The Audacity of Woke

By Larry Sand
08/25/2020
While Covid-19 has a shelf life, “Woke-20” shows no sign of abating. With many schools across the country shuttered due to Covid-19, the woke zealots are in a bit of a snit. They can’t indoctrinate students with their one-sided radical views in the traditional classroom because, well, there is no classroom. Doing it online, you...

TAGS: American Federation for Children, Black Lives Matter, California Teachers Association, Dan Walters, homeschool, Jose Medina, Larry Sand, teachers union, white privilege, woke

Los Angeles School District Needs a Hard Reset

By Larry Sand
02/04/2020
LAUSD and UTLA leaders are leading us down the road to financial ruin. A few weeks ago, I wrote that tax-grabbing state bureaucrats were pushing hard-working Californians to the brink. Incompetence, mismanaged money and union greed have turned the formerly Golden State into a failing enterprise. Here, I will focus on the Los Angeles Unified...

TAGS: Alex Caputo-Pearl, Austin Beutner, Dan Walters, education spending, Larry Sand, Los Angeles Unified School District, NAEP, Prop. 13, teachers union, United Teachers of Los Angeles

Taxing Californians’ patience

By Larry Sand
12/31/2019
The new Prop. 13, very much unlike the iconic original, hurts taxpayers. There is yet another potential tax grab coming to California in the form of a school bond, which will be on the March 3rd ballot. The ironically named Prop. 13, a “School and College Facilities Bond,” would authorize $15 billion in general obligation...

TAGS: California State Teachers Retirement System, Dan Walters, Jon Coupal, Katy Grimes, Larry Sand, Measure EE, Prop. 13, Richard Rider, Transparent California

Pensions and Taxes Increase While Labor Unions go Unchallenged

By Joel Fox
07/18/2016
In January 2015, the Manhattan Institute’s Steve Malanga, writing in the Wall Street Journal about public pension costs gulping down tax raises, quoted me saying that no matter what local politicians tell voters, when you see tax increases, think pensions. To paraphrase Ronald Reagan: Here I go again! Recent accounts indicated that the California Public Employees’...

TAGS: California Public Employees Retirement System, Dan Walters, Steve Malanga

Split Roll and the Bottomless Hole

By Larry Sand
05/19/2015
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...

TAGS: California Federation of Teachers, California Teachers Association, Dan Walters, Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, Jerry Brown, Jon Coupal, Mike Antonucci, Prop. 13, Prop. 30, Richard Rider, seiu, split roll, Taxifornia

Justice Belied

By Larry Sand
09/24/2013
California’s AB375 would do precious little to protect school children from pedophiles. The impulse to take action to remove pedophiles from California’s classrooms came about as a result of Miramonte Elementary School teacher Mark Berndt having slid through the cracks after committing lewd acts against untold numbers of young children. After Berndt’s arrest in Los...

TAGS: Alex Padilla, Bill Lucia, California Federation of Teachers, California Teachers Association, Carol Liu, Dan Walters, Dean Vogel, EdVoice, Gloria Romero, Larry Sand, Mark Berndt, RiShawn Biddle, StudentsFirst, teachers union, United Teachers of Los Angeles, Warren Fletcher

California’s Looming Fiscal Disaster: Sunlight and an Informed Public are the Best Disinfectants

By Larry Sand
11/22/2011
With the state and various cities on the brink of insolvency, it’s imperative that the electorate become more informed and demand that school districts and teachers unions do their negotiating in public. This past Sunday’s Los Angeles Times above-the-fold headline screamed “Voters back tax hikes for schools.” It was déja-vu all over again. As I...

TAGS: Dan Walters, Mike Antonucci, teachers unions