoting resolutions, which local unions can introduce at school board meetings...
A lawsuit on track to be heard by the Supreme Court could free all public employees from paying forced union dues. The Friedrichs lawsuit should have done the trick. The case, which would have made belonging to a public employee union optional as a condition of employment nationwide, was set to pass muster with the...
My Dear Randi, (This is the third in a series of open letters to American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten. The prior missives can be seen here and here.) It has been almost two years since my last contact with you and boy, a lot has gone down in that time! My goodness, flowing...
Governor Brown's proposal to borrow money to fund CalPERS is similar to a move by Puerto Rico in 2008. That step backfired and now Puerto Rico is bankrupt.
Trump’s proposed budget includes some minor cuts; union leaders launch hyperbolic grenades. Did you know that the Trump/DeVos budget is manifestly cruel to children and catastrophic to public schools? Are you aware that Trump/Devos are planning to slash funding for public schools, and use voucher schemes to funnel taxpayer dollars to unaccountable private schools? Well,...
Aftershocks could have ramifications; teacher union leaders grouse as they plan next steps. On Tuesday, May 6th, Nick Melvoin and Kelly Gonez, who are more concerned with the needs of parents, kids and taxpayers than stoking the bureaucracy and complying with teacher union diktats, were elected to the Los Angeles Unified School District board. Reformers...
A new study points fingers at charter schools for malfeasance, but traditional public schools are still by far #1 in wasteful spending.
The Brown administration decided to (kind of, sort of) tackle the state’s massive and growing level of unfunded liabilities – i.e., the hundreds of billions of dollars in taxpayer-backed debt to fund retirement promises made to the state’s government employees. It’s best to curb our enthusiasm, however. The governor didn’t have much of a choice.
In a recent commentary tax fighter Jon Coupal exposed one of the hidden agendas behind recently Senate Constitutional Amendment 4 recently introduced in the California Legislature. Coupal writes: “They wish to charge those water users they perceive as “bad” more per gallon than those users they perceive as “good.” The beauty of “cost of service” rates,...