Education

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

State Sponsored Thievery Continues in Plain Sight

January 7, 2012 by

-By Larry Sand

Teachers and other public employees use “air time” to pick your pocket. The California State Teachers Retirement System tries calming words. David Crane tells the truth and loses yet another job.

Saying that the state teachers’ retirement system is underfunded is the understatement of this or any year and now, CalSTRS is giving us specifics. On December 27th, it said,

“Recent media reports have suggested that to solve the unfunded liability the state will have to increase CalSTRS funding by $3.8 billion a year for 30 years for a total of more than $114 billion. Although this is an accurate statement based on current projections, achieving adequate funding can occur several ways that would be phased in over time. The CalSTRS $56 billion funding shortfall can be managed, but it will require gradual and predictable increases in contributions.”

In fact, saying that the shortfall has to be “managed” is like saying that World War II had to be managed. No, the reality is that there has to be major destruction and rebuilding, no matter how unpopular this will be with the beneficiaries of the theft, their unions and their kick-the-can-down-the-road buddies in Sacramento who are occasionally known as legislators. Tinkering around the edges and “managing” the problem will do little.
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State Sponsored Thievery Continues in Plain Sight”

Budget - Children - Democrats/Leftists - Education - Larry Sand - Liberals - Los Angeles - Pensions - Public Employees Unions - Taxes - Teachers Unions - Unions

Visitors from Outer Space and Their Strange Ideas About Education Reform

December 30, 2011 by

-By Larry Sand

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 deal with everything imaginable. The Hoover Institution’s Koret Task Force got on the bandwagon early and posted Best and Worst in American Education, 2011 in November. All solid stuff. Can a reformer not be happy about the Parent Trigger being raked over the coals, yet surviving, or that many of Michelle Rhee’s reforms are still in place despite leaving her post as D.C. Schools Chancellor after a major push from the American Federation of Teachers? On the worst list, the Task Force includes the Atlanta teacher cheating scandal and the union-orchestrated overturn of Ohio’s recent anti-collective bargaining law.

Then lo and behold, we received a dispatch from Planet Ravitch on December 23rd. (Most people are not aware that shortly after astronomers ruled that Pluto was not a planet in 2006, a new planet would be identified. And it is inhabited!) The people who live on this celestial body (named after Diane Ravitch, a former reformer who turned into a champion of the failing status quo) are afflicted with a dyslexic-like condition: they have the entire education reform picture exactly backwards. The way to true reform is to hold their ideas up to a mirror with the resulting image revealing the best way to proceed.
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Visitors from Outer Space and Their Strange Ideas About Education Reform”

1st Amendment - Constitution - Democrats/Leftists - Education - Ethics - Free Speech - Freedom - Government - Liberals - Liberty - The Law - Warner Todd Huston - Wisconsin

From a TV Show to a Fight for Campus Free Speech

December 28, 2011 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

This video, which features an interview with legendary author Neil Gaiman (famed science fiction, fantasy and comic book writer), is a lighthearted look at how the University of Wisconsin-Stout ended up being forced to back down from its oppression of the free speech of one of its professors.

Professor James Miller’s poster, one featuring a quote from the science fiction show Firefly, was considered by campus police and the school administration to be a “threat” to students because it had the word “kill” in it.

After the school torn the Firefly poster off the professor’s wall he replaced that one with a poster condemning fascism. The school tore that one down, as well, an Orwellian move if there eve was one.

Chancellor Charles W. Sorensen and other administrators stood by their actions until FIRE’s advocacy campaign on Miller’s behalf inspired Gaiman, along with Firefly actors Nathan Fillion and Adam Baldwin, to take to Twitter to encourage their millions of followers to contact the university with their support of free speech.

FIRE has started a contest that will award $500 to the best tweet to advertise their new video.
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From a TV Show to a Fight for Campus Free Speech”

Larry Sand - Public Employees Unions - Teachers Unions - Unions

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

December 26, 2011 by

-By Larry Sand

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 from a biased, progressive viewpoint.

In its December issue, Scholastic, which purports to “believe that all sides of the issues of our times should be fairly discussed — with deep respect for facts and logical thinking,” gets all gooey-eyed about the Occupy Wall Street phenomenon, mentioning that OWS concerns itself with “protesters,” “voicing concerns,” “Americans wanting more opportunity to share in company’s prosperity,” and “workers that they feel that they can never get ahead.” To be sure, some of these types are present at OWS events.

But, Scholastic omits a few inconvenient details, like the fact that the OWS camps have been a magnet for Communists, anarchists, street hustlers, and common criminals and have been breeding grounds for murder, rape, vandalism, robbery and anti-Jewish sentiment. The filth left by many of these criminals — I mean protesters — has taxed municipal sanitation systems at great cost to taxpayers. As of December 9th, there were 417 incidents in all. You would think that Scholastic could have managed to mention that all is not sweetness and light in OWSland.
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The ‘Let’s Brainwash American Children Club’ Has a New Member”

California - Democrats/Leftists - Education - Larry Sand - Liberals - Los Angeles - Public Employees Unions - Teachers Unions - Unions

Tenure for Teachers: Enough is Enough

December 18, 2011 by

-By Larry Sand

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 to the students.

A teacher makes constant sexual advances to other teachers.

A teacher doesn’t teach her students anything.

These are a few of the teachers that new Perth Amboy schools superintendent Janine Caffrey has to deal with on a daily basis. She is quick to point out that most teachers are committed and talented, but there are a few….

The evil here is tenure or permanence, which in New Jersey bestows a position for life on teachers after just three years on the job. (It’s even worse in other states – in California, for example, a teacher can get into the untouchables club after only two years.) Tenure for teachers would be nothing more than a bad joke if it didn’t destroy the education experience for tens of thousands of children who are subjected to incompetent/cruel/perverted people on a daily basis.
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Tenure for Teachers: Enough is Enough”

Budget - California - Children - Democrats/Leftists - Education - Larry Sand - Liberals - Los Angeles - Public Employees Unions - Taxes - Teachers Unions - Unions

The Route to Teacher Union Extinction: Is the Other Shoe Dropping?

December 13, 2011 by

-By Larry Sand

In addition to online learning, Democrat’s abandonment of their traditional union allies could put an end to the educational status quo and decimate the teachers unions

In my October 18th post, I wrote about Terry Moe’s book Special Interest: Teachers Unions and America’s Public Schools. I specifically addressed that part of the book in which he builds a scenario for the eventual undoing of the teachers unions. One of the two ways he claims this will happen is via technology, in the form of online learning. The other route to marginalization is the realization by Democrats that education is really a civil rights issue and that they are morally bound to get on board with reform and choice. By adopting this position, they will be abandoning their longtime political allies – the teachers unions.

As with the rapid ascent of online learning, Moe’s second nail in the unions’ coffin is picking up speed. In a recent Huffington Post entry, Joy Resmovits addresses the “new education lobby.”
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The Route to Teacher Union Extinction: Is the Other Shoe Dropping?”

Anti-Americanism - Anti-War - Democrats/Leftists - Education - Ethics - Government - Iowa - Liberals - Public Employees Unions - Society/Culture - Teachers Unions - Warner Todd Huston

ISU Lecturer: Patriotism Excludes People At Bottom, Troops Don’t Need Care Packages

December 9, 2011 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

Thomas Walker, lecturer in the intensive English and orientation program at Iowa State University, is disgusted over all this fawning over “the troops.” And so, to vent his disgust, he took to the letters to the editor pages of The Iowa State Daily. What Walker gave us is yet another screed from an extremist, left-winger being paid our tax dollars to “teach” our children his brand of hate for America.

What stirred Walker to spit his venom was a generally benign little program to assemble care packages for our soldiers overseas put on by ISU’s college Republicans. For five years the college Republicans have raised funds to buy socks, wet wipes, shampoo and other sundries for the troops. This year they raised the second highest amount of all the chapters.

But this feels-good story didn’t warm Thomas Walker’s heart, nosiree. University lecturer Walker was filled with disgust at the display of concern for our soldiers. So, Walker took to his pen — and his Thesaurus — to lambast this horrid display of patriotism perpetrated by these nasty college Republicans.

To get the full flavor of his bile, one must see the whole letter.
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ISU Lecturer: Patriotism Excludes People At Bottom, Troops Don’t Need Care Packages”

Anti-Americanism - Barack Obama - Chicago - Crime - Democrats/Leftists - Education - Ethics - Government - Illinois - Liberals - Los Angeles - President - Taxes - Warner Todd Huston

Chicago: Terrorists Celebrated by Tax Funded Organization

December 7, 2011 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

The Illinois Humanities Council is celebrating its 10th Anniversary with an auction fund-raiser. A good cause you might ask? Well, perhaps, but one of the items the council is auctioning features a special dinner with notorious domestic terrorists Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn.

Why is a tax-funded organization celebrating the lives of these admitted and unrepentant domestic terrorists? That would be quite a good question.

As Illinois Review notes, we the taxpayers have been floating this IHC group with our tax dollars. “While Medicaid providers wait and wait to be reimbursed from the state,” IR says, “certain vendors don’t have much trouble getting their taxpayer funds every year. Such as the Illinois Humanities Council. Since 2007, the Council has been the beneficiary of $4,189,582, compliments of Illinois taxpayers.”

Once again we see how the left supports terrorism and propagates hate for our own system and country by celebrating murderers such as Dohrn and Ayers, two people that have never apologized or shown any remorse for their part int he death of a police officer.
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Chicago: Terrorists Celebrated by Tax Funded Organization”

Budget - California - Democrats/Leftists - Education - Larry Sand - Liberals - Los Angeles - Public Employees Unions - Taxes - Teachers Unions - Unions

Indoctrination: A Must Read For Parents, Taxpayers and Everyone Else

December 6, 2011 by

-By Larry Sand

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 frontline of education reform and a champion of school choice.

In this brief and very readable book, Olson describes the ways that the progressives in our society have taken over K-12 education. They have been running most of our elite colleges and schools of education for years now and this step is in keeping with their plan to transform America.

As a public school teacher whose career spanned four decades, I have seen the long march first hand. Perverting the traditional purpose of American education (which has been to make better and more educated citizens), progressives have been inspired by the theories of Paolo Freire, a Brazilian socialist who saw everything through a Marxist class warfare lens.
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Indoctrination: A Must Read For Parents, Taxpayers and Everyone Else”

Anti-Americanism - Budget - California - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Ethics - Larry Sand - Liberals - Public Employees Unions - Taxes - Teachers Unions - Unions

California’s Looming Fiscal Disaster: Sunlight and an Informed Public are the Best Disinfectants

November 29, 2011 by

-By Larry Sand

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 wrote in September,

“… a poll which is biased and does not take into account the knowledge of the people being polled is misleading and dangerous. The public is led to believe that the responders are perceptive and knowledgeable, when in reality so many are not.”

(And I could have added that a poll that misleads or misinforms its respondents is the most dangerous of all; I’ll address that shortly.)

The Times article reported that a USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences/Los Angeles Times Frequency Questionnaire released last week showed that 61 percent of those surveyed said they would pay higher taxes to boost school funding.

As I read those words, I wondered,
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California’s Looming Fiscal Disaster: Sunlight and an Informed Public are the Best Disinfectants”

Anti-Americanism - California - Children - Democrats/Leftists - Education - Ethics - Larry Sand - Liberals - Los Angeles - Public Employees Unions - Teachers Unions - Unions

Fake Teacher Evaluation Racket is Busted in Los Angeles

November 14, 2011 by

-By Larry Sand

Parents sue the LA school board and teachers union, forcing them to obey a law that they have ignored for 40 years.

There is nothing new about unions bullying weak-kneed school districts, but this may be the mother of all abuses– for forty years, school districts and unions have collaborated to break the law in California. According to the Stull Act (Section 44660 of the state’s education code), part of a teacher’s evaluation is required to include a student achievement component, but this has not happened anywhere in the state. Last week, after consulting with EdVoice, a reform advocacy group in Sacramento, parents of some students in Los Angeles Unified School District sued the school district and teachers union for what amounts to a dereliction of duty. While the lawsuit is aimed at LA, it will have state-wide ramifications.

Originally enacted in 1971, the Stull Act, named after State Senator John Stull, was amended in 1999 to include,

“The governing board of each school district shall evaluate and assess certificated employee performance as it reasonably relates to:

The progress of pupils toward the standards established pursuant to subdivision (a) and, if applicable, the state adopted academic content standards as measured by state adopted criterion referenced assessments….”

In other words, a part of a teacher’s evaluation is supposed to be contingent on how well his students do on state mandated tests. This is hardly a radical notion, as half the states in the rest of the country now evaluate teachers in part by student performance on these tests.
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Fake Teacher Evaluation Racket is Busted in Los Angeles”

Illinois - Larry Sand - Pensions - Public Employees Unions - Teachers Unions - Unions

Unions Continue to Swindle the Public

November 8, 2011 by

-By Larry Sand

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 will rob you with a six-gun, and some with a fountain pen.” The unions are well entrenched in the “fountain pen” camp and recently, Illinois has been in their crosshairs.

In September, the Chicago Tribune broke a story about Dennis Gannon, a former sanitation worker who became a president of the Chicago Federation of Labor. He went back to work for the city for one day, then took a leave of absence and was legally allowed to collect a $158,000 pension, about five times the average sanitation worker.
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Unions Continue to Swindle the Public”

Budget - Democrats/Leftists - Education - Liberals - Ohio - Pensions - Public Employees Unions - Scott Walker - Taxes - Teachers Unions - Unions - Warner Todd Huston

Ohio, Vote YES on Issue 2

November 2, 2011 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

A few days ago the Cincinnati Enquirer came out in support of Issue 2, which will enact Senate Bill 5 — a reformation of how the Buckeye State deals with government unions.

For decades, Ohio has been on an unsustainable path of rapidly increasing public-sector benefits. SB 5 would give the people we choose to manage our money, our safety and our schools greater flexibility in benefits and work rules for public employees, bringing them closer in line with what comparable workers receive in the private sector. That could relieve the pressure to raise taxes and thus help, not hurt, middle-class Ohioans.

This is an important bill not just for Ohio, but for the whole country. What Ohio is trying to do (and what Governor Walker of Wisconsin has already done) is to take away the power of un-elected union bosses from determining how the state’s budget will be spent. Ohio is trying to take back the reins of making policy, allocating tax money, and making rules for employment from the union thugs that now have control over it all.

This new rule that states such as Ohio and Wisconsin are struggling to pass is not a war against the middle class, nor even necessarily a war against the idea of unions themselves. It is a move toward fiscal responsibility and the democratic process.

These new reforms must pass now or our states will necessarily go bankrupt for all the unfunded liabilities and unfair goodies handed out to government union members.

Pass issue 2, Ohio.
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Ohio, Vote YES on Issue 2″

Budget - California - Children - Education - Larry Sand - Public Employees Unions - Taxes - Teachers Unions - Unions

CTA Dons Victim Guise and Joins OWS Crowd

October 31, 2011 by

-By Larry Sand

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 Street movement. Now the California Teachers Association has jumped in with a full endorsement and suggestions on its website as to how teachers and others can get involved in OWS activities.

Stunning in its mendacity, CTA issued a press release (H/T Mike Antonucci) which announced its “support of the nationwide ‘Occupy Wall Street’ movement for tax fairness and against corporate greed.” It goes on to say, “…a stable tax structure begins with everyone paying their fair share.”
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CTA Dons Victim Guise and Joins OWS Crowd”

Americans For Prosperity - Budget - Conservatives - Democrats/Leftists - Education - Elections - GOP - Government - Liberals - Pensions - President - Public Employees Unions - Regulation - Republicans - Scott Walker - Taxes - Unions - Warner Todd Huston - Wisconsin

Wisc.: Walker’s Union Reforms Are Working! (A Lesson for Illinois)

October 28, 2011 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

Governor Scott Walker was the worst devil the unions could imagine. They targeted him and Wisconsin’s Republicans mercilessly earlier this year. Fortunately, the unions and their Democrat handmaidens lost most of these battles.

But now some results are being seem from the efforts to curtail the un-democratic, unearned power of Wisconsin’s government employee unions. A new effort by the MacIver Institute and Americans for Prosperity is showing the world where these policies have succeeded in making things better in Wisconsin.

This is a lesson for Illinois and every other blue state. We can fix our problems, too. But it means defeating entrenched, un-American union power and their bought and paid for Democrats.
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Wisc.: Walker’s Union Reforms Are Working! (A Lesson for Illinois)”

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

Teachers Unions: On the Road to Extinction?

October 23, 2011 by

-By Larry Sand

Online learning is the wave of the future, but teachers unions still have a Paleocene mentality

In his extraordinary book Special Interest, Terry Moe writes about the massive power of the teachers unions. After much gloom and doom, in the final chapter of the book, he manages to convey some hope about the future. Emerging technology-based education, he asserts, is the “long-term trend…, and the unions cannot stop it from happening.” Online teachers from different states and countries will be much harder for the unions to corral and control.

However, according to a post on hotair.com by Tina Korbe, the University of California chapter of the American Federation of Teachers hasn’t gotten the message yet. University of California schools, which are in dire financial straits, have begun using online education programs as a way to save money. As a result, some lecturers’ jobs could be done away with. However, their union is using its collective bargaining power to ensure that every job, no matter how unnecessary, will be saved.

“… the California lecturers, who make up nearly half of the system’s undergraduate teaching teachers, believe they have used … bargaining power to score a rare coup. The University of California last week tentatively agreed to a deal with UC-AFT that included a new provision barring the system and its campuses from creating online courses or programs that would result in ‘a change to a term or condition of employment’ of any lecturer without first dealing with the union.”

In other words, the union is determined to keep all its dues-paying members on the payroll whether they are needed or not, whether we can afford them or not. The fact that there are some excellent online classes and that their use would save the beleaguered taxpayers of California bushels

Anti-Americanism - Budget - Chicago - Children - Democrats/Leftists - Education - Ethics - Hate Crimes - Liberals - Public Employees Unions - Society/Culture - Taxes - Teachers Unions - Unions - Warner Todd Huston

Lisa Fithian: Teaching Radicalism to Chicago Teachers Union

October 18, 2011 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

Violent, union thug comes to Chicago to fake teacher “arrests”

When people ask me, “What do you do?” I say I create crisis, because crisis is that edge where change is possible.
— Lisa Fithian

The Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) trained under radical street organizer, and leader of the anti-capitalist #occupy movement, Lisa Fithian, to stage a protest march in Chicago on 10/10/11.

During this event, more than 20+ members of the CTU were arrested.

THE NYT MAGAZINE SAYS THIS ABOUT FITHIAN
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Lisa Fithian: Teaching Radicalism to Chicago Teachers Union”

Business - California - Capitalism - Economy/Finances - Larry Sand - Public Employees Unions - Teachers Unions - Unions

Steve Jobs vs. Wall St. Whiners and Teachers Unions

October 17, 2011 by

-By Larry Sand

Steve Jobs knew how to create wealth. The parasitic Wall Street protesters and teachers unions want to destroy it

There are many theories as to who is orchestrating the “Occupy Wall Street” protests – known in some circles as “Kamp Alinsky” and “Kamp Kvetch” – in lower Manhattan and elsewhere throughout our country. George Soros? President Obama? Could they possibly be spontaneous?

No matter. The protesters and their message of social justice, socialism and general hatred of all things corporate will not affect the great majority of Americans. The average Joe and Jill are just trying to pay their bills, raise a family and live a decent life. Hence the Wall Street rabble, a motley combination of bored teenagers, old guard lefties and hard core partiers, many armed with iPhones, digital cameras and many other luxuries produced by corporations, are badly missing the mark. As usual, the protesters’ signs tell the story – none more so than the one that says, “A job is a right. Capitalism doesn’t work.” Could any serious types associate with this fringe mentality?

Enter Michael Mulgrew – the United Federation of Teachers president. Speaking “truth to power,” his tax-the-rich talk at a Wall St. rally fit right in with the angry mob that thinks wealth is evil and that if A has more money than B, A owes B some of it. It’s the mentality that thinks that there is no moral difference between Bernie Madoff and Bill Gates.
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Steve Jobs vs. Wall St. Whiners and Teachers Unions”

Anti-Americanism - Budget - Business - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Ethics - Illinois - Illinois State Government - Liberals - Pat Quinn - Pensions - Public Employees Unions - Regulation - Taxes - Teachers Unions - Unions - Warner Todd Huston

Bad News For Illinois Teachers: Illinois is Broke and You Might Not Get Your Pension!

October 12, 2011 by

The unions and the Democrats are lying to you, teachers.

In Illinois we have a $140 billion retirement pension deficit for teachers, folks. Don’t let the unions lie to you all the way until you decide to retire only to find out you lost everything.

And you police, firemen, and other state employees… don’t think you are better off than the teachers. You aren’t.

Anti-Americanism - California - Democrats/Leftists - Education - Government - Larry Sand - Liberals - Public Employees Unions - Teachers Unions - Unions

Cherry Picking Facts + Bad Polling = Demagoguery

September 27, 2011 by

-By Larry Sand

Teacher union boss cherry picks from a biased poll and ends up with the pits.

Cherry picking is a phrase that has become quite popular these days. The term simply refers to advancing a certain point of view by using only data which supports that POV and omitting any contradictory or mitigating information.

A recent illustration of this phenomenon is on display in an article written by NEA President Dennis Van Roekel. The ironically titled Back-to-School Reality Check is, in fact, quite short on reality. The article, primarily a pep talk for teachers, uses a recent Phi Beta Kappa/Gallup poll as its motivating source. Early on, Van Roekel tells us,

“73 percent (of the poll’s respondents) said teachers should have flexibility in the classroom.”

I’m all for that. But what the union boss leaves out is that for teachers to have more flexibility they would need to tear up the telephone book-size union contract that dictates every little move a teacher makes.
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Cherry Picking Facts + Bad Polling = Demagoguery”

Children - Education - Public Employees Unions - Teachers Unions - Warner Todd Huston

Launch of Choice Media — Education News Service

September 22, 2011 by

ChoiceMedia.tv to Serve as Nation’s ‘Education Reform Homepage’

NEW YORK, NY, September 19, 2011 — Choice Media launches today, a non-profit news service devoted to covering all facets of K-12 education quality and reform.

“Education remains the most under-reported facet of American life by the traditional news media,” said Bob Bowdon, founder of Choice Media. “The coverage it does receive is often shallow and scandal-focused, with too little attention paid to the intractable systemic failures of a broken education model. Choice Media will attempt to reddress this imbalance.”
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Launch of Choice Media — Education News Service”

Anti-Americanism - Barack Obama - Budget - California - Children - Democrats/Leftists - Education - Elections - Ethics - Government - Larry Sand - Liberals - Los Angeles - President - Taxes

Obama, Teachers Unions and Tax Evasion

September 19, 2011 by

-By Larry Sand

President Obama has talked a good education reform game, but when push comes to threats, he is above all a good union man.

On August 25th, AFL-CIO boss Richard Trumka uttered a few words that seemed to resonate with President Obama. He said, “The AFL-CIO has not yet decided if it will participate in next year’s Democratic National Convention, as labor union members ponder whether President Obama has earned their support.…” He said the major economic speech the president has planned for early next month will tell union members what they need to know about whether he will be worth supporting.”

Trumka has a history of following through on his threats. As president of the United Mine Workers in the spring of 1993, he wanted to ensure that no one would be able to find employment as a miner without paying union dues to the UMW. Accordingly, he proceeded to order more than 17,000 mine workers to walk off their jobs, and told the striking miners to “kick the sh– out of every last one” of their fellow employees and mine operators who resisted union demands. UMW thugs dutifully responded by vandalizing homes, firing gunshots into management’s offices, and cutting off the power supply to another mine, temporarily trapping 93 miners underground.
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Obama, Teachers Unions and Tax Evasion”

California - Children - Education - Larry Sand - Los Angeles - Public Employees Unions - Teachers Unions - Unions

Former Union Boss to Become Charter School Operator

September 10, 2011 by

-By Larry Sand

Once a rabid anti-reformer, termed out United Teachers of Los Angeles President A.J. Duffy has become a union apostate…maybe.

On September 1st, Los Angeles Times writer Howard Blume wrote what at first glance appeared to be satire. He reported that A.J. Duffy is starting his own charter school. For those of you who live a peaceful life outside the realm of the education wars, Duffy is the crusty and cantankerous, raspy and rabid former president of the United Teachers of Los Angeles – a man who never met a charter school or any education reform that he liked. And when he didn’t like something, he made sure you knew about it.

But it’s a new day and Duffy indeed will be soon become the executive director of Apple Academy Charter Public Schools, a new organization that hopes to open one or more schools by the fall of 2012.

To show how bizarre all this is, let’s take a step back a couple of years. In 2009, when the Los Angeles Unified School District wanted to expand the number of charter schools in the district, Duffy, then UTLA President said,

“All the data says charter schools do not do better than public schools. This is bureaucracy putting in a top-down plan which hasn’t worked before.”

Now he says he has a vision, and while his schools will be unionized, it will not be at the expense of sacrificing his new ideas about how a school should operate.
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Former Union Boss to Become Charter School Operator”

Anti-Americanism - Colorado - Democrats/Leftists - Education - Freedom - Government - History - Islamofascism - Liberals - PCism - Saudi Arabia - Society/Culture - Terrorism - Warner Todd Huston - Western Civilization

Colorado School Places Saudi Arabian Flag Above U.S. Flag

September 6, 2011 by 2 Comments

-By Warner Todd Huston

An elementary school in Fort Collins, Colorado came under fire last week for having placed in the school a smaller sized Saudi Arabian flag in a higher, more prominent position that the flag of the United States. Many locals called this a disrespectful display and even wondered if it was part of some effort at anti-American indoctrination.

Colorado blog Greeley Report first noted the flag controversy by posting a photograph of the lobby display calling the positioning of the two flags “an outrage” and saying how the disrespect to the U.S. flag “shows how the indoctrination process continues without your consent or knowledge.”

Bauder Elementary School Principal, Brian Carpenter, told the Greeley Gazette that this was simply a careless mistake. Not only was nothing meant by the placement of the flags, but the matter was quickly corrected to have the U.S. flag hang higher than the others in the lobby.
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Colorado School Places Saudi Arabian Flag Above U.S. Flag”

Budget - California - Children - Democrats/Leftists - Education - Government - Larry Sand - Liberals - NEA - Public Employees Unions - Taxes - Teachers Unions - Unions

Teachers Unions Happy to Say Goodbye to August

September 3, 2011 by

-By Larry Sand

The Dog Days of summer are making teachers unions sweat as they get caught being, well, teachers unions

August has been a bad month for teachers unions. And looking at things objectively, it would appear that every one of their hot flashes has been well deserved. In no particular order:

The SOS March was a dud. It was supposed to be a teacher-led event, but the unions were really behind it. The small turnout had its share of angry, mostly leftist teachers whining and shouting about this and that. No one paid much attention. The speakers were just what you’d expect. Jonathan Kozol, forty years later, is still railing about poverty causing ignorance. (No, actually ignorance causes poverty.) Then the marchers were treated to former reformer and current union mouthpiece Diane Ravitch who chirped about how wonderful they all were. And then the big gun, Matt Damon, who if nothing else showed what a great actor he is. The guy who played a convincing genius in Good Will Hunting demonstrates that without a good script he’s about as sharp as a marble.

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Teachers Unions Happy to Say Goodbye to August”

Anti-Americanism - Budget - Business - Children - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Education - Ethics - Government - Jobs - Liberals - NEA - Public Employees Unions - Scott Walker - Taxes - Teachers Unions - Unions - Warner Todd Huston - Wisconsin

Children Better Behaved Than Union Thugs in Wisconsin

August 30, 2011 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

The MacIver Institute of Wisconsin has been doing stellar work on the situation between the unions and the rest of Wisconsin since Governor Scott Walker first entered the Governor’s mansion. The Institute has really shown the thuggery that is the unions again and again, revealing them for what they are.

Well, MacIver has done it again… or rather the unions have done it again.

Governor Walker had planned a visit to the Messmer Preparatory School in Milwaukee, a school that exemplifies what good education is. After all, 85% of the students that graduate from Messmer end up graduating from college.
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Children Better Behaved Than Union Thugs in Wisconsin”

Budget - Business - California - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Education - Government - Jobs - Larry Sand - Liberals - Los Angeles - Taxes

Reform Unionism: A Wolf by Any Other Name…

August 26, 2011 by

-By Larry Sand

Despite good intentions, efforts to reform teachers unions and make them partners in education reform will not work.

Last week, the typically sane and sage Andrew Rotherham wrote a provocative article for Time Magazine entitled “Quiet Riot: Insurgents Take On Teachers Unions.” The main thrust of the piece is this:

“But perhaps the biggest strategic pressure for reform is starting to come from teachers themselves, many of whom are trying to change their unions and, by extension, their profession. These renegade groups, composed generally of younger teachers, are trying to accomplish what a generation of education reformers, activists and think tanks have not: forcing the unions to genuinely mend their ways.”

He spotlights three organizations he claims are leading a movement to reform teachers unions and make them partners in an attempt to improve the quality of public education — NewTLA, a dissident faction in the United Teachers of Los Angeles, Educators for Excellence, a reform group in New York started by two young Teach For America graduates, and Teach Plus, an organization that has gained traction in several states, whose goal is to “engage early career teachers in rebuilding their profession to better meet the needs of students and the incoming generation of teachers.”

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Reform Unionism: A Wolf by Any Other Name…”

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

Typical Teachers Union Tactics Kill Parent Trigger in Connecticut

August 16, 2011 by

-By Larry Sand

Time for being shocked, shocked about teacher union methods and objectives is over.

Last week, writer Rishawn Biddle broke a story about the American Federation of Teachers’ recent successful actions to neuter a Parent Trigger bill in Connecticut. The first Parent Trigger law, officially the Parent Empowerment Act, was passed in California early last year. It allows parents, via a petition, to force change in the governance of a failing school should the petitioners get a majority of parents to sign on.

The educational establishment – school boards, teachers unions and other special interest groups, dubbed the “Government Education Complex” by Bruno Behrend, director of the Center for School Reform at The Heartland Institute, don’t like the law since it allows a group of parents to trump their power.

Most writers and bloggers who have written about the incident have focused on a pdf, originally a PowerPoint, posted on the AFT website, which very honestly and cynically describes the process by which the union did its dirty work. Realizing that this display of raw union power was not in keeping with its persona as a reform-minded partner, always willing to collaborate with parents, communities and other stakeholders, AFT pulled the pdf from its website shortly after the Biddle piece was posted and started to play defense…sort of.
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Typical Teachers Union Tactics Kill Parent Trigger in Connecticut”

Budget - Conservatives - Democrats/Leftists - Elections - GOP - Government - Liberals - Public Employees Unions - Scott Walker - Taxes - Teachers Unions - Unions - Warner Todd Huston - Wisconsin

Failure: Over $14 Mil Spent on Wisc. Recall By Liberal Groups, Unions

August 12, 2011 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

As a recap on the past recall effort that just occurred in Wisconsin, a final accounting shows that liberal groups spent over $14 million to beat the six Republicans that were up for recall. They failed in four of the six attempts and in the two they won, well, it was a pyrrhic victory to say the least. It all goes to show that money is not always the final arbiter of an election victory.

The MacIver Institute of Wisconsin has created a great graphic to diagram the spending the left indulged to recall these six Wisconsin Republicans. It was mostly union money, of course.

Click Image to embiggen…

Of the totals, MacIver says:
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Failure: Over $14 Mil Spent on Wisc. Recall By Liberal Groups, Unions”

Anti-Americanism - Budget - Business - Capitalism - Children - Conservatives - Democracy - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Education - Elections - GOP - Government - Jobs - Liberals - Public Employees Unions - Republicans - Scott Walker - SEIU - Senate - Taxes - Teachers Unions - Unions - Warner Todd Huston - Wisconsin

Unions Lose BIG In Wisconsin Recall Efforts

August 10, 2011 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

Oh, the union thugs in Wisconsin will certainly try to act as if winning a mere two of the six recall elections of the Republican State Senators in the Cheese State was a big win… but it wasn’t. In fact, this recall nonsense shows that the union issues were a huge failure. After all, they even shied from using the union issues to push the recall efforts after they got going because they were looking like a losing issue.

In fact, the two Republicans that lost their effort to beat the recall were the two that were a bit odd as it is, so beating them doesn’t seem to be such a great triumph. And even at that the margins of defeat were not great. David Fredosso of the Washington Examiner puts it well:

In the end, the union-backed Democrats picked up only two state Senate seats in Wisconsin last night, at a staggering cost in time, effort, and of course money. One of the seats was solidly Democratic, held by a Republican due to an apparent fluke of nature. The other was held by an alleged adulterer who had moved outside his district to live with his young mistress, and whose wife was supporting his recall.

A Pyrrhic victory, there, for sure.

Unions and left-wing Democrat operative told us that the people of Wisconsin were furious at Governor Scott Walker and his GOP partners. We were told that “the people” would swarm to the recall election polls and throw the rascals out. But aside from the two problem children above, none of the elections were even close.
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Unions Lose BIG In Wisconsin Recall Efforts”