Free Republic

California taxpayers have almost become immune to stories about the high cost of generous defined-benefit pensions, employer-subsidized healthcare plans, job protections and degree- and seniority-based pay scales struck by the state, school districts, and affiliates of the National Education Association and American Federation of Teachers. Not even the fact that 3,090 of its retired teachers are earning more than $100,000 a year in annuity payments causes a stir. But they are getting riled up -- and learning about such concepts as internal rate of return and special situation fund -- thanks to the notoriously underfunded California State Teachers Retirement System....

"Coverage of teachers unions needs to emerge from its current position as an afterthought on the education beat, and assume its place alongside national fiscal and political reporting. Only then will the public see that Big Oil and Big Tobacco have a brother called Big Education." Mike Antonucci is the director of the Education Intelligence Agency, which specializes in education labor issues.

By now, you've probably heard about the urgent teacher layoff crisis threatening America. Because of shrinking state and local budgets, as many as 300,000 teachers could be laid off, with devastating educational consequences for our children. The only cure is $23 billion in fresh federal deficit spending, rushed through Congress as part of a bill to fund U.S. overseas military operations. 'The urgency is high,' President Obama warned congressional leaders in a June 12 letter. Don't believe the hype. Start with that number being bandied about: 300,000 teacher layoffs. The sources for it are teachers unions and school administrators, whose...

Like the Nazis jumping to help the Japanese during World War II the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) rushed emergency funds to their anti American allies in ACORN when it got caught on tape coaching a “pimp and his main girl” on how to game the system. The AFT sent ACORN $352,510 to help mitigate the damage caused when the skunks were exposed offering instructions on faking information on bogus loan applications, running a brothel and employing child prostitutes Americans for Limited Government (ALG) has reported. The ALG says the AFT used the cover story of needing the thugs at...

On Capitol Hill, all eyes have been focused on the House, as efforts to pass healthcare reform have grown increasingly dramatic. But a less-watched debate began in the Senate Tuesday, which offered a second chance for the Washington, D.C. private school voucher program that Congress phased out last year. The effort, however, was quickly squashed by a vote Tuesday night, with most Democrats voting against it along with Republican Olympia Snowe of Maine. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid promised in January that he would allow debate about the program on the Senate floor. And on Tuesday, the Senate began considering...

<p>On a personal level, union leaders such as Education Minnesota President Thomas Dooher no doubt care about our schools, teachers and communities. We all know many wonderful teachers in Education Minnesota's ranks. They are our relatives, neighbors and friends.</p> <p>Yet on issue after issue, Dooher stands defiantly in the school entrance, horn in hand, blocking any innovation that would lift black children from north Minneapolis out of the endless cycle of poverty and failure. Many leaders within the black community, including us, will not stand politely by and allow such injustice at the hands of Education Minnesota to happen any longer.</p>

January 18, 2010, 4:00 a.m. The Amazing RandiA brave union official endorses a commonsense reform to improve accountability. By Marcus A. Winters In what could prove a turning point in favor of education reform, American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten came out in favor of considering student performance on standardized tests as one part of teacher evaluations. If Weingarten turns her words into real actions, and if the teachers’ unions follow Weingarten’s lead, it will improve teacher quality across the country. Support for using student test scores to evaluate teachers is a departure for Weingarten. Two years ago,...

Even before U.S. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis was sworn in, Big Labor insiders like AFL-CIO lawyer and Obama appointee Deborah Greenfield were busily dismantling useful union financial disclosures produced by former Labor Secretary Elaine Chao. It’s another Big Government – Big Labor partnership aimed at keeping individual workers, whom they claim to represent, in the dark. Why the hurry? Perhaps Union Bosses wanted to prevent the Virginia GOP and inquisitive people like Patrick Semmens from visiting DOL’s UnionReports.gov website that clearly reveals the Big Labor-ACORN collusion. Semmens discovered that teachers’ union bosses gave about $500,000 to the same Brooklyn ACORN...

An attorney for Sarah Palin has delivered a letter threatening legal action against an anti-Palin blogger who was the source of a divorce rumor that the attorney for the former Alaska governor called "categorically false." Publication of the letter at a Web site that repeated the rumor has uncovered circumstantial evidence that the anti-Palin blogger "Gryphen" is a kindergarten teacher at an Anchorage elementary school.... CNN stringer/anti-Palin blogger Dennis Zaki published ... a copy of a letter from Palin attorney Thomas Van Flein, ordering "Gryphen" to retract the allegations -- calling them "complete fabrications, false and defamatory" -- or face...

THEY could be the lesbian power couple of all time: Randi Weingarten, the new president of the 1.4 million-member American Federation of Teachers, is dating Hilary Rosen, former head of the Recording Industry Association of America, who appears on CNN and is Washington, DC, editor-at-large for the Huffington Post.

"We finally have an education president," exults Randi Weingarten, president of the 1.4 million-member American Federation of Teachers. And President Barack Obama has assured the nation's children and parents that his Department of Education "will use only one test when deciding what ideas to support with your precious tax dollars. ... It's not whether an idea is liberal or conservative — but whether it works." Yet this is the president who has remained silent when his congressional Democrats essentially killed the Opportunity Scholarship Program (OSP) in the city where he now lives and works. Of the 1,700 students, starting in...

When I listen to the AFT and NEA union thug bosses at the DNC two things POP out at me. 1) The teacher's Unions are firmly in the pocket of the Democrats, or vice versa. We will never have education reform until people understand the unions are political big government liberals, not interested in education, only interested in more pay for less work (smaller classes and thus the need for more dues paying teachers). 2) Their message alwasy goes unchallenged by the media. Thre is no connection with higher per pupil spending and educational outcomes - it's time to freeze...

<p>The newly elected head of the nation's largest teachers union on Monday called on school districts nationwide to create community schools that would offer services to students and their families ranging from health care to recreation.</p> <p>Speaking to about 3,300 conventioneers at Navy Pier, American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten said minority students need the help to bridge the achievement gap between them and their white counterparts.</p>

Randi Weingarten has delusions of grandeur. She thinks she should be given the power of a dictator instead of those of a teachers union president. Instead of just teaching kids, Weingarten imagines that she should become doctor, nanny, nutritionist, psychologist, and mother to every kid in America. She imagines that she should be given the care and feeding of all the nation's kids. Parents? Who need 'em when we've got Mother Weingarten to trot them off to re-education camps where they will be fed and cared for on a daily basis? Catch the arrogance, see this nanny-state despot lining...

Senator Obama apparently felt free enough from obligations to the American Federation of Teachers, which is meeting in his home city of Chicago, that he skipped their convention and appeared by video. The AFT had endorsed Mr. Obama's opponent, Senator Clinton, in the Democratic primary. Too bad Mr. Obama doesn't feel free enough to deviate from the union's policy agenda. That he is captive to it was made clear by his prepared remarks. "What I do oppose is using public money for private school vouchers. We need to focus on fixing and improving our public schools; not throwing our hands...

Randi Weingarten, the New Yorker who is rising to become president of the American Federation of Teachers, says she wants to replace President Bush’s focus on standardized testing with a vision of public schools as community centers that help poor students succeed by offering not only solid classroom lessons but also medical and other services. Ms. Weingarten, 50, is running unopposed for the presidency of the national teachers union, whose delegates at an annual convention in Chicago are expected to elect her Monday. In a speech prepared for delivery after the vote, Ms. Weingarten criticizes No Child Left Behind, President...

WASHINGTON, D.C.—Acting on behalf of its more than 1.4 million members, the executive council of the American Federation of Teachers today endorsed Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination for president, citing her proven ability to advance our nation’s key priorities, and her bold plans for a stronger America. “Our members have told us that they want a leader they can trust to strengthen public education, increase access to healthcare, promote commonsense economic priorities and secure America’s place in the world,” said AFT President Edward J. McElroy. “Hillary Clinton is that leader.” Clinton thanked the AFT executive council for the union’s...

Letters to the Editor     The article on gun-show regulations in Virginia contains a serious mistake ("Panel kills gun-show checks for private sales," Metropolitan, Thursday). The article cites state Sen. Jeannemarie Devolites Davis as claiming that "the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has reported that gun shows are the second-leading source of guns used in crimes, behind only unscrupulous licensed dealers." Unfortunately, the study she cites simply was not designed to reach the conclusion that Mrs. Davis claims, because the ATF report looked at 198 non-randomly chosen investigations. The ATF doesn't make the claim that its investigations are...

American Federation of the Totally Clueless by: Malcolm A. Kline, October 19, 2006 Recently, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) took sideswipes at two friends of mine—Candace de Russy and David Horowitz. What AFT editor Barbara McKenna did was to set up a quote from Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and then ask whether it was said by Candace, David or Mahmoud. “A) is a good guess, since conservative reformer de Russy has been on a two-year tear to implement an academic bill of rights at [the State University of New York] SUNY, as Free Exchange on Campus has reported” McKenna...

This week's back-to-school ads offer amazing bargains on lightweight backpacks and nifty school supplies. All those businesses scramble to offer us good stuff at low prices. It's amazing what competition does for consumers. The power to say no to one business and yes to another is awesome. Too bad we don't apply that idea to schools themselves. Education bureaucrats and teachers unions are against it. They insist they must dictate where kids go to school, what they study, and when. When I went on TV to say that it's a myth that a government monopoly can educate kids effectively, hundreds...