Free Republic

The head of the Teachers Association, Ran Erez, on Sunday sent a letter to members of the organization in which he instructed them to stop serving as chaperones on school trips after Chanukah. Erez claimed that despite the commitment of the Ministry of Education, no steps have been taking to regulate the criminal liability imposed on teachers in the event that a student is ...

Most people don’t understand how government defined-benefit pension systems operate, which is one of many obstacles to reforming the deeply underfunded systems. Part of the problem is that the methods used in pension funding and accounting are very different from anything a regular person ever faces in their own personal finances. For example, people rarely buy a product, including a financial product, without knowing its cost. But projecting the cost of pension systems requires making various assumptions about the future to decide how much must be contributed to meet defined-benefit pension promises. Making a wrong assumption can put taxpayers on...

After a teachers union president lost a legal battle involving forcing a non-union member to pay part of her salary for union-related activities, she responded by publishing the names of all former members who opted out of the union in a newsletter. Under Michigan's right-to-work law, employees can no longer be required to belong to or support a union as a condition of employment. According to Adam Neuman, the former Brighton Education Association member who sued to avoid having to pay part of BEA Union President Ellen Lafferty’s salary, the BEA president also put bright red “I Opted IN” buttons...

OSCEOLA COUNTY, Fla. — More than 20 teachers have resigned or decided to retire from the Osceola County School District in just the past month -- and the district already had a shortage with more than 50 vacant teaching jobs. The teachers’ union told Channel 9’s Deneige Broom that some of them quit because they're fed up with standardized testing. At Kissimmee Elementary, they need to fill two spots. At the nearby middle school, three spots are open.

On Nov. 25th, a grand jury in Ferguson voted not to indict a white police officer, Darren Wilson, in the shooting of an unarmed teenager, Michael Brown, last August in a case that has stirred civil unrest and accusations of racism by white law enforcement officials. The next day, Steve Singer, a teacher in suburban Pittsburgh went to school and realized that he could not carry on as usual but that he had to address what was transpiring in Missouri. This is his account of what happened that day. Singer is a husband, father, blogger and education advocate who teaches...

Students who oppose gay marriage are homophobic, according to an audio recording of a Marquette University instructor who went on to say that gay right issues cannot be discussed in class because it might offend homosexuals. I reached out to the 20-year-old student at the center of this outrageous episode and the story he tells should serve as a warning to anyone who thinks religious schools are safe havens for open discourse. The story was first reported on a blog run by a Marquette University professor and was picked up by the good folks over at The College Fix. The...

On one level it’s been entertaining to watch the College Board scramble to defend its radical new Advanced Placement U.S. History (APUSH) Framework. When the public can see the truth merely by going to the College Board website and reading the Framework, it’s certainly a challenge to prove that the document isn’t what it clearly is – a leftist polemic that presents American history in a relentlessly negative light. An unfortunate recent performance by College Board vice-president Trevor Packer before a Georgia House study committee suggests that the College Board team is cracking under the strain. The APUSH course that...

Last year's column "Dishonest Educators" (1/9/2013) reported on the largest school cheating scandal in U.S. history. In more than three-quarters of the 56 Atlanta schools investigated, teachers changed student answers on academic achievement tests. Cheating orders came directly from school administrators. The cheating was brazen. One teacher told a colleague, "I had to give your kids, or your students, the answers because they're dumb as hell." Atlanta's not alone. Teacher cheating has been discovered in other cities, such as Philadelphia, Houston, New York, Detroit, Baltimore, Los Angeles and Washington. Rampant academic cheating is not confined to primary and secondary schools....

When a California judge threw out the state’s teacher tenure laws, he sent shock waves throughout the K-12 educational establishment nationwide and gave hope to American parents from coast to coast. “On a warm day in early June, a Los Angeles County trial-court judge, Rolf M. Treu, pink-cheeked beneath a trim white beard, dropped a bombshell on the American public-school system,” Haley Sweetland Edwards reported in Time magazine on November 3, 2014. “Ruling in Vergara v. California, Treu struck down five decades-old California laws governing teacher tenure and other job protections on the grounds that they violate the state’s constitution.”...

Eighty-eight teachers over the last decade have been permanently removed from Colorado classrooms for sexual improprieties – the vast majority violating young victims from their own schools. ... not a single teacher lost their license for simply being a weak educator of children. To get decertified, records show it usually takes felony-level criminal allegations or lying on the teaching certificate application about lesser crimes. Karla Danzeisen says she spent years teaching Spanish to Denver high school students in a fog of pain pills, cocaine and methamphetamines. She told Halsne, “I was using drugs every day. I was going to teach...

Adam Neuman left the classroom in Michigan to serve in the army in Afghanistan. Michigan high school social studies teacher Adam Neuman was surprised when he saw the $80 deduction on his paycheck from the Brighton Public School District. Then, he was angry. The U.S. Army veteran, who served one tour in Afghanistan, had opted out of the Brighton Education Association and parent organization, the Michigan Education Association, in August, as was his right under the state's 2012 law. He knew he wasn't subject to dues withholding, yet the itemized stub showed the deduction. “I don’t feel that they should...

American teens are a rich demographic for political investment. Their unassigned stem cells can mature into conservative wisdom or attach permanently to the free radicals that cause liberalism.As an engineer, one of the most valued books in my personal library is How We Decide, by Jonah Lehrer. The author briefly uses politics to illustrate his lesson on cognitive dissonance, “Once we identify with a political party, the world is edited so that it fits with our ideology.” Based on Lehrer’s research, advancing an effective appeal to high school age citizens could pay off over 70+ years of voting.As a long...

Taxpayers on hook for millions in retirement benefits unrelated to teaching . Thanks to a loophole created by the Illinois legislature, retired teacher union leaders are getting pension credit for the years they did union work after leaving the classroom. The arrangement has put taxpayers on the hook for millions of dollars in retirement benefits unrelated to teaching, and further drained an already overburdened state pension fund. ... The union bosses collecting the payouts had jobs at the National Education Association (NEA), the Illinois Education Association (IEA) and the Illinois Federation of Teachers (IFT) after their teaching careers. Most got...

In a stunning move that could reshape the face of city schools, the Philadelphia School Reform Commission voted Monday to unilaterally cancel its teachers’ contract. The vote was unanimous. The Philadelphia Federation of Teachers was given no advance word of the action — which happened at an early-morning SRC meeting called with minimal notice — and which figures to result in a legal challenge to the takeover law the SRC believes gives it the power to bypass negotiations and impose terms. Jerry Jordan, PFT president, called the move "cowardly" and vowed to fight it strongly. "I am taking nothing off...

Philadelphia teachers vowed to fight a sudden move by the district Monday that cancels their union contract and forces them to start paying health premiums. The teachers union, with about 15,000 members, accused the state-led School Reform Commission of ratcheting up its "war on teachers." However, district leaders said there was nothing else to cut after years of funding woes that have prompted nearly $1 billion in cuts that includes the loss of 5,000 positions and the closure of 30 schools. Many Philadelphia schools operate without a nurse or librarian on duty. "If the contract is blown open, what's going...

Erin FuchsOctober 6, 2014Angela Williamson An unusual racketeering trial in Atlanta began last week against a dozen ex-educators, including a fired 4th-grade teacher previously found innocent by a disciplinary tribunal. That teacher, Angela Williamson, was one of 35 Atlanta Public Schools (APS) employees indicted last year in a massive cheating case that accused them of engaging in a criminal conspiracy to boost standardized test scores to get higher bonuses. The cheating ring allegedly went all the way up to now-disgraced ex-APS superintendent Beverly Hall, and state investigators used wiretaps to gather crucial evidence in the case. Williamson's lawyer, Gerald Griggs,...

DESTREHAN, La. —Authorities in St. Charles Parish arrested a 34-year-old teacher Tuesday afternoon on allegations of sexual misconduct with a student. Deputies placed Shelley Dufresne under arrest for one count of carnal knowledge of a juvenile. She is a teacher at Destrehan High School, located west of New Orleans. ... Officials with the St. Charles Parish Public School District reported the incident to the Sheriff's Office. Investigators were told that the student was bragging to other students that he was "having a sexual relationship with teachers." "An additional incident has allegedly occurred in another jurisdiction and that agency is participating...

Speaking at the National Education Association (NEA) Representative Assembly at the Colorado Convention Center in Denver on July 3rd, Colorado Education Association (CEA) President Kerrie Dallman referred to the school district of Jefferson County (JeffCo) – where teachers have staged a “sick-out” and students left classes to protest throughout last week – as one of three in her state in which the teachers’ union was “working against hostile school boards.” “I also want to say thank you to the staff and leaders from the 18 states around the country who were sending in 48 staff under the NEA shared staffing...

Prosecutors are using a law originally enacted to go after mobsters to accuse former principals, teachers, and administrators of trying to boost their bonuses by conspiring to artificially raise kids' test scores. While only 12 ex-educators are on trial in Atlanta, dozens of teachers and administrators were initially charged and many have since pleaded guilty in exchange for their cooperation. The dozen on trial could get up to 20 years in prison, and they might never have been prosecuted if it weren't for a pair of ambitious reporters at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (AJC). Back in 2008, Heather Vogell, now a...

Oceanside Unified School District officials (San Diego) investigated complaints that a teacher threatened to have a robot shoot and kill students, and the educator was allowed to resign and receive a $92,000 settlement instead of being fired.