Free Republic

Wear black on Friday, February 17, 2012 to illustrate your collective mourning over the attack that has been launched against Virgnia's teachers and students by legislators with the open disrespect and disdain as demonstrated by eliminating continuing contract status for ...new teachers, an effort to diminish our pension benefits, and general underfunding of our schools resulting in too large class sizes, under resourced schools and classrooms, and salaries that lag embarrassingly below the national average in spite of the fact that Virginia is the 7th wealthiest state in the nation.

Disgraced 'ogle' teacher retires The city's king of the "rubber room" has stepped down. Disgraced educator Alan Rosenfeld, 66, retired on February 3, after a decade of milking tax payers for a $100,049-a-year salary even though he hasn't set foot in a classroom since 2001, school officials said today. The retirement came just days after the Post ran a series of stories exposing Rosenfeld, including how he was banished to a "rubber room" in 2001 for allegedly ogling eighth grade girls -- but then spent his time working on a personal real estate portfolio worth up to $10 million. An...

Image from the LGBT "Welcoming Schools" capaign The Human Rights Campaign, a homosexual advocacy group, has produced a “professional development film” through its Welcoming Schools project for school staff and parents that features 6- to 12-year-olds talking about gays and lesbians. The film is called “What Do You Know? Six to Twelve Year Olds Talk about Gays and Lesbians," and it "features students from Massachusetts and Alabama discussing what they know about gay men and lesbians, what they hear at school, and what they’d like teachers to do,” states the Welcoming Schools Web site. The Web site has a...

By the time they leave elementary school, children should be able to “define sexual orientation,” and by the eighth grade be able to “define emergency contraception and its use,” according to a report containing controversial new recommendations for sex education in U.S. public schools. “Ideally, comprehensive sexuality education should start in kindergarten and continue through 12th grade,” says the “National Sexuality Education Standards” report, drawn up by a range of advocates, academics and public education officials. The Future of Sex Education (FoSE), an initiative started by sex education advocates, developed the standards “to create a strategic plan for sexuality education...

Kindergarten through 2nd grade. That’s the grade at which the National Education Association (NEA), the Future of Sex Education Initiative and a coalition of sex-ed groups want children to start learning the names of body parts and alternative family structures.The recommendations are outlined in the National Sexuality Education Standards released on Monday to school districts nationwide. Although they are non-binding, having the weight of the NEA behind the recommendations could give them the gravitas needed to quickly — and quietly — be implemented around the country.CitizenLink Education Analyst Candi Cushman says it’s important for parents to understand that this is...

Third graders in in Gwinnett County, Ga., were given math homework Wednesday that asked questions about slavery and beatings. Christopher Braxton told ABC News affiliate WSB-TV in Atlanta that he couldn't believe the assignment his 8-year-old son brought home from of Beaver Ridge Elementary school in Norcross. "It kind of blew me away," Braxton said. "Do you see what I see? Do you really see what I see? He's not answering this question." The question read, "Each tree had 56 oranges. If eight slaves pick them equally, then how much would each slave pick?" Another math problem read, "If Frederick...

Comparatively speaking, the United States does not starve its education system of revenue. The U.S. is one of the leaders in spending on Education, and yet it's schools are rated "average" by international bodies.  The three-yearly OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) report, which compares the knowledge and skills of 15-year-olds in 70 countries around the world, ranked the United States 14th out of 34 OECD countries for reading skills, 17th for science and a below-average 25th for mathematics.Worse, out of 34 OECD countries, only 8 have a lower high school graduation rate. The United States' education outcomes most resemble...

(Madison, WI) – In 2011, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker(R) served as the embodiment of the state by state battle to balance budgets and the best symbol of the struggle between the two political parties about how best to meet those fiscal challenges. His first year will extend well into his second year, quite likely culminating in a recall election to remove him from office. He has dominated the political debate on both sides. Defining the issues. He is cited by both Democrats and Republicans as the best of example of what is wrong, or what is right with a conservative...

Full Headline: Dept. of Labor: Public School Teachers Are Highest Paid State Workers; Compensation Doubles the Average in Private Industry Public school teachers receive greater average hourly compensation in wages and benefits than any other group of state and local government workers and receive more than twice as much in average hourly wages and benefits as workers in private industry, according to a new report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Public primary, secondary and special education teachers are paid an average of $56.59 per hour in combined wages and benefits, BLS said in the report released last week. That...

The numbers keep getting worse for the nation’s education system. In the 2010-11 academic year, 48 percent of public schools - a record high - failed to meet the “adequate yearly progress” benchmarks established by the No Child Left Behind act, according to a new study by the Center on Education Policy, a nonpartisan think tank. D.C. Public Schools ranked near the bottom, with 87 percent failing to clear the bar, the report says. Only Missouri was worse, with 88 percent of its schools falling short. Wisconsin schools performed the best, with 11 percent missing the mark. In Maryland and...

Parents of Emerson Elementary in Compton, California, are up in arms over the school’s decision to invite former porn star Sasha Grey to read to a group of first and third-grade students, at an National Education Association-sponsored event called Read Across America. TMZ obtained photos of the event, but when they contacted school administrators, they were less than forthcoming about the decision to invite the winner of the 2010 AVN award for best anal sex scene.  The award is sponsored and presented by the adult video industry trade magazine Adult Video News.The school district flatly denied inviting the former porn...

Leave it to right-wing think tanks to tell the world that teachers are overpaid. Right wingers hate unions and they hate paying public employees, so keep that in mind as you try to digest recent surveys from The American Enterprise Institute and the Heritage Foundation that say teachers just make too much money.

<p>School spending has gone through the roof and test scores are flat.</p> <p>While most every other service in life has gotten faster, better, and cheaper, one of the most important things we buy -- education -- has remained completely stagnant, unchanged since we started measuring it in 1970.</p>

Colorado Says Occupy This The election results were "a killing field for tax measures." Voters rejected a higher income and sales tax earmarked for education. By PAUL A. GIGOT If the income-redistribution sentiments of "Occupy Wall Street" are sweeping the nation, you wouldn't know it from the election results in the presidential swing state of Colorado Tuesday night. The results were "a killing field for tax measures," as the Denver Post described it. By nearly 2 to 1, voters statewide rejected a higher income and sales tax earmarked for education. Supporters had pitched the tax hikes as "temporary" to help...

Education Secretary Arne Duncan thinks public-school teachers are “desperately underpaid” and has called for doubling teacher salaries. In a new paper co-authored with Jason Richwine of the Heritage Foundation, I look into whether teachers really are desperately underpaid, or underpaid at all. Jason and I find that the conventional wisdom is far off the truth. At first glance, public-school teachers definitely look underpaid. According to Census data, teachers receive salaries around 20 percent lower than similarly educated private-sector workers. The Bureau of Labor Statistics says teachers’ benefits are about the same as benefits in the private sector. But both the...

The National Education Association (NEA), the largest labor union in the country, offered a $5,000 Learning and Leadership Grant to two Wisconsin teachers who intended to use the funds to “help first and second grade students” become “activists.” The description of the grant for teachers Andrea Burmesch and Tara Krueger of Muskego Elementary read: Ms. Burmesch and a team of colleagues will develop a critical literacy inquiry based unit of study to help their first and second grade students understand the role that power plays in their lives. The teachers will learn how visual literacy and technology, particularly website and...

SPRINGFIELD —— Reg Weaver receives a state pension of $242,657 a year, not because it's based on his last salary as a teacher, but because he gets to count the $300,000-plus check he made as president of the National Education Association.It's one of the highest pensions paid by the heavily indebted Illinois Teachers' Retirement System.Weaver, whose last salary as a south suburban teacher was $60,000, is one of 116 active and inactive members of the Teachers' Retirement System who can base their retirement income on their salaries and service in the National Education Association, the Illinois Education Association, the Illinois...

About half of Illinois public high school students flunked state exams in reading, math and science this year, the worst performance in the history of the 11th-grade Prairie State Achievement Examination, statewide test results show. The record-low results, scheduled to be released Thursday, come after Illinois closed loopholes that kept academically weak juniors from taking the exams, a practice revealed in a 2009 Tribune analysis. Some local school officials attributed their declines in part to the larger testing pool that included less-prepared students. At the same time, grade schools posted the highest passing rate in a decade this year —...

he AFL-CIO announced it has invested  more than $150 million in job-creating infrastructure projects and registered 8,000 more apprenticeships in clean energy training. During the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) meeting in Chicago last June, the AFL-CIO outlined plans to work with member unions, pension funds, investment professionals and the government to invest at least $10 billion in job-creating infrastructure projects. The federation also committed to invest at least $20 million in specific energy retrofits over the next year, to retrofit our headquarters building, and to train tens of thousands of workers in the skills necessary to work on 21st century infrastructure.Here’s what has been...

Wash. teachers defy orders and continue to strikeBy DONNA GORDON BLANKINSHIP Associated Press Originally published Thursday, September 15, 2011 at 9:41 AM TACOMA, Wash. — As teachers in Washington state's third-largest school district defy a judge's order and continue to strike, negotiators for the schools, the teachers union and a state mediator will meet to restart contract talks. **SNIP** Pierce County Superior Court Judge Bryan Chushcoff also ordered both the union and the school district to return to collective bargaining as soon as possible. A bargaining session was scheduled for Thursday afternoon, Wood said. "I want you to all talk,...

Ridiculously false choices and rhetoric ruled the evening when the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers hosted a closed-media conference call with Vice President Joe Biden to inform their members about the latest government school and teachers’ union bailout. In a recording obtained exclusively by PublicSchoolSpending.com, Biden explained the administration is seeking to spend $30 billion to create a “Teacher Layoff Prevention Fund.�  He also said that many schools today are “deciding whether or not to heat the school or keep a teacher.� Like school stimuli-past, Biden said schools would not be able to bank the money,...

Municipal bonds have always been synonymous with tax-free income. That would end if President Obama gets his way. Under the jobs bill the President sent to Congress Monday, high-income individuals and families would no longer receive interest from state and municipal bonds free completely from federal income taxes, beginning in 2013. The legislation would also reduce the value of tax deductions for taxpayers in the highest bracket. Specifically, individuals earning over $200,000 and families earning over $250,000 would effectively have the value of tax breaks against the top 35% bracket lowered to the 28% bracket.

There has been a good deal of hand-wringing over the state of our nation's schools -- whether at the elementary, the secondary, or the University level. And instead of a circular firing squad so beloved of the Republican Party, those closest to the situation are involved in an almost unfathomable degree of both psychological projection and transferrence, coupled with a goodly measure of 1984-style groupthink, in which they chant in unison, "You can't blame us!" In a limited sense, this is true: in the cloud-cuckoo land of government largesse and union employment, punching the clock, obeying the party line, and...

Harbor Beach Community Schools paid one teacher tens of thousands of dollars to leave, despite the teacher getting caught kissing some students and head-locking one after being confronted for his behavior. Dearborn Public Schools paid four teachers a total of $197,353 to get rid of them after charges of sexual misconduct and possession of illegal substances on school grounds. Gladwin Community Schools has dished out about $40,000 thus far in a legal case against a kindergarten teacher arraigned on charges of furnishing alcohol for minors. These are a few of at least 156 tenure cases brought by Michigan public school...

You wouldn't think that Erie County, Pa., epitomizes the least visible yet most insidious aspect of the nation's pension crisis. With just 280,566 residents, the county is better known for its once-grand status as being the hub between the Rust Belt metropolises of Pittsburgh, Cleveland, and Buffalo, for the sandy Presque Island State Park, and for being the site of one of the few battles won by the Americans in the War of 1812. But these days, Erie County taxpayers are learning plenty about the high cost of pension and retiree healthcare deals struck over the past five decades by...

It looks like the National Education Association is not putting its money where its mouth is. In its mission statement, the nation’s largest teachers union asserts that “we will focus the energy and resources of our 3.2 million members on improving the quality of teaching, increasing student achievement and making schools safer, better places to learn.� But a secret union document reveals that the NEA’s commitment to “improv(ing) teaching and learning� works out to a paltry $7.44 per member every year. This is according to a document obtained from an internal source of the Indiana State Teachers Association, one of...

It looks like the National Education Association is not putting its money where its mouth is. In its mission statement, the nation’s largest teachers union asserts that “we will focus the energy and resources of our 3.2 million members on improving the quality of teaching, increasing student achievement and making schools safer, better places to learn.” But a secret union document reveals that the NEA’s commitment to “improv(ing) teaching and learning” works out to a paltry $7.44 per member every year. This is according to a document obtained from an internal source of the Indiana State Teachers Association, one of...

***VIDEO AT LINK*** Dr. Moe: “If you stand up for kids, you have to oppose this [collective bargaining] Schools get organized by the adults on the basis of interests and concerns that have nothing to do with kids. So, why would you expect that system to work?” As students head back to school, it is a good time to reflect on why education is failing and continues to fail. Terry Moe, Chairman of the Political Science Department at Stanford, provides a dispassionate and extensively researched book, Special Interest: Teachers Unions and America’s Public Schools, which should become a useful and...

Teacher cheating scandal is symptom of public schools’ failureIf the disturbing documentary “Waiting for Superman” didn’t convince you that a massive overhaul of the public education system is necessary, maybe the massive cheating scandal erupting in the Atlanta public school system will. First off, there is no argument that public education in America is a complete and total disaster. Our children routinely score at the bottom of the barrel in math, science and geography, while more than 50 percent of other children drop out of high school in some districts. It’s not that our children are dumb, but rather that...

A national scandal hit the news when Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal released a 413-page report describing how hundreds of Atlanta public school teachers and principals had been cheating during the past 10 years on standardized tests in order to falsely report that their schools were doing a good job and the kids were improving. A total of 178 teachers and principals (38 were principals), 82 of whom have already confessed, had fraudulently raised test scores so their schools would meet test targets set by the district and thereby qualify for federal funds. The truth came out after a 10-month inquiry...

A national scandal hit the news when Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal released a 413-page report describing how hundreds of Atlanta public school teachers and principals had been cheating during the past 10 years on standardized tests in order to falsely report that their schools were doing a good job and the kids were improving. A total of 178 teachers and principals (38 were principals), 82 of whom have already confessed, had fraudulently raised test scores so their schools would meet test targets set by the district and thereby qualify for federal funds. The truth came out after a 10-month inquiry...

Immediately after President Obama took office, his Hollywood benefactors clamored for the creation of a "Secretary of Culture." Tinseltown was disappointed with the administration's crony arts czar choice (Chicago lawyer Kareem Dale), but left-wing artists and entertainers have now been mollified. Instead of one government-supported arts czar, the White House has designated an entire herd of them. On Tuesday, as part of Obama's "Winning the Future" initiative, the president designated members of the liberal activist group Creative Coalition as official "America's Champions of Change for the Arts." This is the latest in a series of "public engagement" efforts overseen by...

At its recent convention, National Education Association Vice President Lily Eskelsen publicly thanked students for raising funds for the union political action committee, known as the NEA Fund for Children and Public Education. EAGtv provided a video with the comments: “We also want to recognize the great work of our student programs all year long they’ve been utilizing our member-to-member fundraising tool go.NEAfund.org to raise money from students all over the country. Thank you retirees. Thank you students!� Aside from not being able to insert complete sentences into the teleprompter, Eskelsen is acknowledging that students helped raise money to elect...

Earlier this month, the National Education Association held its annual convention in Chicago. This event—often livened up by the NEA’s passionate denouncements of merit pay, homeschooling, and Republicans—ripped a page from the headlines (well, old headlines) by bringing onstage six members of the “Wisconsin 14″ and awarding the group en masse its 2011 Friend of Education Award. The 14, you may recall, found fame in flight, hunkering down in an Illinois Super 8 motel to deny Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker a quorum for his bill that would limit collective bargaining for public service unions. “Not since the Kardashian sisters,” wrote...

A problem as big and many-faceted as the problem of the public schools couldn't possibly be the fault just of teachers -- or even of teacher unions. The National Education, even so, makes clear why teachers have lost so much of the devotion and respect they used to command from Americans. Namely, because unions such as the NEA put their politics over the principles one might hope they hold. Out of Chicago, where the NEA just rose from its annual convention, comes notification -- I didn't say news -- that the country's biggest teacher union is endorsing for president --...

President Obama seems to have a love-hate relationship with the nation's largest teacher's union. On Monday, the National Education Association endorsed Obama in 2012 -- long before his Republican opponent has even been selected. But the vote of confidence comes in spite of the fact that educators are less than thrilled with the president's efforts to reform education. Two days before endorsing the president, the NEA passed a resolution outlining 13 areas where the union adamantly disagrees with the policies of Obama's education secretary, Arne Duncan. The NEA letter states that educators are "appalled" by Duncan's emphasis on competitive grants,...

Dozens of Atlanta public school educators falsified standardized tests or failed to address such misconduct in their schools, Gov. Nathan Deal said Tuesday in unveiling the results of a state investigation that confirmed widespread cheating in the city schools dating as far back as 2001. "I think the overall conclusion was that testing and results and targets being reached became more important than actual learning for children," Deal said. "And when reaching targets became the goal, it was a goal that was pursued with no excuses." Falsifying test results made the schools appear to be performing better than they really...

The nation's largest education union has endorsed President Barack Obama's 2012 re-election campaign. Members of the National Education Association voted to support Obama on Monday at their annual convention in Chicago. In a statement, NEA President Dennis Van Roekel says Obama and the union share a vision and members wanted early and strong support to help his election.

Nation's largest teachers union endorses Obama re-election (CNN) -- A year earlier than usual, the nation's largest teachers union on Monday endorsed President Barack Obama for re-election in 2012. The National Education Association, which represents 3.2 million teachers and administrators, approved the recommendation from its political action committee at its annual meeting in Chicago. Obama "shares our vision for a stronger America," NEA President Dennis Van Roekel said in a statement issued by the group. "He has never wavered from talking about the importance of education or his dedication to a vibrant middle class." Since taking office in 2009, Obama...

Vice President Joe Biden says the “new Republican party” fundamentally doesn’t believe in public education the way Democrats do. The Democrat spoke Sunday before thousands of educators at the National Education Association’s annual convention in Chicago. The association bills itself as the largest labor union nationwide. The speech came a day before the union’s vote on whether to endorse President Barack Obama’s reelection campaign.

This is one part of a running series entitled “Indoctrination Fridays,” a weekly review of leftist propaganda incorporated into public school curriculum, much geared towards elementary students.  For more of the series, please visit PublicSchoolSpending.com.In typical union and socialist propaganda, employers are depicted as cruel and uncaring business owners who never miss an opportunity to cheat and mistreat workers.Big Labor’s “us versus them” worldview is so entrenched that they can’t recognize the fact that most successful companies value their employees, and do whatever they can to retain their best workers. That reality, of course, undercuts the relevance of unions.So what’s a...

Thousands of newly retired school administrators will earn more during retirement than most Californians will make during their working careers. The number of educators receiving $100,000-plus annual pensions jumped 650 percent from 2005 to 2011, going from 700 to 5,400, according to a Bee review of data from the California State Teachers' Retirement System. Though they make up just 2 percent of CalSTRS pensions, six-figure payouts are a focus of pension reform discussions under way at the Capitol. Six-figure retirees eat 7 percent of CalSTRS benefits and can ultimately get millions more than they put into the system. Booming administrator...

A review of Special Interest: Teachers Unions and American Public Schools, by Terry M. Moe (Brookings Institution Press, 2011), 513 pp., $34.95 Seldom has the raw power and unbridled selfishness of teacher unions been more on display than it is today in state capitols around the country. Teachers led the union riot that shut down Wisconsin's state government for more than two weeks, making legislators afraid to enter government buildings while angry mobs defaced public property and shouted threats against elected officials. Terry Moe, a senior fellow of the Hoover Institution and author of numerous books and studies on education...

GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ) - The Green Bay teachers union is upset about a change in the designated work day work hours starting next school year. The district breaks down the teaching workday with teaching time, professional time, additional duties, and lunch. The district wants teachers to be involved in a new collaborative team building initiatives for a total of 90 minutes of professional time everyday. They are adding an additional 30 minutes to the teachers’ day, while taking away an hour of personal professional planning time instead of the current two hours. Green Bay Education Association President Toni Lardinois...

The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) has plans to develop a "logic model and measurement framework" that supposedly will help it weigh the impact of art on society and, presumably, when, why, and how that impact affects governmental funding of the arts. Here's an excerpt from the Statement of Work governing the project, which NEA intends to outsource to a "capable" contractor. "SECTION B SUPPLIES/SERVICES AND PRICES B.1 GENERAL Historically, generations of artists, philosophers, and social science researchers have struggled to define the role and impact of art in terms of public value. They have asked questions as fundamental...

AT&T is lining up support for its acquisition of T-Mobile from a slew of liberal groups with no obvious interest in telecom deals — except that they’ve received big piles of AT&T’s cash. In recent weeks, the NAACP, the Gay & Lesbian Alliance, and the National Education Association have each issued public statements in support of the deal. The groups all say their public positions have nothing to do with the money they received from AT&T.

The National Education Association, the largest education union, is preparing for a long, tough fight to re-elect President Obama. In an interview with POLITICO, the group’s executive director, John Wilson, said he’s prepared to invest resources and manpower to reelect Obama, despite disagreements with the administration on education policy. “We’ve got a lot of selling to do. Our members are very unhappy,” Wilson said. “We’ve got to explain to them the stakes. We cannot wait until a few months before the election.”

The nation’s biggest educational lobby, which has advanced a pro-abortion agenda, will advance it further now that it has committed to spending $60 million to support the re-election campaign of pro-abortion President Barack Obama. National Education Association executive director John Wilson says he is prepared to pull out all the stops to ensure the pro-abortion president has another four years in office to promote taxpayer funding of abortions and pack the Supreme Court and other federal courts with abortion activists. “We’ve got a lot of selling to do. Our members are very unhappy,” Wilson told Politico. “We’ve got to explain...

Two moderate Republicans who have been friends of public education are retiring from the Virginia Senate. The retirement of William Wampler from Washington County is a shocking loss to the Commonwealth. William has always been a budget conferee, and was next in line to chair the powerful Senate Finance Committee should the Republicans take the Senate. He was the only Republican Senator on the committee to vote to protect our current retirement system in the last session. Wampler’s retirement puts Senator Stosch, the Senate’s chief champion of vouchers, next in line to chair the Senate Finance Committee should the Republicans...

I know you are probably sick of me harping on government schools and teachers unions.  Well then, I guess is sucks to be you.  As long as I’m on the air I’ll keep preaching against government education; and especially against teacher’s unions.  I’ve said and I will repeat that there is no other entity in this country – or anywhere in the world, for that matter – that has done more damage to the fabric of America than teacher’s unions.  The problems we face in this country would be greatly reduced if the people were just informed enough and bright...