Larry Sand

Larry Sand

Closing the Door on Ed Reform: Ho-hum – Just a Typical Day in California

February 27, 2011 by

-By Larry Sand

No one should be surprised at the actions of teachers unions and their acolytes who laid their cards on the table a long time ago.

In an op-ed published in the San Jose Mercury News last Wednesday, I made the point that while the rest of the country had made some positive movement toward badly needed education reform, we in California hadn’t. In fact, with Jerry Brown’s re-election as governor, we took several steps back.

True to form as a teacher union sycophant, the new (and former) state leader fired the entire school board which included prominent education reformers like Ben Austin, executive director of Parent Revolution — the organization behind the new Parent Trigger law that enables parents at poorly performing schools to sign a petition that could ultimately force a change in school governance. Brown replaced the board with a group that has no history of reform including Patricia Ann Rucker, a former California Teachers Association lobbyist.
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Closing the Door on Ed Reform: Ho-hum – Just a Typical Day in California”

Children - Democrats/Leftists - Education - Ethics - Government - Larry Sand - Liberals - Public Employees Unions - Teachers Unions - Unions

Nervous Time for the Teachers Unions

February 22, 2011 by 1 Comment

-By Larry Sand

Teacher union legal teams gear up for battles all over the country as union power is threatened.

With the recent changing of the political guard in statehouses across the country, teachers unions appear to be in for a rough ride. As one state succeeds in passing reform legislation, another state is encouraged to follow suit and perhaps go one step further.

Last week, the New York Times reported “Governors in Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Nevada and New Jersey have called for the elimination or dismantling of tenure. As state legislatures convene this winter, anti-tenure bills are being written in those states and others. Their chances of passing have risen because of crushing state budget deficits that have put teachers’ unions on the defensive.” Mike Petrilli, Vice President for National Programs and Policy at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute adds “These new Republican governors are all trying to outreform one another.”
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Nervous Time for the Teachers Unions”

Budget - California - Children - Democrats/Leftists - Ethics - Larry Sand - Liberals - Public Employees Unions - Taxes - Teachers Unions - Unions

Tempest in a Seniority Teapot?

February 13, 2011 by 1 Comment

-By Larry Sand

Does a recent court ruling in Los Angeles really signal the beginning of the end of an unjust teacher seniority system? Or does the decision amount to nothing more than a zero-sum game, favoring some at the expense of others?

A recent “landmark decision” in Los Angeles is said to have made inroads into the way staffing decisions are made in the city’s massive school district. In fact, some say the decision will have national ramifications. But are these claims valid?

When teachers lose their jobs due to layoffs, the state education code says that they must be done by seniority. Hence the last hired is the first fired. Typically, the lowest performing schools are the most impacted because they invariably have a much greater percentage of new hires.
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Tempest in a Seniority Teapot?”

Budget - Business - California - Democrats/Leftists - Larry Sand - Liberals - Public Employees Unions - Taxes - Teachers Unions - Unions

National Education Association: Big Union Bully on the Left

February 1, 2011 by

-By Larry Sand

While anti-bullying programs for students are currently in vogue in our nation’s schools, teachers need to recognize that they too are being victimized.

As president of the California Teachers Empowerment Network (CTEN), I talk to people about teachers and education all the time. Politically speaking, most people think that teachers are to the left of center. But in fact, teachers typically replicate the political population of the area in which they live. A teacher in Los Angeles is more likely to be left of center along with the rest of the local population. The average teacher in Fresno leans to the right, as is the norm for that farming community.

Interestingly, the National Education Association has done some polling on this issue. In the Fall 2010 issue of Education Next, teacher union watchdog Mike Antonucci reports, “NEA members lean no further to the left than any other large group of Americans. The national union conducts periodic internal surveys to ascertain member attitudes on a host of issues. These surveys are never made public, and results are tightly controlled, even within the organization. The 2005 NEA survey, consistent with previous results, found that members “are slightly more conservative (50%) than liberal (43%) in political philosophy.”
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National Education Association: Big Union Bully on the Left”

Anti-Americanism - Budget - Children - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Education - Government - Larry Sand - Liberals - Public Employees Unions - Taxes - Teachers Unions - Unions

Tribute, Turf Tax and the Teachers Unions

January 28, 2011 by 1 Comment

-By Larry Sand

Before the Reformation, it was common for Europeans to pay Tribute to the Church. People across Europe would have to give something to Rome as a way of submitting to, or showing allegiance to, the church.

Tribute in another form came about in the U.S. the 1920s when organized crime carved up cities and claimed certain areas as their turf. Any legitimate person who wanted to start a business in a gang’s territory would have to pay a street or turf tax to the thugs just to do business.

While these concepts may seem alien to many of us in the West today, people here in our own country that toil away in non-right-to-work states must pay Tribute — in the form of union dues — if they want to be employed in certain professions.

Teachers in 28 states and Washington D.C. fall into this pay-to-play category. While this type of Tribute goes pretty much unchallenged, every now and then something comes up that you’d think would enrage those who are being victimized.
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Tribute, Turf Tax and the Teachers Unions”

Children - Democrats/Leftists - Education - Government - Larry Sand - Liberals - Public Employees Unions - Teachers Unions - Unions

Education Reform – Teacher Union Style

January 18, 2011 by

-By Larry Sand

Union leaders have nothing to offer in matters of education reform.

In an absurd editorial, two Los Angeles Unified School District teachers last Friday — both United Teachers Los Angeles chapter chairs — wrote what was supposed to be, in part, a nastygram to LA’s Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. The op-ed, entitled Pipe Down, Mr. Mayor (the name in the print version), takes the LA mayor to task for criticizing the union for which he used to organize. Referring to ed reform, he had called the union’s leadership “the most powerful defenders of the status quo” at a conference in Sacramento last month.

The two angry unionistas attempt to convince Times’ readers that the union is behind some really terrific “progressive” education reforms.

They start off with the usual whine about cuts in education funding, but in the next breath they state that Gompers Middle School “has spent thousands of dollars on classroom libraries for students who have limited access to quality books.” Hasn’t this always been the purpose of school libraries? And by the way, where are the cuts?
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Education Reform – Teacher Union Style”

Children - Democrats/Leftists - Government - Jobs - Larry Sand - Liberals - Republicans - Taxes - Teachers Unions - Unions

Bill Gates Stymies Randi Weingarten’s No-Show Offense in One-sided Debate

January 10, 2011 by

-By Larry Sand

With a feeble offense (and virtually no defense), the union leader’s strategies help to keep American public education far from the goal line.

American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten has done it again. She agreed to compete on a level playing field – defending the teachers unions’ version of education reform – and the results were not pretty.

A joint interview printed in Newsweek between American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten and Microsoft’s founder-turned-ed-reformer Bill Gates ended with Weingarten on the losing end of the debate. This is not new, however, for the wrongheaded union leader. Last March, along with Rod Paige, former U.S. Secretary of Education, and Terry Moe, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and a member of Hoover’s Koret Task Force on K-12 Education, I debated Ms. Weingarten and two of her hand-picked team members in New York City.
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Bill Gates Stymies Randi Weingarten’s No-Show Offense in One-sided Debate”

Democrats/Leftists - Education - Government - Larry Sand - Liberals - NEA - Teachers Unions - Unions

National Ebenezer Association

January 4, 2011 by

-By Larry Sand

Scrooge-like National Education Association shows no sign of remorse.

Once upon a time, school choice became a reality in our nation’s capital. The D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, which allowed some poor kids in D.C. to go to private schools with the help of a government stipend, was ushered in by a Republican controlled Congress in January 2004. Earlier this year, Jason Richwine at the Heritage Foundation wrote,

Congress put school vouchers to the test in 2004 when it authorized the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program (DCOSP), a federally funded voucher program serving low-income students in the nation’s capital. It has awarded $7,500 scholarships to more than 3,700 students over the past six years.”
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National Ebenezer Association”