Free Republic

You would think the bureaucrats who run government schools would want to focus on the basics, such as teaching reading, writing, and arithmetic. After all, no nation spends more per pupil on education than the United States. And based on some Cato Institute research, I suspect the OECD estimate of about $15,000 per student is a low-ball estimate of the burden on American taxpayers. So what do we get for all this money? To be blunt, the results are miserable, with Americans ranking well below average compared to our overseas competitors. Here are some comparisons on both literacy and numeracy...

A Michigan Education Association union in the Upper Peninsula has listed the names of the school employees who left the union as part of the state's right-to-work law, leaving some to question whether the MEA is trying to create a hostile workplace environment. The MEA 17-B/C union newsletter listed the name of 16 employees from four school districts in the U.P. who decided against paying dues or fees to the union and it also listed the services they no longer will get now that they're not part of the union. Kathi Moreau, a counselor at Stephenson Area Public Schools, left...

Michigan teachers are discovering that their union is determined to make it as hard as possible for them to take advantage of the state's new right-to-work law, which prohibits workers from being forced to pay dues to a union. Nine teachers sued the Michigan Education Association in the last week alleging unfair labor practices. Eight teachers sued the MEA on Monday. They are being represented by the conservative Mackinac Center Legal Foundation. Their complaint alleges the union is violating the intent of the right-to-work law by only giving them a very brief period — the month of August — to...

The United Federation of Teachers has spent decades pleading for more money for public schools. So eyebrows might have shot up when it turned down federal Race to the Top funds at its UFT Charter School. Well, the mystery’s been solved. While tens of thousands of teachers around the state will be subject to new yearly evaluations, UFT Charter School chief executive Sheila Evans-Tranumn says her teachers won’t have to. That’s because, as a charter, her school is allowed to opt out of the evaluation system, as long as it hasn’t taken Race to the Top money. And it’s chosen...

A classroom of 14 and 15-year-old Illinois high school students was assigned the task of deciding the fate of ten fictional characters in an exercise that critics called a lesson in death panels. The assignment was part of a sociology unit for freshmen and sophomore students at St. Joseph-Ogden High School in St. Joseph, just east of Champaign. The story was first reported by Champion News. The lesson involves 10 people who are in desperate need of kidney dialysis. “Unless they receive this procedure, they will die,” the lesson states. But there’s a problem. The local hospital only has enough...

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — Two California advocacy groups are calling on teachers in Los Angeles and statewide to drop their memberships with labor unions. Members of the California Public Policy Center (CPPC) and California Teachers Empowerment Network (CTEN) have announced the kickoff of a two-month campaign aimed at educating teachers on how they can cut ties with what the groups described as “increasingly radical,” “industrial-style” unions. The campaign also seeks to inform Los Angeles Unified School District teachers represented by United Teachers Los Angeles — which allows members to affiliate either with the California Teacher Association (CTA) or the California...

The Kenosha Education Association (KEA), the state's third largest teachers union, was officially decertified on August 31, 2013 according to the Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission. Mark Belling, who broke this story on Thursday, said that the decertification came after a recent vote by members in which only 37 percent voted to reauthorize the union. KEA is the largest teachers union to disband since Act 10 was signed into law in 2011. The union had 2,400 members according to their website. Act 10 limited collective bargaining rights for public employees and required public unions to have an annual vote to recertify....

Outgoing Ohio Education Association (OEA) President Patricia Frost-Brooks was paid a total of $998,949 from 2008-2012, the first five years of her six-year tenure. Thanks to union contracts that existed long before many current teachers were hired, the vast majority of OEA’s revenue comes from more than $450 per year in dues deducted automatically from tens of thousands of Ohio teachers’ paychecks. Based on OEA’s annual report to the U.S. Department of Labor, the union collected over $58 million in dues and “fair share” fees in 2012. While Frost-Brooks has benefited the most from OEA’s generous officer and executive salaries...

Noted American terrorist and left-wing radical Bill Ayers is among the signatories of a letter calling on the United Nations to probe the closing of 49 Chicago elementary schools based on claims that it is causing massive human rights violations. ... In 2009, the Chicago City Council passed a resolution adopting the international body’s Convention on the Rights of the Child, notes WBEZ. The resolution instructed all city agencies to develop policies consistent with it. Kalantry told the public radio station that the nation and the city must now act in accordance with these covenants. ... The Chicago Teachers Union,...

Move over Trayvon Martin. Big Labor has a new favorite group of victims of social injustice - the teaching staff of Lewis County, West Virginia. Citizens have been complaining to school board members about the “way teachers dress,” according to school board president Paul Derico. As a result, the school board unanimously passed a dress code for teachers, banning blue jeans, faded jeans and shorts. Of course the teachers union is not taking this grave injustice lying down. Union officials have threatened to sue the board. "We're disappointed in the actions of the board. We don't believe it's in the...

California Senate Bill 131, which is ostensibly about protecting victims of child sex abuse, forces private schools to defend claims of sexual abuse as far back as 40 years ago, but exempts public schools from such claims. Because of the Democratic super-majorities in both houses of California, there is no way to stop the passage of the bill. As Valerie Schmalz wrote in Catholic San Francisco: The California state Senate narrowly approved a waiver of the statute of limitations for child sex abuse damage lawsuits – a bill that could have a devastating effect on nonprofits including Catholic Charities and...

Educators boogie to 'When it's over you ain't gon need ya vibrator' (WARNING: This story includes a video and rap song lyrics of a sexually explicit nature and may offend some readers.) At its 2013 national convention in Atlanta last week, the National Education Association encouraged teachers to dance to a sexually explicit rap song that featured the “N”-word and declared, “When it’s over you ain’t gon need ya vibrator.” The NEA, a nationwide labor union that represents public school teachers, played the song titled, “Wobble,” by V.I.C. at its “Raise Your Hand” conference – which was publicized as an...

A resolution calling for the boycott of Israeli firms will not be put to a vote at TIAA-CREF’s upcoming shareholders meeting. The move comes after the pension fund giant received approval from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to “take no action” on a submission by pro-Palestinian activists. This followed the company’s warning by an Israeli civil rights group that passage of the resolution would violate NY and Federal law. Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, director of Shurat HaDin – Israel Law Center, stressed that the development was “a major defeat for the extremist Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement taking aim at Israel.”...

May 16, 2013 Dear : The VEA Fund for Children and Public Education Executive Committee (VEA Fund) and The VEA Fund Directors, your elected representatives from across Virginia, have offered recommendations for the June 11 Democratic primaries. The Democratic Party is choosing Lieutenant Governor and Attorney General candidates in an open primary on that day. Republican Candidates are being chosen by a convention this Saturday in Richmond. Regrettably, none of the Republican candidates chose to complete the candidate questionnaire required to gain a recommendation. In Virginia voters do not register by party, so our primaries are open. Any voter can...

Teacher who stomped on flag receives $85,000 settlement The South Carolina teacher placed on administrative leave after throwing an American flag on the floor and stomping on it was paid $85,000 as part of an out-of-court settlement in a case arising out of that incident. The settlement does not include the salary that Chapin High School English teacher Scott Compton will continue to receive until June 7, according to The State. He continues to get paid although he was placed on leave in January and submitted his resignation on Mar. 27. “Prior to his resignation, attorneys for Mr. Compton informed...

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has called on the government of Ireland to publicly reiterate its opposition to boycotts of Israel in response to the decision by the Teachers’ Union of Ireland to adopt an academic and cultural boycott of Israel. The union, which represents over 14,000 educators, reportedly called on its members during its annual congress on April 4 to “cease all cultural and academic collaboration with Israel, including the exchange of scientists, students and academic personalities, as well as all cooperation in research programs.” …

Shortly after I did my first TV special on education, "Stupid in America," hundreds of union teachers showed up outside my office to yell at me. They were angry because I said union rules were a big reason American kids don't learn. The union is a big reason kids don't like school and learn less. Union contracts limit flexibility, limit promotion of good teachers, waste money and make it hard for principals to fire even terrible teachers. But I was wrong to imply that the union is the biggest problem. In states with weak unions, K-12 schools stagnate, too. Education...

The theft of more than $433,000 by a former local treasurer was covered up by the Maryland State Education Association (MSEA) because the union feared the “potential impact on membership and loss of members,” according to an insurance claim document obtained by the Salisbury Daily Times. Denise Inez Owens was the treasurer of the Worcester County Teachers Association (WCTA) when she stole state and national dues money to feed her gambling addiction. MSEA discovered the embezzlement in March 2009, but failed to report it to authorities. Instead the union persuaded Owens to sign a confession and agree to a restitution...

New Jersey’s governor has branded them “political thugs.” A former federal education official has likened them to terrorists. Less vilified in Kansas than some other parts of the country, those teachers unions still find their clout under attack in the Legislature. The battle over teachers unions has marched its way across the country. Ohio. Michigan. Wisconsin. Idaho. And now it’s in Kansas, greeted by Republican Gov. Sam Brownback and his conservative allies in the Legislature. Lawmakers are moving to undercut the tenuous power of teachers unions by barring them from using voluntary paycheck deductions for politics. And they’re going after...

Let’s pretend that in the spring of 2012 Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform, John Engler of the Business Roundtable, Tim Phillips of Americans for Prosperity, and Wayne LaPierre of the National Rifle Association began to organize an assembly of right-leaning groups. Let’s pretend that in the months since there had been not one but two meetings where these luminaries joined with representatives of Christians United For Israel, the American Enterprise Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the Tea Party Express, the Federation for American Immigration Reform, and the American Petroleum Institute to discuss strategy and promote a series of “structural...