Teachers Unions
Commentary
One Last Hope for DC Voucher Program
In early May, President Obama presented a revised 2010 budget that included $12.2 million for the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program. The proposal represented a “compromise” solution to DC’s embattled voucher program, but is hardly a gain for low-income students and their parents. The DC voucher plan currently awards up to ...
Commentary
Report Affirms Alternative Credentialing for Teachers
A new study released by the U.S. government reveals teachers credentialed through alternative programs do just as good a job in the classroom as those credentialed through teaching colleges. The Institute for Educational Science (IES) study, “An Evaluation of Teachers Trained through Different Routes to Certification,” released in February, provides ...
Commentary
Court Rules Tax-Credit Scholarship Program Constitutional
On April 21, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a tax-credit scholarship program remains constitutional under the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution. The ruling marks the latest failure by opponents of parental choice in education to halt the program and spells good news for California. Choice opponents ...
Commentary
A Proposition for Better Student Performance?
SACRAMENTO – The special election of May 19 is less than a month away and the California Teacher’s Association (CTA), the state’s most powerful union, is spending a lot of money to pass Propositions 1A and 1B. The measures, however, do nothing for education except make a complicated system more ...
Commentary
Education Achievement Has Declined Radically Since World War II
Weapons of Mass Instruction by John Taylor Gatto Gabriola Island, BC, Canada: New Society Publishers, 2009 206 pages, hardcover, ISBN: 978-0-86571-631-5, $24.95 John Taylor Gatto’s Weapons of Mass Instruction is an articulate, compelling description of the state of U.S. education, in which the author details the unnecessary and in fact ...
Commentary
Obama’s Education “Reforms”
In his first big education speech earlier this month, President Barack Obama tried to show that he is a reformer, and not a shill for the education special interests that dominate the Democratic Party. While he had a few worthwhile ideas, others sounded good until one turned to the details. ...
Commentary
March 6 rally can stop ‘Monopoly’ players from passing ‘Go’
ABC’s John Stossel in a “20/20” report examined America’s education system in a segment called “Stupid in America.” It wasn’t pretty. Teacher unions and bought-and-sold politicians don’t look so good when a reporter of Stossel’s ilk tells the unvarnished truth about public schools. The unions moaned, and one in New ...
California
The Obama Stimulus, Education, and California
Now that President Obama has signed the three-quarter-of-a-trillion-dollar stimulus package, which contains $100 billion for public schools, many observers on the left and the right are concluding that the package won’t change very much in America’s underperforming government education system. The stimulus package contains various pots of money for public ...
Commentary
Reform, Not Report Cards, Will Cure Schools
In an effort to show greater accountability for results, school districts across the country from Florida to Missouri to California are issuing so-called school report cards, which contain data on various indicators of student and school performance. Ray Cortines, superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), recently announced ...
Commentary
The CTA’s Latest Ads: A Dishonest Defense of a Dysfunctional Monopoly
Flash Report (CA), January 23, 2009 Public school funding is plunging to the bottom of the national spending barrel, and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s latest budget “attack” on education is to blame—or so the California Teachers Association claims. In their latest statewide radio ad campaign, the CTA claims California “sank” to ...
One Last Hope for DC Voucher Program
In early May, President Obama presented a revised 2010 budget that included $12.2 million for the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program. The proposal represented a “compromise” solution to DC’s embattled voucher program, but is hardly a gain for low-income students and their parents. The DC voucher plan currently awards up to ...
Report Affirms Alternative Credentialing for Teachers
A new study released by the U.S. government reveals teachers credentialed through alternative programs do just as good a job in the classroom as those credentialed through teaching colleges. The Institute for Educational Science (IES) study, “An Evaluation of Teachers Trained through Different Routes to Certification,” released in February, provides ...
Court Rules Tax-Credit Scholarship Program Constitutional
On April 21, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a tax-credit scholarship program remains constitutional under the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution. The ruling marks the latest failure by opponents of parental choice in education to halt the program and spells good news for California. Choice opponents ...
A Proposition for Better Student Performance?
SACRAMENTO – The special election of May 19 is less than a month away and the California Teacher’s Association (CTA), the state’s most powerful union, is spending a lot of money to pass Propositions 1A and 1B. The measures, however, do nothing for education except make a complicated system more ...
Education Achievement Has Declined Radically Since World War II
Weapons of Mass Instruction by John Taylor Gatto Gabriola Island, BC, Canada: New Society Publishers, 2009 206 pages, hardcover, ISBN: 978-0-86571-631-5, $24.95 John Taylor Gatto’s Weapons of Mass Instruction is an articulate, compelling description of the state of U.S. education, in which the author details the unnecessary and in fact ...
Obama’s Education “Reforms”
In his first big education speech earlier this month, President Barack Obama tried to show that he is a reformer, and not a shill for the education special interests that dominate the Democratic Party. While he had a few worthwhile ideas, others sounded good until one turned to the details. ...
March 6 rally can stop ‘Monopoly’ players from passing ‘Go’
ABC’s John Stossel in a “20/20” report examined America’s education system in a segment called “Stupid in America.” It wasn’t pretty. Teacher unions and bought-and-sold politicians don’t look so good when a reporter of Stossel’s ilk tells the unvarnished truth about public schools. The unions moaned, and one in New ...
The Obama Stimulus, Education, and California
Now that President Obama has signed the three-quarter-of-a-trillion-dollar stimulus package, which contains $100 billion for public schools, many observers on the left and the right are concluding that the package won’t change very much in America’s underperforming government education system. The stimulus package contains various pots of money for public ...
Reform, Not Report Cards, Will Cure Schools
In an effort to show greater accountability for results, school districts across the country from Florida to Missouri to California are issuing so-called school report cards, which contain data on various indicators of student and school performance. Ray Cortines, superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), recently announced ...
The CTA’s Latest Ads: A Dishonest Defense of a Dysfunctional Monopoly
Flash Report (CA), January 23, 2009 Public school funding is plunging to the bottom of the national spending barrel, and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s latest budget “attack” on education is to blame—or so the California Teachers Association claims. In their latest statewide radio ad campaign, the CTA claims California “sank” to ...
