Fighting for a sane measure for educators. Years ago, when I was teaching, I asked then United Teachers of Los Angeles president A.J. Duffy at a union meeting why teachers weren’t responsible for paying their own dues. He replied, “They might forget.” I didn’t respond, but knew that some of my colleagues were thinking what...

Earlier this year the United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA) released a report entitled “Burned Out, Priced Out – Solutions to the Educator Shortage Crisis.” Given the universally acknowledged challenges facing public K-12 education in California, this report merits serious attention. The UTLA represents teachers in the Los Angeles Unified School District, which with over 500,000 enrolled K-12 students is...

This week, the Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education voted unanimously to support a resolution condemning anti-Israeli rhetoric being pushed by the United Teachers Los Angeles in recent months. Below are the comments offered by a Los Angeles parent on the resolution. Watch the full discussion here.  Good Morning. My name is Margaret...

New episode of the Radio Free California Podcast is out! California Policy Center’s own Will Swaim and David Bahnsen are at it again with their latest episode of National Review’s Radio Free California podcast. In this week’s episode, they discuss a barnyard metaphor used by a Santa Clara County official to describe the tawdry relationship...

Using Covid-19 as an excuse, the teachers union wants you to “invest” more in education; historical data put things into perspective, however. Last week I reported on the American Federation of Teachers plea for more money to flow into government-run schools because of the Covid-19 crisis. Not to be outdone, the National Education Association has...

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,...

As the son of poor sharecroppers from East Texas who came to California to work as migrant farm workers, I greet the new school year as a time of hope and possibility for my family. Neither of my parents was able to complete elementary school in the segregated South, but they knew education was the...

“Our demands, they’re not radical. When did it become radical to have class sizes that you could actually teach in? When did it become radical to have staffing and to pay people back after eight years of nothing?”  – Alex Caputo Pearl, President, UTLA, February 26, 2015, Los Angeles Times If the 35,000 members of the...

Los Angeles teachers demand a raise, but their appeal to the public is embarrassing and more importantly, misses the big picture. Claiming that teachers have not received a raise since 2007, the United Teachers of Los Angeles held a protest rally last Wednesday. As reported by Ryan White in LA School Report, “Hey, Deasy, baby,...

It seems as if most of the civilized world is squaring off against the teachers unions these days; California’s SB 441 is the latest battle. As a way to put some teeth in a moribund teacher evaluation system in California, State Senator Ron Calderon has written SB 441, a very modest bill, which would at...