Classroom forecast: Miseducated with a high chance of indoctrination
Classroom forecast: Miseducated with a high chance of indoctrination
Instead of American history, students now learn about the evils of capitalism, airplanes and cow farts. “‘Education is Political’: Neutrality in the Classroom Shortchanges Students” read a recent headline on the National Education Association website. What the teachers union is essentially saying is that an objective approach to controversial subjects does a disservice to the...
By Larry Sand
Arrogantly Fleecing Taxpayers
Arrogantly Fleecing Taxpayers
The teachers union is coming after more of your money. The American Federation of Teachers is on a bender, having launched a six-figure advertising campaign in which it bemoans the fact that – per its own study – 25 states “spend less on K-12 education than before the Great Recession” and that there are “massive...
By Larry Sand
Chartercide in California
Chartercide in California
California’s teachers unions, a compliant legislature and an anti-choice governor do not bode well for the state’s charter schools. Yet another group of angry teachers has made charter schools the focus of their wrath. The seven-day teacher strike, which ended in Oakland last week, was replete with typical teacher union demands like higher pay and...
By Larry Sand
Worst Virginia
Worst Virginia
Legislators in the Mountain State buckle to the teachers union. In aggregate, West Virginia’s public schools are not very good. According to the state scorecard, 88 percent of the state’s 116 high schools “do not meet standards” in math. Furthermore, the state’s eighth graders rank 45th nationwide in reading as per the 2017 National Assessment...
By Larry Sand
Casting Pearls Before Caputo
Casting Pearls Before Caputo
Conflating regulation with accountability, teacher union leaders continue their deceptive talking points. While it’s up for grabs who originated the saying, “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it,” Alex Caputo-Pearl is certainly one of its modern-day avatars. In a recent Washington Post op-ed, the...
By Larry Sand
The state of the teachers union
The state of the teachers union
American Federation of Teachers demands justice in Saudi Arabia and compassion for the vulnerable in Syria, but in the U.S., it’s a very different story. As a way to show that they are “PEOPLE WHO REALLY CARE,” Randi Weingarten and her cronies at the American Federation of Teachers have been making forays into foreign policy....
By Larry Sand
Union schemes, scams and some pushback
Union schemes, scams and some pushback
In light of the Janus decision, union rule-rigging and ensuing lawsuits continue. As the Janus case (which ultimately would give public employees a choice whether or not to pay money to a union as a condition of employment) was headed to the Supreme Court, many unions saw the writing on the wall and cooked...
By Larry Sand
“The UTLA Follies” is excoriated by reviewers
“The UTLA Follies” is excoriated by reviewers
The horribly written, produced and directed teacher union play closed after six painful days. Like a much-ballyhooed but awful Broadway show, the Los Angeles teachers’ strike had a six-day run and no one was happy with it. Except maybe the producers. In fact, United Teachers of Los Angeles leader Alex Caputo-Pearl called the new contract...
By Larry Sand
UTLA is not celebrating National School Choice Week
UTLA is not celebrating National School Choice Week
The Los Angeles teachers union puts charter schools at the center of its vitriol. Now in its second week, it looks as if the Los Angeles teachers strike may be about to end. The issues have been argued ad infinitum – higher pay, smaller class-size, more nurses, etc. But along the way, the United Teachers...
By Larry Sand
Collective bargaining hurts teachers and students
Collective bargaining hurts teachers and students
Using a model from the Industrial Era, teachers in Los Angeles are striking. I have written about the subject many times, but it is worth revisiting as Los Angeles teachers are striking over a one-size-fits-all collective bargaining contract that is harmful to all concerned. Collective bargaining, a term first introduced into the lexicon by socialist...
By Larry Sand
Universal pre-k is not okay
Universal pre-k is not okay
New governor of the People’s Republic of California wants to expand a dubious universal preschool plan. California’s new Governor Gavin Newsom envisions a future where the state will be involved in your children’s lives from conception to adulthood. Newsom told EdSource in September, “Our role begins when babies are still in the womb and it...
By Larry Sand
UTLA’s crisis is here
UTLA’s crisis is here
Union boss’ orchestrated state crisis is well underway in Los Angeles. United Teachers of Los Angeles President Alex Caputo-Pearl’s long sought-after teachers’ strike is set for January 10th. He began the long march back in 2016 when he forecast a walkout and also boasted about the union’s ability to “create a state crisis” in 2018. Though...
By Larry Sand
California Public Schools to Teach LGBTQQIAA Dogma to 3rd Graders
California Public Schools to Teach LGBTQQIAA Dogma to 3rd Graders
Californians need to act now on the new state Health Education Framework. In 2016, several doctors tore into new guidelines that promoted transgenderism in the Canadian province of Alberta. They refused to accept the new orthodoxy advanced by progressive activists that “gender is a social construct,” and insisted that identifying one’s gender as different from...
By Larry Sand
Organizing those ratty charter schools
Organizing those ratty charter schools
The unions’ “If ya can’t kill ’em, organize ’em” mentality is on display in Chicago. In a refreshingly honest video from 2011, Leo Casey, New York City’s United Federation of Teachers Vice President, equates charter schools to Walmart – both being very resistant to unionization. Pounding on the table at a socialist gathering, he says...
By Larry Sand