L.A. Teachers Union: Give us $250 Million, Or Keep Schools Closed

By Edward Ring
07/16/2020
Wiki Commons The second-largest public school district in the United States is in turmoil. Los Angeles Unified School District, with over 600,000 students in kindergarten through twelfth grade at over 1,000 schools, may not be open for the business of teaching on August 18. How to handle the COVID-19 pandemic is the issue, and there is...

TAGS: class-size, reopening schools, teacher pay, teachers unions, UTLA

Romanticized fiction trumps facts

By Larry Sand
10/01/2019
A blockbuster report exposes myths about the teaching profession, but will it matter? People love stories, and the gooier and more heart-rending the better. Few are more likely to send readers running for a box of tissues than the tale of a dedicated, but woefully underpaid teacher who is forced to take a second job,...

TAGS: American Enterprise Institute, Andrew Biggs, class-size, Economic Policy Institute, Jason Richwine, Larry Sand, Mike Antonucci, National Education Association, teacher pay, teachers union

Class size matters…not a whit

By Larry Sand
11/27/2018
Perhaps the “fake news” story of the year – actually the last 20 years – is that small class size is essential to learning. Under the leadership of its cantankerous president Alex Caputo-Pearl, the United Teachers of Los Angeles is planning to strike – very possibly in January. The union’s demands haven’t budged, even as...

TAGS: Alex Caputo-Pearl, Andrew Coulson, Austin Beutner, Benjamin Scafidi, Cato Institute, class-size, EdChoice, Eric Hanushek, Larry Sand, Los Angeles Unified School District, teachers union, United Teachers of Los Angeles

Class-Size Myth Tested Yet Again

By Larry Sand
04/28/2015
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...

TAGS: class-size, Eric Hanushek, Larry Sand, National Education Association, teachers union