The education traditionalists’ attacks on parental choice are unrelenting. All across Texas, children are hoping to get into a charter school. In San Antonio alone, 40,000 families await the chance to pick a school that best fits the needs of their child. Nationally, over 3 million students now attend these schools of choice, which get...
Will Los Angeles teachers strike out on a bad pitch?
Using loads of bogus info, LA teacher union leader prepares teachers for a walkout in the fall. In my post last Tuesday, I wrote about the many problems facing the Los Angeles Unified School District. Since then, one of the issues I detailed has moved front and center: the strong possibility of a teacher strike....
Transitional Kindergarten: A Boondoggle by any other name….
CA announces a budget surplus — and legislators can’t wait to blow it. It’s hardly surprising, but California’s we-never-met-a-big-budget-bill-we-didn’t-like Democratic lawmakers and State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson have joined hands to sponsor SB 837, new legislation that would provide free public preschool to every four-year-old child in California. The Kindergarten Readiness Act of 2014, introduced...
The Strange Politics of Education Reform
… where conservatives demand change and many alleged progressives, including teacher union elites, are really reactionary. While this may be old news to some, it can’t be said enough: In our polarized times, education reform is the only truly bipartisan issue, whereas with other matters things invariably break down into Republican vs. Democrat, liberal vs....
Big Education Jive Exposed
Good week for debunking teachers union hype, big government waste and mainstream media distortions. The factually challenged Valerie Strauss unleashed a doozie in her Washington Post blog last week. As Alabama was passing tax credit legislation, Strauss, as she so often does, echoed the teachers union line, railing about the program being “welfare for the...
NEA Agenda: More Money, Minimal Reform
The teachers union not only plays the poverty card, but by battling reforms, ensures that the impoverished will remain that way. “No Education Reform Without Tackling Poverty, Experts Say,” is the title of an article on the National Education Association website. Experts? A trip into the weeds leads to something called the Center on Poverty,...