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.
The NEA convention had its humorous moments as well as a very disturbing one. The National Association Education’s yearly convention, which wrapped up last week, was mostly a tame affair with not much worth writing about. But NEA executive director John Stocks did provide some unintentionally comedic moments. His boiler plate lefty political ranting included...
By Larry Sand
The Supreme Court’s decision to hear the Friedrichs case has the unions in a tizzy. On June 30th, the Supreme Court decided to hear Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association et al, a case that could seriously change the way the public employee unions (PEUs) do business. If the plaintiffs are victorious, teachers, nurses, sanitation workers,...
By Larry Sand
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...
By Larry Sand
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...
By Larry Sand
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...
By Larry Sand
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...
By Larry Sand
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...
By Larry Sand
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,...
By Larry Sand
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...
By Larry Sand
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...
By Larry Sand
… 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...
By Larry Sand
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...
By Larry Sand
Teachers unions turn to “facts” as they desperately cling to their monopolistic, anti-privatization narrative. Last Thursday the “non-partisan” Center for Tax and Budget Accountability rolled out a report that slammed vouchers, claiming that there is “no statistical evidence proving that students who use vouchers perform better than their public school counterparts.” The “study,” as reported...
By Larry Sand
Bain v. CTA is the latest lawsuit to challenge teacher union hegemony. For the third time in three years, a lawsuit has been filed in California that challenges the way the teachers unions do business. In May 2012, eight California public school children filed Vergara et al v. the State of California et al in...
By Larry Sand
a new form will got here
a new form will got here