A challenger for governor of California could radically improve education with one executive order. In a recent opinion piece in The Epoch Times, veteran writer John Seiler put forth a set of strategies for a Republican to beat California Governor Gavin Newsom in the state’s September 14th recall election. Among other things, he suggests that...

Anyone involved in state or local politics in California soon realizes that government unions are the most powerful special interest in the state. From time to time, as the ride-share behemoths proved in spectacular fashion last November with Proposition 22, corporations will defy the unions on very specific issues. But by and large California’s corporations...

As shown by the 2019 NAEP, most of our students are being badly shortchanged. The latest bad education news comes to us courtesy of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). The most recent exam was administered to high school seniors in early 2019, a full year before the COVID-19 lockdowns. The so-called “Nation’s Report...

On June 27, 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the case Janus vs AFSCME. An immediate consequence of this ruling was that public sector unions could no longer collect so-called “agency fees” from workers in their bargaining units who had opted out of full union membership. The other main consequence of the Janus ruling was that those...

AFT president’s talk is rife with platitudes, attitude, and misinformation. Platitudes at the ready, American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten gave a speech to the National Press Club in Washington last Thursday. Calling her talk “The Freedom to Teach,” she referenced a poster on her office wall which reads, “Teachers inspire, encourage, empower, nurture,...

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...

Following similar actions in Wisconsin and Iowa, eternal union representation of teachers is a thing of the past in Florida; the new law doesn’t go quite far enough, however. Just imagine that in the 1970s your grandmother hired a lawyer to represent her in a lawsuit, and today, you’re forced to patronize the very same...

Despite what teachers unions tell you, collective bargaining is bad for kids and country.  Ask any teacher unionista – leader or camp follower – and they will tell you with great assuredness that when teachers are organized and collectively bargain, children are better educated. To bolster their argument, they say things like unions enable teachers...

If the Janus case is successful, will it be the first of many shoes to drop?  Janus v AFSCME is due to be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court early in 2018, with a decision announced in June. If the lawsuit is successful, no teacher or any public employee in the U.S. would have to...