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A wasted summer: How the Sacramento teachers union leaders are hurting your kids BY MARCOS BRETÓN for the SACRAMENTO BEE AUGUST 26, 2020 05:00 AM A little more than a week until the scheduled Sept. 3 start of instruction at the Sacramento City Unified School district and we still have no distance learning plan for […] Read more »

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE June 27, 2018 CONTACT: Mary Riner (202) 750-0016 | [email protected] U.S. Supreme Court Rules in favor of Mark Janus in Janus v. AFSCME Statement by Jeanne Allen, Founder & CEO It’s a great day in Washington, DC! The high court’s decision strikes a blow for the freedom guaranteed to individuals under the constitution. […] Read more »

The clock’s winding down, and decisions are being handed down, as the end of this session of the Supreme Court draws to a close. Read more »

Favorable decision Janus case could mean better education, expanded opportunity MEDIA ADVISORY Friday, February 22, 2018  CONTACT Christina Mazzanti, Dir., Communications [email protected] (202) 750-0016 Monday: US Supreme Court hears arguments on worker freedom Janus v. AFSCME decision, whether favorable or not, will have wide-ranging implications for public-sector union employees and education at large   (Washington, […] Read more »

On Monday the U.S. Supreme Court hears oral arguments in Janus v. AFSCME. The significance of this case cannot be overstated; the decision could potentially restore the freedom of public employees to choose how they want their hard-earned paychecks spent, and might put decisions about voluntary union membership back into the hands of the employees themselves. Read more »

NEA President Lily Eskelsen Garcia was the featured speaker at the National Press Club last Friday, and served up a heaping portion of partisanship. Read more »

Written by Jeanne Allen, Founder and CEO of the Center for Education Reform  The Chinese term “paper tiger” (zhilaohu) describes someone who appears to have power but who is actually weak and conquerable. It’s a perfect description of the nation’s largest teachers’ unions, something to bear in mind when National Education Association President Lily Eskelsen […] Read more »

The op-ed below by Jeanne Allen appeared in the Wall Street Journal print edition on August 17th, 2017. Randi Weingarten, the leader of the American Federation of Teachers, has insulted millions of students and families. In a speech at a union conference last month, Ms. Weingarten claimed that the school-choice movement has its roots in […] Read more »

STATEMENT BY JEANNE ALLEN, FOUNDER AND CEO “AFT president Randi Weingarten’s characterization of education reform parents and advocates as racists akin to the southern segregationists of the past, is not just ill-advised hyperbole, it is a deeply offensive, highly inflammatory insult to all the parents and people – of all races, backgrounds, and regions – […] Read more »

A one-time charter school supporter, Clinton now does the bidding of the American Federation of Teachers. Read more »

Sixteen years ago, CER was paying close attention to the antics of the BLOB. Sadly, and at the expense of our kids, what’s old is new, as not much has changed… An excerpt from CER’s July 2000 Monthly Letter to Friends: A funny thing happened on the way to the forums… Union forums, that is. […] Read more »

Despite the U.S. declaring its independence from Britain in 1776, Californians are still saddled with teacher union redcoats 240 years later. Read more »

The North Carolina Association of Educators (NCAE)  is under scrutiny for whether or not it has the membership required by law to be able to deduct dues from teachers’ paychecks. State law requires NCAE to have 40,000 members in order to be able to do payroll deductions. According to the News & Observer: An auditor’s […] Read more »

In Wisconsin, unions are required to recertify every year under Act 10. If a union is not recertified, it means that the state is no longer required to collectively bargain with them. Last year, about half of public school teachers unions affiliated with Wisconsin’s largest statewide association voted to recertify themselves for another year, according […] Read more »

Surprise Surprise, unions are at it again, this time in Maryland's Anne Arundel County, pushing a work-to-rule effort that limits teachers to doing just the bare minimum of their contract, which already is narrow in scope and not in the best interest of students. Read more »

As the U.S. Supreme court is considering a case which could strike down laws forcing public employees to pay union dues, teacher unions are gearing up for combating the loss of dues that could result from Fair Share clauses being eliminated from contracts. Check out this Agency Fee Toolkit from the National Education Association (NEA) […] Read more »

Since last year, the NEA lost 42,000 active members, bringing the union’s total losses among active public school employees to more than 310,000 (10.7%) over the past five years. Read more »

As the NEA and AFT gather for their major annual meetings this month, the U.S. Supreme Court could be prepared to strike down laws that force employees to pay union dues. This would be a game-changer for teachers, as they would no longer be forced to pay money to a group that has outlived its […] Read more »

Teachers support school choice and want autonomy and the freedom to choose, according to a February 2015 member survey from the Association of American Educators (AAE). Sixty-eight percent of teachers support blended learning in schools. An even higher 94 percent support course choice, which allows students to enroll in individual courses that may not be offered […] Read more »

EIA Intercept’s Mike Antonucci’s blog post today calls out the irony in a Washington Post letter to the editor written by Elizabeth Davis, president of the Washington Teachers Union (an AFT affiliate), and Delvone Michael, director of DC Working Families. The letter has a problem with the fact that an outside group spent more than $31,000 to […] Read more »

I went over the press releases and statements on the Vergara decision from the various teachers’ unions and have drawn a few inferences about their communications strategy going forward. The language used – and omitted – appears to be highly crafted, polled and focus-grouped. Read more »

Teachers at a Louisiana charter school are pushing for union representation. They claim that the school’s provisions related to contracts and employment decision timelines negatively affect morale and employment potential. Educators insist it’s not about gaining power or an ‘us vs. them’ mentality, but rather meeting what they view as reasonable demands. Orleans Parish had done […] Read more »

In 2014, the gap between teacher union interests and what works in improving student achievement and opportunity continues to widen. Union officials choose to focus on issues unrelated to education and remain opposed to proven policies rooted in choice and accountability. Here s a roundup of a few instances that show how unions continue to […] Read more »

The teachers’ unions are getting very jazzed about their national day of action on Monday. Joy Resmovits of the Huffington Post reports the American Federation of Teachers is laying out $1.2 million on the campaign: Read more »

It’s designed to be an impressive show of force: Thousands of unionized teachers plan to rally Monday in cities from New York to San Francisco to “reclaim the promise of public education.” Read more »

On the eve of the Legislature’s Thanksgiving break, three teachers went before a Senate committee to accuse their union of deception and intimidation. “I just felt I needed to say something because I felt there was something unfair going on,” said Novi special education teacher Susan Bank regarding her unsuccessful effort to stop paying dues […] Read more »

The Arizona Court of Appeals rendered a unanimous ruling in favor of the Empowerment Scholarship Accounts program, which you can read here. In so doing, they completely rejected all of the arguments made by those seeking to destroy the program. Congratulations to our crack legal-eagles at the Institute for Justice, Goldwater Institute and Arizona Attorney General’s […] Read more »

In her new book, “Reign of Error,” Diane Ravitch seeks to discredit many of the arguments advanced by the education reform community. She doesn’t like standardized testing, merit pay for teachers or what she misleadingly calls “privately run” charter schools. From the National Assessment of Education Progress, on whose board she served, to international tests […] Read more »

As the teacher strike moves into its sixth week, students and parents without access to choice will continue to be at the mercy of this union-led temper tantrum. Read more »

During an interview on PBS News Hour, Karen Lewis, president of the Chicago Teachers Union, refers to Chicago as “Chiraq” when being asked a question about teachers unions feeling attacked (12:07). Read more »

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, thinks jail is apparently the way to show her displeasure with Philadelphia schools closing. What happened and what she had to say, here. Read more »

Students in two Michigan districts are not in class today because administration cancelled school, allowing teachers to go protest right-to-work legislation in Lansing. Read more »

Louisiana's story is the latest study in how far the education bureaucracy will go to protect its money and power and resist the competition that comes from school choice, even when it means forcing kids to return to schools that steal their futures. Read more »

Even when reform passes, teachers unions engage in massive resistance. Reforming public education is the civil rights issue of our era, and each year that passes without reform sacrifices thousands more children to union politics. Read more »

The NEA and the AFT spent a lot of money to ensure another four years like the last four. Is that a good thing for them? We’ll see. Read more »

As many as eight of the NEA's 11 largest state affiliates do not have the financial assets to match their liabilities and total almost $400M in combined debt. It's ironic that the internal situation of these affiliates are very similar to situations faced by state governments... Read more »

New Jersey teacher unions rank No. 1 in resources and No. 2 in "perceived influence" according to an analysis of state teacher unions. Read more »

A summary of what the Chicago Teachers Union said it "won" and "wanted to win but didn't" in its contract negotiations with CPS. Read more »

The Education Intelligence Agency provides insight on why there's still no resolution in the Chicago strike. Read more »

Lawyers for Chicago Public Schools were rebuffed today in their hopes of winning a temporary restraining order and immediately ending the teachers strike. Read more »

The way to assess collective bargaining is not to ask whether it works to bring labor peace. It is to ask whether it promotes the interests of children in a quality education. Read more »

The massive teacher strike in Chicago offers a high-profile test for the nation's teacher unions, which have seen their political influence threatened as a growing reform movement seeks to expand charter schools, get private companies involved with failing schools and link teacher evaluations to student test scores. Read more »

Jeanne Allen, president of the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Education Reform, said recall policies do not encourage improvement or change within school districts but rather a status quo that has never led to improvement in educating children. Read more »

The term “Blob” cropped up years ago when reformers began trying to work with the education establishment and ran smack into the more than 200 groups, associations, federations, alliances, departments, offices, administrations, councils, boards, commissions, panels, organizations, herds, flocks and coveys, which collectively make up the education industrial complex. Read more »

Windy City teachers are striking, but the average teacher salary in Chicago is $71,000 and teacher evaluations and seniority policies aren't near as tough as they could be. Read more »

The alleged willingness of the unions to engage in conversations about teacher quality and to call for an end to failing schools has all been interpreted as a sign that they have turned the corner. Some of us have remained unconvinced, recognizing that many often confuse action with rhetoric. The Chicago teacher’s strike of 2012 settles the issue once and for all. Read more »

A video produced by the Moving Picture Institute in partnership with Reason TV explains why the current K-12 education system is designed to produce more money for unions and more donations for politicians, and thus isn't designed to produce better schools. Read more »

According to the Education Intelligence Agency, National Education Association members aren't too fired up about the upcoming presidential election. Read more »

With membership down and expected to keep declining, we're keeping up to speed with what's being said at the National Education Association's annual meeting in Washington, D.C. Read more »

The recent strike authorization vote shows the Chicago teachers union is serious about maintaining the status quo in the face of proposed reforms that Mayor Emanuel has backed. Read more »

As if costing 7,000 students their education is bad enough, striking teachers are also costing taxpayers more than they might realize. The average salary and benefit cost per teacher in Neshaminy is $107,002. Read more »

The New York district stands to lose money for failing schools since the union won't sign off on a teacher evaluation agreement. Read more »

The first parent trigger attempt in Compton, California, failed, but that hasn't stopped Desert Trails elementary parents from pursuing better educational opportunities for their kids. Read more »

The Association of American Educators testifies in favor of a bill that penalizes Utah districts that fail to comply with current law allowing all education associations equal access to schools. Read more »

Videographers lurk outside New Jersey Education Association headquarters in hopes of trying to catch NJEA executive director, Vincent Giordano, in another embarrassing moment after his controversial voucher comment. Read more »

The Chicago Teachers Union is behind the protest at Mayor Rahm Emanuel's house, according to press releases handed out by CPS officials. Read more »

The Garden State Virtual Charter School , a proposal by New Jersey residents looking to provide more personalized learning for their children, was attacked by educrats and denizens in their little hamlet of Teaneck and beyond, for trying to do something, well, different. Read more »

All the talk about caring about the kids, the parents. Ha. The nation's second largest teachers union got caught telling members how they really feel about parents' involvement in the education of their offspring. Read more »

When the NJ Commissioner of Education approved the Princeton International Academy Charter School (PIACS), he probably didn't know that the district would fight so vigorously to thwart his authority – and the Governor's authority by extension – so vehemently. Read more »

There's an old saying in ed reform; when the NSBA and AASA want something, it must not be reform. That's the case – again – with their call for blanket waivers from NCLB. Wow, it was just a matter of time till they could get away from the heat in the kitchen. Read more »

New Orleans, Louisiana’s (NOLA) ed establishment has mounted a fight they hope carries hurricane force winds to the Big Easy, knocking out the careful and successful repair work of the state’s -- and perhaps the south’s -- worst school system. Read more »