Visitors from Outer Space and Their Strange Ideas About Education Reform

By Larry Sand
12/27/2011
There are those among us who think that teachers unions, collective bargaining and peer assistance review are the way to a better education for kids. They look like earthlings, but in fact are extraterrestrials. As the year draws to a close, newspapers, magazines and blogs are filled with best of and worst of lists that...

TAGS: Bob Bowdon, collective bargaining, Diane Ravitch, Education Next, education reform, Jay Greene, teachers unions, Terry Moe, Valerie Strauss

The “Let’s Brainwash American Children Club” Has a New Member

By Larry Sand
12/20/2011
Venerable Scholastic has joined progressive educators and teachers unions in an effort to indoctrinate and radicalize American school children. Scholastic, a student magazine that has been in business for over 90 years, has caught the progressive fever. (H/T Mary Grabar.) This malady affects common sense and good judgment and leads the afflicted to report news...

TAGS: Occupy Wall Street, Tea Party, teachers unions

Tenure for Teachers: Enough is Enough

By Larry Sand
12/13/2011
Every year untold thousands of school kids are harmed by teachers who shouldn’t be allowed in a classroom. Parents must be given an opportunity to send their children elsewhere. A teacher arrives at work high on drugs…daily. A teacher regularly flies into rages, terrifying kids and coworkers. A teacher talks in explicit terms about sex...

TAGS: Education Action Group, Eric Hanushek, National School Choice Week, school choice, teacher tenure, teachers unions

“Indoctrination” – A Must Read For Parents, Taxpayers and Everyone Else

By Larry Sand
11/28/2011
To a large extent, the progressives have taken over American education, are transforming it and are doing it in plain sight. Indoctrination: How ‘Useful Idiots’ Are Using Our Schools to Subvert American Exceptionalism is an invaluable book written by Kyle Olson, founder and CEO of the Education Action Group, an organization that is on the...

TAGS: Bill Ayers, California Federation of Teachers, Education Action Group, Howard Zinn, Indoctrination, Kyle Olson, National Education Association, teachers unions, Unions

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

Teachers are Overpaid and Underpaid

By Larry Sand
11/15/2011
A new study claims that public school teachers are overpaid. Are they? Depends. An ongoing whine from teachers unions and their fellow travelers is that public school teachers don’t earn enough money. But according to Andrew Biggs, a researcher at the American Enterprise Institute scholar and Jason Richwine, a senior policy analyst at the Heritage...

TAGS: American Enterprise Institute, Andrew Biggs, Heritage Foundation, Jason Richwine, Lindsey Burke, Randi Weingarten, Rick Hess, teacher pay, teachers unions

Unions Continue to Swindle the Public

By Larry Sand
11/01/2011
Unions are still treacherous, but with a generous helping of legislative malfeasance, their tactics are more subtle. “On the Waterfront” portrayed union power at its rawest. In the 1950s, the unions typically got their way with nothing less than brute force. But today the tactics are different. In “Pretty Boy Floyd,” Woody Guthrie sang, “Some...

TAGS: National Education Association, Reg Weaver, teachers unions, Unions

CTA Dons Victim Guise and Joins Occupy Wall Street Crowd

By Larry Sand
10/25/2011
It’s almost Halloween and the California Teachers Association, a rich and powerful outfit, is in costume as one of the “99%ers” – protesters who claim to be have-nots. A couple of weeks ago United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew and American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten made sympathetic statements about the Occupy Wall...

TAGS: American Federation of Teachers, California Teachers Association, class warfare, Dean Vogel, Dennis Van Roekel, National Education Association, Occupy Wall Street, Randi Weingarten, teachers unions