As readers know by now, Dropout Nation determined in research released last October that National Education Association and American Federation of Teachers spend roughly $700 million per year on advocacy. This report undermined the unions’ preferred narrative that they are scrappy underdogs fighting for public schools. As you would expect, especially on Twitter, NEA’s and...

The annual cost of K-12 education in the United States has increased steadily for decades. For 2015, the cost is about $600 billion. Fiscal reality has not diminished the demand by politicians and their powerful union cronies for even more money, a substantial portion of which would be earmarked to fund the high salaries of...

Sanctimonious labor leaders treat their employees very differently than their members. While tales of union hypocrisy are as common as instances of Donald Trump sticking his Ferragamos in his mouth, there is one facet of union two-facedness that is under-reported – the role of union as employer. As mentioned in my post a couple of...

Self-serving Washington Education Association dusts off a 100 year old law to shut down charter schools. As I have frequently written, the teachers unions have a schizoid relationship with charter schools. On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays they want to kill them off; on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays they want to unionize them. Earlier this month,...

Labor Day has become little more than an opportunity for union leaders to puff out their chests and make grandiose statements about the glories of organized labor. As a way to build their brand, union leaders typically pit management against labor, portraying the worker as David fighting greedy entrepreneurs and corporate Goliaths. This is especially...

Two things can be said about California’s state government when it comes to its efforts on school data. The first? That the Golden State has always blundered when it comes to developing robust comprehensive data systems that can be easily used by families, school leaders, researchers, and policymakers. As I reported seven years ago in...

NEA/AFT and their friends in the media try to make hay of teacher shortage myth. For years, teachers unions have been moaning that nearly half of all new educators leave the profession within the first five years. They and others have repeated the claim so many times that it has taken on the mantle of...

NEA claims to be for religious freedom, but Catholics and other right-to-lifers need not apply. “The National Education Association believes that freedom of religion is a fundamental human right. The Association also believes that choice of religion is an intensely personal decision.” These high-minded words are from NEA Resolution I-33, which was passed at its...

Homeschooling is becoming more popular, but families need to be aware that teachers unions have a penchant for home invasions. According to the latest data from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), the number of K-12 children educated at home increased from 1.09 million in 2003 to 1.77 million in 2012, which is 3.4...

With the election season in full swing, expect a tide of union-led anti-reform, anti-choice and anti-Republican politicking in our kids’ classrooms. “I watched the GOP presidential debate because my students are counting on me” is the title of a piece posted on the National Education Association website by “guest writer” Tom McLaughlin, a high school...