The Latest Teachers Unions’ Monopoly Moves
The Latest Teachers Unions’ Monopoly Moves
April revealed the teachers unions’ desperation over losing control of top-down, one-size fits all government-run schools. In many ways April was normal for teacher union monopolists. Early in the month, the Washington Teachers Union said it would challenge a new law in the Evergreen State that corrected problems in the way that charter schools, which...
By Larry Sand
Let’s Deep-six Prop. 30
Let’s Deep-six Prop. 30
The signatures for an initiative that would extend 2012’s “temporary” tax increase in California are due today. Four years ago Californians voted in Prop. 30, a “temporary” tax, to pay back schools “from the years of devastating cuts.” But as I show here, there was hardly any devastation; in fact, our spending had continued to...
By Larry Sand
Vergara Update: Virtues and Villainy
Vergara Update: Virtues and Villainy
The union and media reactions to the appeals court decision in the Vergara case had me going through a whole can of room deodorizer. In 2014, the plaintiffs in the Vergara trial claimed that several California education statutes – all of which are on the books at the behest of the teachers unions – cause...
By Larry Sand
Teacher Union Pension Flim-flam
Teacher Union Pension Flim-flam
The public employee pension problem isn’t new, but a teacher union leader’s defense of it has sunk to new depths. According to the Federal Reserve, public employee pensions in aggregate nationally are in serious trouble. Currently totaling $5.8 trillion, they are underfunded by $1.7 trillion. While all these pensions are draining public resources, Don Boyd, director...
By Larry Sand
Dear South Side Teacher
Dear South Side Teacher
An open letter to the idealistic teacher in Chicago who may have defied the teachers union by not striking on April 1st. In a recent newspaper article you said you were “morally and ethically” against the Chicago Teachers Union one-day strike (or “Day of Tantrum,” according to a Chicago Tribune op-ed) last Friday and that...
By Larry Sand
In like a Lyin’
In like a Lyin’
As charter schools continue to succeed, the reformicidal teachers unions ramp up their assault on them. Month by month, the teachers unions have been increasing their barrage of malevolence toward charter schools, which are nothing more than publicly funded schools of choice that are trying to break away from the rigidity of Big Education/Big Union...
By Larry Sand
Biden, Bork, García and Weingarten
Biden, Bork, García and Weingarten
Positioning themselves as strict Constitutionalists, teacher union leaders cry foul over a precedent that the unions helped create. In the wake of Antonin Scalia’s untimely passing, two national teacher union leaders are in a self-righteous snit because the Republican-led Senate is remaining firm in its conviction to hold off consideration of a new Supreme Court...
By Larry Sand
The DivIdes of March
The DivIdes of March
My latest battle against a teacher union leader…. Last month, Rebecca Friedrichs, lead plaintiff in a lawsuit against the California Teachers Association that was recently heard by the U.S. Supreme Court, and I were invited to talk about her case on Inside OC, a public affairs TV show in Orange County. Rebecca was given the...
By Larry Sand
Propaganda Every American Should Disregard
Propaganda Every American Should Disregard
Randi Weingarten promotes her union agenda in the guise of “cultural literacy.” Almost 30 years ago, education professor E.D. Hirsch wrote Cultural Literacy, in which he claimed that there are facts and cultural references that every American should know. His list was both celebrated and attacked, and is still controversial. While many approve of a...
By Larry Sand
Rejecting Grandpa’s Union
Rejecting Grandpa’s Union
Good luck getting a recertification bill passed in a state legislature owned and operated by the California Teachers Association. Republican California State Assemblywoman Shannon Grove, representing the 34th district (mostly Kern County), has come up a couple of interesting bills. (H/T Steve Frank.) AB 2753 would “require California’s public employee unions to post an itemized...
By Larry Sand
Los Angeles Department of Monopoly and Power
Los Angeles Department of Monopoly and Power
Educating students is far from the #1 priority of the school board and the teachers union in LA. On February 11th, LA School Report released an internal Los Angeles Unified School District document which stated that just 54 percent of seniors in LA are on track to graduate. The drop off from 74 percent last...
By Larry Sand
The Coulson Effect on Education
The Coulson Effect on Education
An education free market stalwart leaves us way too soon. On February 7th, Andrew Coulson tragically passed away at age 48 from brain cancer. As Senior Fellow in Education Policy at the Cato Institute, he led the charge for free market reforms in education. An unapologetic capitalist, he believed that the market would inevitably lead...
By Larry Sand
Union Greed
Union Greed
The Chicago teachers’ pension scam exemplifies what unions claim to hate most about corporations. Chicago, long known as the Second City, may still be second in some things, but it seems to be #1 in teacher union greed. As it’s time for a new contract with the Chicago public school system (CPS), the inevitable blather...
By Larry Sand
Positive Impact
Positive Impact
Michelle Rhee’s teacher evaluation system has shown itself to be effective in D.C. public schools and has left the teachers unions on the sidelines…for now. Back in 2010, the Washington, D.C. public school system (DCPS) introduced IMPACT, an evaluation system whose goal was not only to identify and retain good teachers, but pay them bonuses....
By Larry Sand