Free Republic

On Monday, January 11 the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association. The plaintiffs, teachers in California public schools, challenge the constitutionality of a rule that they must pay dues to the C.T.A. to keep their jobs, even though they don't choose to join the union and object to the way it uses money involuntarily taken from them to advance political causes they oppose. This raises First Amendment issues, since it protects not only the right to speak freely against governmental interference, but also protects the right not to be compelled to speak. By taking dues...

On January 1, California residents will have to accustom themselves to a number of new laws that will be implemented in the state. These are some the laws that will likely have the most profound effect: SB 172: High school seniors will receive their diploma whether or not they pass or even take an exit exam; the law also applies retroactively to students who have graduated since 2004; ... SB 707: Bans concealed firearms from college campuses and K-12 school grounds

Can you name the most contentious issue in American politics? Here's a hint. It's being fought at the federal, state and local levels. And it doesn't go away. The struggle is persistent, ongoing, unending. Here is a second hint. The issue is not gay marriage, or gun control, or police brutality and or immigration. Those issues are either settled, largely settled, isolated or completely out of the control of local and state governments. Here is a third hint. The issue divides Republicans and Democrats, conservatives and liberals. But it is especially divisive among Democrats and among people who call themselves...

The backers of the Jeffco recall effort (read: Teachers Union) campaigned on the lie that the Jeffco School Board was lacking in transparency. That is why yesterday's ruling that Jeffco United, the nonprofit engaged in the recall effort, violated campaign finance laws is so, so delicious. The organization made a $90,000 donation to the recall effort without disclosing its donors. According to an administrative law judge, that is verboten. Its punishment is not so simple. The organization must pay $1,000, register as a political committee, and (here is the delightful part) disclose its donors. While nonprofits are not typically required...

A lawsuit seeking to have New York's teacher tenure protections ruled unconstitutional will advance, thanks to a judge's ruling late Friday afternoon. Teachers unions filed a motion to dismiss the case, but their motion was denied. ... The parents seeking to invalidate the teacher tenure protections argue the law robs children of their right to a basic education. "Teachers in New York City are more likely to die on the job than be replaced because of poor performance," according to the Partnership for Educational Justice, which is backing the case. Roughly 30 percent of New York students are proficient in...

It turns out that American students have something in common with their Latin American counterparts: They don’t learn anything good about America either. “In Latin America children are often exposed to the negative aspects of American history but are seldom exposed to the negative aspects of their own history,” Alejandro Chafuen of the Atlas Economic Research Foundation said at the Philadelphia Society’s regional meeting in Indianapolis last weekend. Chafuen himself hails from Argentina. “In Argentina, at least before the Falklands War, we used to say that we act Italian, speak Spanish and think that we are British.” One-sixth of the...

Emails released by the State Department Monday night show that the leader of the American Federation of Teachers, one of the nation's top unions, had direct access to the office of then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Several emails show that requests from Tina Flournoy, union President Randi Weingarten's assistant at the time, for private meetings or phone calls were given priority by Clinton. For example, in a July 20, 2010, message to Clinton's private account "HDR22@clintonemail.com," Flournoy, using her American Federation of Teachers address, said: "Have a little issue I would like to discuss with you over the phone. Not...

Like many first-year teachers, I enjoyed no protections despite forced union representation (and paying union dues) since a teacher’s contract strictly declared that non-tenured faculty could be removed for any reason. “For the cut of your hair” is the common refrain to describe the arbitrary, unjust power of administrators and school boards. For the record, this arbitrary retribution is no after-school special. In Manhattan Beach, CA, a French teacher was removed for some petty, if non-essential offenses. A teacher in Redondo Beach, CA was forced out on administrative leave for unclear reasons. Clearly, union membership did not benefit them. Even...

BARNEGAT, N.J. – Teachers unions during the past decade have known their share of scandal. Add the case of Wayne Wedderman Jr. to the list. This Monday, June 29, Wedderman, treasurer of the Barnegat Education Association, pleaded guilty in Ocean County, New Jersey Superior Court to theft from the union. He had been arrested last November for stealing roughly a combined $23,000 from two union accounts in the wake of a county probe begun the previous month. A grand jury in February subsequently indicted Wedderman on two counts of thefts and one count of computer theft. Sentencing is scheduled for...

The presidents of America’s two largest unions have vowed to fight tooth and nail against a lawsuit now in front of the U.S. Supreme Court which, if successful, could strike down a California law permitting mandatory union membership. The plaintiffs in the lawsuit assert that the mandatory-dues law forces teachers to finance union political positions. Thus, the plaintiffs say, the law violates the First Amendment rights of teachers who disagree with the union’s politics. The Supreme Court granted certiorari for the suit, Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association, on Tuesday. “We are disappointed that at a time when big corporations and...

In what is apparently a vogue of Republican state legislators exercising misplaced vendettas against college professors, Iowa Sen. Mark Chelgren recently made headlines when he introduced Senate File 64, “an Act relating to the teaching effectiveness and employment of professors” at Iowa public institutions. Each year, the bill stipulates, any faculty who fails “to attain a minimum threshold of performance” based solely on student evaluations would be automatically fired regardless of rank or tenure. Lest you think that firing professors based on a questionable assessment metric affords them too much dignity, rest assured there is more. Some beleaguered governing body...

Denver Public Schools had four times the number of administrators as any other large metro area districts last year, and salaries and benefits for those staffers are $22 million more than the next largest metro district, Colorado Department of Education figures show. The teachers’ union president reviewed the data Watchdog.org obtained and said the nearly $68 million paid to DPS administrators would be better spent on students. “We need to be talking about keeping dollars closer to classroom when it comes to public education,” said Henry Roman, president of the Denver Classroom Teachers Association. “Should they be putting the money...

Warren, who is closely aligned with progressive union groups, ripped Walker in a tweet Saturday for what some saw as a comparison between union members and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria: "If Scott Walker sees 100,000 teachers & firefighters as his enemies, maybe it's time we take a closer look at his friends.” In a speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Thursday, Walker said, “If I can take on 100,000 protestors, I can do the same across the world.” Walker, a possible 2016 presidential candidate for the GOP, tried to walk back his comments after his...

The idea that the mainstream media both loathes and fears Scott Walker is quickly moving past the stage of being a theory and into the realm of facts. Whether it’s attempting to make something out of his lack of a college sheepskin or dreaming up comments to make about cheese, the time honored practice of trying to tear down Republican contenders is well underway. Unfortunately for the talking heads, poll numbers are part and parcel of their business, and as NBC’s First Reads is forced to admit, the Scott Walker train looks to be picking up a head of steam....

In November the frustrations of Maryland’s voters with their state’s failed Democrat leadership finally boiled over and provided Larry Hogan an upset victory over the Democrat’s chosen candidate Lt. Governor Anthony Brown. It would be easy to dismiss this victory as the revenge of Maryland’s far rural parts if places like Howard County, a bedroom community of both Washington, DC and Baltimore, MD, hadn’t also elected new Republican leadership. It’s obvious this election had deeper meaning: voters clearly repudiated the Democrats and their cronies’ failed leadership and commitment to business as usual. Yet, some in Maryland think they can continue...

Here’s a story which you didn’t expect to see coming out of the New York State government. There was a bill on the table which would have exempted New York teachers from being fired if they received the lowest proficiency ratings based on Common Core guidelines. In a bit of irony, this was a bill that Governor Andrew Cuomo had originally proposed himself. But when it came time to finalize it, Cuomo had harsh words for the current system. Declaring the state’s teacher-evaluation system a joke, Gov. Cuomo on Monday night vetoed legislation that would have barred the use of...

For years, teachers’ unions, and the politicians they support, have been equating caring for children with public school funding. Apparently, parents do not agree. The American Enterprise Institute (AEI) released a new report which recounted the results of a poll taken by the group Stand for Children which found that the main issues that parents are concerned about are strong teachers and principals, curriculum and standards, charter schools, pre-Kindergarten and early learning, and equity in education. The issues that are of lower concern to parents? School funding, it turns out, is number 10. Moreover, in the survey, “parents were given...

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...

No matter how high they raise taxes in liberal Illinois, it will never be high enough. This gives an indication of why: In 2011, the Chicago Tribune exposed a pair of Illinois teacher union lobbyists, Stephen Preckwinkle and David Piccioli, who substitute taught for one day and stood to collect nearly $1 million [each!] in state teacher retirement pensions from a severely underfunded system. The five Illinois pension systems have a $100 billion liability and the teachers fund may run out of money as early as 2029. Newspaper editorials, elected officials, the governor and citizens cried foul. Legislation was quickly...

Students at several Jefferson County, Colorado, high schools walked out to protest the school board's recently proposed curriculum review committee that seeks to promote patriotism, respect for authority, free enterprise, plus the positive aspects of U.S. history. The teachers union, whose members forced two high schools to close by calling in sick, is against the implementation of performance-based pay. The union has encouraged and applauded student protests against what it's calling academic censorship.The average parent and taxpayer has little idea of what is being taught to our youngsters. In February 2006, I wrote a column titled "Indoctrination of Our Youth,"...