Larry Sand, a former classroom teacher, is the president of the non-profit California Teachers Empowerment Network – a non-partisan, non-political group dedicated to providing teachers and the general public with reliable and balanced information about professional affiliations and positions on educational issues.
Teachers and their unions are front-and-center in advancing Trumpocalyptic fearmongering. Worse than anything Donald Trump ever said, the backlash to his election has been horrifying. While the hysteria and teddy-bear-clutching over the election of a Republican president is nothing new – remember “Bushitler?” in which some on the left equated W to Der Führer –...
By Larry Sand
Los Angeles teachers union turns down millions of dollars from the philanthropist earmarked for schools that work. Last year, the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation formed Great Public Schools Now (GPSN), an organization whose goal was to create 260 new charter schools in Los Angeles. The plan was to enroll at least 130,000 students in...
By Larry Sand
Alberta teachers union pushes a radical sexual agenda on kids. Earlier this year, several doctors tore into new guidelines that promote transgenderism in the Canadian province of Alberta. These MDs haven’t fallen for the uber-progressive fairytale that “gender is a social construct” and insist that identifying one’s gender as different from one’s biological sex is...
By Larry Sand
Teachers union and Hillary Clinton team up to tackle the (nonexistent) bullying epidemic. For several weeks now, the National Education Association has been running ads in in nine swing states on the so-called “Trump effect.” The six-figure campaign maintains that Donald Trump’s inflammatory campaign rhetoric has caused a substantial uptick in bullying in schools. NEA president...
By Larry Sand
The WikiLeaks document dump exposes NEA’s manipulation of its purported democratic process. The WikiLeaks email release, unmasking the Hillary Clinton campaign, has become a daily ritual. A treasure trove of communiqués has exposed Hillary to be just about everything that the right (and even many on the left) has said she is. The emails from...
By Larry Sand
Teachers unions in Chicago and Massachusetts are doing their darndest to stop the spread of charter schools. Amazingly, the Chicago teachers’ strike didn’t come off. Less than 10 minutes before a midnight strike deadline on October 10th, the district and union cobbled together a deal, pending approval by the rank-and-file. One of the more contentious issues was...
By Larry Sand
AFT continues to use teachers as ATM machines to fund their pet leftist causes. The latest American Federation of Teachers annual financial disclosure has been released (H/T RiShawn Biddle). This year’s LM-2 is filled with goodies that are sure to warm the cockles of leftist teacher union members, but apolitical educators, centrists and certainly those...
By Larry Sand
For years, teachers’ unions have tried to kill charter schools—but only on odd-numbered days. On even-numbered days, they tried to organize them. Things lately have become very odd, at least in California; the unions are in full-assault mode. United Teachers of Los Angeles president Alex Caputo-Pearl has long groused about how charter schools don’t play...
By Larry Sand
The Windy City’s teachers union is on the verge of yet another strike. In 2012, Troy Senik wrote “The Worst Union in America,” a title he bestowed on the California Teachers Association. As a former member and longtime critic of that union, I certainly had no quibble with his selection. But now, CTA is facing...
By Larry Sand
As the National Education Association embarks on a new PR campaign, some of its affiliates engage in lawsuits and strikes. In July, the National Education Association unearthed its “Strategic Plan and Budget” for 2016-2018. The introduction to the 76-page document includes the notion that the union needs to “win the race to capture the hearts...
By Larry Sand
As Hillary Clinton cozies up to the teachers unions, Donald Trump seeks to vastly expand school choice opportunities. In November, 2015, Hillary Clinton gave a speech in South Carolina in which she abandoned her prior support for charter schools. Using language straight from the teachers union fact-free playbook, she claimed that charters “don’t take the...
By Larry Sand
UTLA and CTA’s anti-charter school obsession has reached epidemic proportions. Just weeks after United Teachers of Los Angeles president Alex Caputo-Pearl threw his if-we-don’t get-our-way-we’re-going-to-create-a-state-crisis tantrum, the teachers union has hit the streets with a media campaign. Empowered by a massive dues increase, UTLA is spreading its venom via billboards, bus benches and the media....
By Larry Sand
A bill, near passage, would require you and me to pay for union indoctrination sessions in California. California is a fabulous place. Fantastic weather, fertile fields, glorious mountains and a thousand mile coastline have long beckoned many to the Golden State. And then there is the state legislature. This law-making body is very far from...
By Larry Sand
Yet another “study” showing how poorly teachers are paid has surfaced. Well, it’s a new school year and there is much tumult in the world of public education. Common Core battles, testing opt-outs, and litigation about school choice and teacher work rules dot the landscape. But with all the uncertainty, it’s comforting to know that...
By Larry Sand
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