A lawsuit on track to be heard by the Supreme Court could free all public employees from paying forced union dues. The Friedrichs lawsuit should have done the trick. The case, which would have made belonging to a public employee union optional as a condition of employment nationwide, was set to pass muster with the...

My Dear Randi, (This is the third in a series of open letters to American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten. The prior missives can be seen here and here.) It has been almost two years since my last contact with you and boy, a lot has gone down in that time! My goodness, flowing...

Trump’s proposed budget includes some minor cuts; union leaders launch hyperbolic grenades. Did you know that the Trump/DeVos budget is manifestly cruel to children and catastrophic to public schools? Are you aware that Trump/Devos are planning to slash funding for public schools, and use voucher schemes to funnel taxpayer dollars to unaccountable private schools? Well,...

Aftershocks could have ramifications; teacher union leaders grouse as they plan next steps. On Tuesday, May 6th, Nick Melvoin and Kelly Gonez, who are more concerned with the needs of parents, kids and taxpayers than stoking the bureaucracy and complying with teacher union diktats, were elected to the Los Angeles Unified School District board. Reformers...

A new study points fingers at charter schools for malfeasance, but traditional public schools are still by far #1 in wasteful spending.

Education establishment is protecting its turf in the Golden State; kids are not on its radar.  In late April, U.S. News & World Report released its yearly national rankings of America’s public high schools, and six of the top 10 are charter schools – public schools that don’t have to be in lockstep with their...

In early 2015, Santa Ana school officials quietly signed a deal with union leaders that allowed teachers to leave the classroom in order to lobby for higher pay “on a full-time basis with no loss of pay, seniority, sick leave or benefits.” The so-called “release-time” agreement, drafted in November 2014 and signed on January 5, 2015,...

Our illiteracy rate is alarming, but the ed establishment doesn’t seem to be concerned. The biggest problem in the country today? Some may say that it’s healthcare, while others will insist that it’s the economy. A third group maintains that it’s ISIS. While a good a case can be made for any of the above,...

Debunking teacher union talking points about school choice. Okay, so you’re at a cocktail party sipping brandy, and some rabid teacher union supporter starts mouthing off about Trump, DeVos, the evils of vouchers and, at the same time, waxing ecstatic about the glories of our traditional zip-code monopoly education system (Z MES). Now, you might...

Betsy DeVos’ ridesharing analogy is spot on, but draws Randi’s wrath.  At the Brookings Institution last week, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos gave a talk in which she drew parallels between school choice and the ascendancy of ridesharing companies like Uber and Lyft. “Just as the traditional taxi systems revolted against ridesharing, so too does the...