The National Education Association (NEA) and its state affiliates push an agenda that benefits union bosses at taxpayer expense. In America’s 28 forced-unionism states, teachers in NEA-organized schools who opt not to join must still pay dues, creating a huge pot of money for NEA to spend portraying teachers as victims and union bosses as their only friends.

NEA calls its political action committee “The NEA Fund for Children & Public Education.” Subtle, right? But NEA doesn’t stop at spending tens of millions on Progressives who will shovel money at public education without demanding reform for broken tenure and compensation policies. The nonpartisan materials on NEA’s member-funded website include, to sample a few recent items:

• Why School Choice Fails
• The ‘Right to Work’ Assault on the Middle Class
• The Case Against Vouchers

Given the union’s claim to stand for Middle Class workers, a casual observer might expect the salaries of NEA officers and staff to resemble the average working stiff’s. That casual observer would be very, very wrong.

(more…)

“A Tale of Two Missions” – a film by Juan Williams and Kyle Olson (and directed by Chicago-based Andrew Marcus) – tells the story of competing cultures in American education through examples from Chicago.

See the internet-only abridged version here:

While the fight for school choice rages across the nation, perhaps no better example exists than that of the Windy City.  Traditional alliances are breaking down.  Both political parties are pushing for education reform and expanded school choice.  The status quo is under attack, because most reasonable people understand that thousands of Chicago students are trapped in failing schools.

But the education establishment, led by the radical Chicago Teachers Union, is not willing to give an inch to allow better choices for underserved students. And the union still has enough money, influence and legal standing to make reform efforts difficult to implement.

The film features the Noble Street College Prep charter school and the amazing results its teachers and leaders are delivering for students and parents of Chicago.  It also exposes the entrenched educational establishment bent on stifling school choice options and preserving its monopoly on state education dollars.

(more…)

These days a lot of school budgets are being held together by the accounting equivalents of bailing wire and duct tape. But one Pennsylvania school district is so broke that it needs the state to provide the wire and the tape.

The Chester Upland School District began this week with only $100,000 in its savings account, and had no way of meeting its $1 million payroll – that is, until a judge ordered the state to give the district a  $3.2 million advance in its allowance, reports the Philadelphia Inquirer.

The money will allow the teachers to be paid and the lights to remain on, at least for a few more weeks. The district is on track to be $20 million in debt by the end of the school year.

“Anxious parents are looking at other options for their children, such as sending them to private schools or having them live with relatives and go to other public schools,” the Daily Journal reported two days before the bailout was announced.

What’s causing Chester Upland’s financial meltdown?

(more…)

The proximity of the New Hampshire and South Carolina Republican primaries sets up an interesting discussion over the fate of right-to-work among the states. Indeed, after New Hampshire’s Republican voters cast their ballots for their party’s nominee for the general election, its legislators were already holding hearings to determine whether or not to transform New Hampshire into a right-to-work state. On the other hand, South Carolina’s status as right-to-work was made famous by President Obama’s assault on non-unionized jobs brought to the state by Boeing Co.

Remembering the old adage, “all politics is local,” Republican candidates weighed in on this topic during two consecutive debates in New Hampshire earlier this month. Mitt Romney claimed “Right-to-work legislation makes a lot of sense for New Hampshire.” In fact, it makes more sense for New Hampshire’s legislature to implement this policy than for most other local governments. How can the “Live Free or Die” state deny its workers the basic liberty to choose which organizations they associate with and contribute money to? Why would one of the first states to ratify our national Constitution continue to impose a policy that contradicts that document’s emphasis on freedom of assembly? In a nation of citizens who value their freedoms, right-to-work should be a common sense principle rather than a rare policy only enacted by 22 of 50 states. No one is doubting a worker’s right to join a union, so why must today’s liberals doubt their right to not join one?

Next Rick Perry asserted that a right-to-work labor market would make New Hampshire a “powerful magnet” for jobs in the region. Indeed since no other Northeastern state has adopted similar legislation yet, if New Hampshire became right-to-work, that state would be the first in the region to do so. As a result, any skilled workers in the area hesitant about union membership or businesses unable to meet the demands of unreasonable union bosses would flock to New Hampshire, providing a significant boost to its economy.

Although purporting to be the party that supports workers’ rights, the Democrats have risen in unified opposition to guaranteeing American laborers one of their most fundamental freedoms: the ability to choose whether or not to join a union. For instance, the Democratic Governor of New Hampshire, John Lynch, vetoed a previous right-to-work bill passed overwhelmingly by his state’s legislature.

(more…)

Pennsylvania’s Neshaminy Federation of Teachers has agreed to end its nearly two-week strike, and members will return to the classroom Friday morning. But that doesn’t mean the nastiness is over.

The school board had refused to continue contract negotiations while the union was on strike, which means the disagreements about future pay raises, health insurance contributions and retroactive pay are still unresolved.

State law requires that a three-member arbitration panel be brought in to help assist negotiations, reports PhillyBurbs.com. The panel will make its non-binding recommendations by spring. If the district and the union still cannot agree, the NFT has the legal option of going on strike a second time this school year.

School board President Ritchie Webb said that a second strike would prompt the district to file an injunction with the state, asking that the teachers be ordered back to work.

“Teachers need to understand that you can strike until the cows come home, but it doesn’t create more money in the district,” Webb said. “We have limited resources.”

The community seems to have had enough of the NFT’s selfish behavior, too.

(more…)

Dannel Malloy, Connecticut’s Democratic and Working Families Party Governor, told citizens of his state last year that the highest tax increase in the history of Connecticut, including a retroactive state income tax hike, would balance his state’s budget. It appears he was wrong. Bloomberg has reported that Connecticut will have a $94.9 million revenue shortfall in fiscal year 2012. In addition, official estimates indicate that the state’s revenues will trail by $139 million in fiscal year 2013.

Minimizing the significance of the shortfall, Gov. Malloy said in a press release:

All today’s announcement means is that, as is the case in other states with high wage earners, fourth quarter revenue is coming up short of expectations. That’s why today, I’ve instructed Secretary Barnes to pare back on current year expenses.  But let there be no confusion – we will end the current fiscal year in the black, and in a more stable fashion than this state has seen in many years.

Blaming the shortfall on the “uncertainty surrounding the extension of the Bush-era tax cuts,” Mr. Malloy said that such “uncertainty at the federal level” resulted in taxpayers’ shift of capital gains and income, as well as declines in bonus levels in the financial service industry.

Last year, Gov. Malloy used the tax hike to balance his state’s budget against a public sector union concession package that actually required few concessions of unions: no layoffs for four years and no furloughs; wages frozen for two years, then followed by three annual 3 percent raises; retirement age raised by only two years, and not until after 2022; and minor changes in health benefits such as mandatory annual physician visits and mail-order prescription plans.

(more…)

University of Wisconsin Professor Joel Rogers wants to build a lefty alternative to the ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council. He recently hit up some of his students for help with the project, while they were waiting for their grades in his class.

This from our first article in an ongoing investigation conducted by the MacIver News Service. Future stories will focus on any official reaction we receive from the University and an indepth look at Rogers’ Center on Wisconsin Strategy.

Joel Rogers Says College Credits May Be Available to Those Who Help Build Liberal Alternative to ALEC

[Madison, Wisc…] One of the University of Wisconsin’s most renowned liberal professors attempted to recruit his students to work on an elaborate private political project while final grades in their class were pending, the MacIver News Service has learned.

At the conclusion of his end-of-the-year email to his UW Law School students, Professor Joel Rogers wrote: “I think I mentioned a little project I’m doing now — which thus far involves professors from such crummy law schools as Yale, Harvard, Stanford, Columbia, Cornell, University of Michigan, University of Minnesota, Virgina [sic] and elsewhere, but thus far, beyond your lonesome, NOBODY from UW — to build a partial counter to ALEC. It’s going to involve a lot of law students. If you’re interested in helping out with that (no money, but possible credit), or know of somebody else who might be, please let me, or even better, “Nate Ela” <nela@cows.org>, a lawyer and now sociology grad student, know. Project description attached.“

Rogers is the Director of the Center on Wisconsin Strategy, a 501(c)(3) nonpartisan, educational, and charitable organization. COWS was founded in 1992 by Rogers, a professor of Law, Political Science, and Sociology at UW-Madison and a longtime commentator on economic development and democratic institutions. COWS is based at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, in the Social Science Building.

(more…)

This Big Labor supporter had a fever and the only prescription was more cowbell.

The Appleton Post Crescent reports:

Two misdemeanor charges have been filed against an Appleton woman accused of hitting a police officer as he tried to restrain her husband after ringing a cowbell in the officer’s face.

Ashley C. Montour, 25, was charged in Winnebago County Circuit Court Tuesday with disorderly conduct and resisting/obstructing an officer, both misdemeanor offenses. If convicted, she faces one year in the county jail and $11,000 in fines.

According to the criminal complaint, Oshkosh police were responding to a report of a group of demonstrators outside of Robbins Restaurant, 1810 Omro Road, who were blocking the driveway and making a lot of noise.

When an officer arrived, he saw a group of six to eight people standing on the sidewalk in front of the restaurant with Recall Walker signs. Some were yelling and others were making noise with other objects such as trashcan covers or cowbells.

(more…)

New York City government schools have had some pretty outrageous policies.  Rubber rooms were a great example.  They were special places created for teachers accused of crimes, incompetence and the like. Due to state tenure laws, it actually cost less to house the failed teachers in a location where they couldn’t inflict more damage on students, than to go through the lengthy and expensive legal process necessary to fire them.

Thanks Big Labor!

Now New York administrators are trying to deep-six a program created a few years ago in the collective bargaining agreement with the United Federation of Teachers: the Absent Teacher Reserve.

What’s this?  A creation of bureaucrats, politicians and labor bosses, the ATR is comprised of teachers who literally have no classroom for one reason or another. Due to a labor contract stipulation, they can’t be fired or laid off, and continue to draw the same salaries as full-time teachers. They’re put into the ATR pool, where they may be assigned to work as substitutes, clerks, or perhaps to do nothing at all.

They’re clearly not needed, and collectively they make a great deal of money. How’s that for management of taxpayer dollars?

(more…)

Watch this brave and honest public employee at the end of this video.

The MacIver Institute and The Americans for Prosperity Foundation sponsored an It’s Working! town hall meeting on Saturday, January 7, 2012 in Southeast Wisconsin.

Participants heard from local and state lawmakers about how the recent budget reforms are saving budgets and benefiting taxpayers across Wisconsin. But one gentleman who wasn’t on the roster of speakers stole the show. During the Q and A session of the morning, this brave state employee explains how generous his benefits are, thanks taxpayers for them and thanks lawmakers for having the opportunity to have a voice in whether or not he wants to belong in a a union.

(more…)

ST. PAUL, Minn. – Does time stand still in the St. Paul school district?

If it does, that would explain why its teachers union, the St. Paul Federation of Teachers, is using contract negotiations to insist on a hard cap on class sizes.

For nearly a decade, there has been a consensus among education experts that when it comes to student achievement, teacher quality is far more important than class size. The research has so consistently downplayed the value of smaller class sizes that most scholars consider it a settled matter.

Assuming that the St. Paul Federation of Teachers is not stuck in some bizarre time warp, why is the union ignoring the research and insisting that strict class size limits be written into its new teachers’ contract?

According to SPFT President Mary Cathryn Ricker, capping class sizes is a way to guarantee St. Paul families that their children will receive personalized attention from their teachers, which she says is a necessary ingredient for a student’s success.

“This proposal is about meeting the needs of our students so that we can … quickly close this achievement gap,” Ricker told TwinCities.com.

Eric Hanushek, a leading scholar in the field of class sizes and teacher quality, offers a different theory.

(more…)

For the second time in a session that is only weeks old, Indiana House Democrats refused to show up for work on Tuesday, effectively delaying the passage of right-to-work legislation. The first delay was a three-day boycott that finished with Democrats coming back to the table to continue other legislative business. House Republicans expected to have a vote on the contentious right to-work bill after Democrat leader B. Patrick Bauer (known for vainly sporting a toupee) made public and private promises that his caucus would show up and participate in the legislative process.

But while Bauer and his fellow Democrats have been throwing temper tantrums and obstructing legislative business, other opponents of right-to-work legislation have been busy producing and distributing studies that purport to show how the reform would hurt Indiana’s economy. The several studies and reports reach a variety of conclusions. Some say that right-to-work would undermine private sector pension plans and others say that the reform will not have any meaningful impact on drawing job creators – especially those in the manufacturing sector – to the state. South Carolina’s success in attracting a new Boeing plant seems to go unmentioned.

Leading the way among those providing intellectual firepower and talking points for pro-union right to-work opponents is the Economic Policy Institute. EPI, a D.C. based think-tank that specializes in state-based research, has released a steady stream of information and research allegedly debunking the benefits of the reform and calling on Indiana policymakers to bend to union demands by killing the legislation.

(more…)

GRANT, Mich.  – Ever wonder what it costs to quit a labor union?

For one Michigan educator, the annual costs of “non-membership” in the local, state and national teacher unions total $544.28.

But Andrew Buikema, 10-year teacher with Grant Public Schools, is willing to pay the price, just for the privilege of being seen as a true professional, instead of a union worker.

Michigan is not a “right to work” state, which means Buikema’s job is still affected by the district’s contract with the local teachers union, the Grant Education Association. The GEA is affiliated with the Michigan Education Association and the National Education Association.

Buikema has been trying to leave the union since last spring, when he realized that GEA leaders were uninterested in helping the district control costs, even in the face of a multi-million dollar deficit.

By refusing to make wage and benefit concessions, the union contributed to conditions that led to 27 teachers – including Buikema – receiving layoff notices. The district was also forced into making cuts to student academic and extracurricular programs.

Buikema’s job was saved at the last minute, but he was disgusted by the union’s selfishness.

(more…)

However they market themselves, public unions are political by nature, brimming partisanship that goes beyond their skewed campaign spending. Every Republican teacher, public safety worker, and government employee forced to pay “fair share” dues should be outraged.

My state’s National Education Association (NEA) affiliate, the Ohio Education Association (OEA), takes millions in fees from non-members each year. Operating on NEA’s model, OEA insists all teachers be forced to pay for the union’s non-political business. This would be well and good, if OEA conducted any non-political business.

From the union’s mission statement:

OEA believes that for those whose business is public education, activism is an obligation.

OEA has the same definition of “activism” as every garden variety leftist group: Demand bigger government under the guise of fairness and equality. For example, ACORN’s 2005-06 Political Program (hat tip: Publius’ Forum) lists OEA as a “Coalition Partner” -

We see the combination of these efforts as key to maintaining and expanding the level of electoral participation by more progressive voters in the state, along with playing a role in pushing voter alignment along axes of community concerns and economic security.

In other words, OEA worked with ACORN to push the entitlement mindset and get entitlement-minded voters to the polls. For… the children?

(more…)

The Big-Labor backed Walker Recall coalition says they’ve turned in a million signatures today, well in excess of the 540,000 necessary to trigger a recall later this year. Our report:

(more…)

MADISON, Wis. (AP) – Supporters of an unprecedented effort to oust Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker from office said they will turn in more than enough signatures Tuesday to force the Republican into a recall election barely a year into his first term.

Walker, however, has no plans to be anywhere near the Capitol when recall organizers turn in the signatures by Tuesday’s deadline. The governor is scheduled to be in New York when organizers say they will be unloading the stacks of petitions, weighing a ton, from a truck and hauling them into the state election board’s offices.

(more…)

Earlier this week, I explained why Mitt Romney is a Republican version of Barack Obama. His transgressions include being open to a value-added tax, a less-than-stellar record on healthcare, weakness on Social Security reform, an anemic list of proposed budget savings, and support for reprehensible ethanol subsidies.

Now we can add something else to the list. He wants to cut off the bottom rungs of the economic ladder and hurt low-skilled workers.

Here are a couple of passages from a report in the Oregonian.

Mitt Romney…continues to be a supporter of indexing the minimum wage for inflation. Oregon and Washington were among the first states to index their own minimum wages to inflation – nine states now do so – and it’s a favorite of liberals… Romney campaigned in favor of indexing the minimum wage when he ran for governor in 2002.  However, ABC News noted in 2007 that he wasn’t sure he supported indexing the federalminimum wage (which is lower than the minimum wage in several states).  In this new video, you could quibble that he doesn’t explicitly say he’s talking about the federal minimum — but that sure seems to be the tenor of his comments.

In other words, Romney is willing to condemn lower-skilled workers to unemployment, in hopes that he will gain some sort of short-term political advantage. In this regard, he will be just like Bush.

(more…)

Newt Gingrich has had his ups and downs lately in the Republican Presidential primary. Though much of the setback has been due to his own miscues, he recently hit the nail on the proverbial head when he proclaimed that the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) should be defunded. There is no doubt that Obama’s recent recess appointments to the National Labor Relations Board were motivated by his desire to bring Big Labor on board for the 2012 Election run as recounted in last week’s blog Will the NLRB Decide the 2012 Presidential Election. Newt was correct in stating that defunding the NLRB is the right response to an imperialistic President who intentionally circumvented the spirit of the law for personal gain and philosophical ideology.

Besides legal measures, the only current means to defeat The Cold War Within: The Fight for America’s Future is for the Republican dominated congress to utilize its budgetary power and defund the Rogue NLRB. Such action is even more imperative now, according to Phil Wilson in his latest issue of Union Bailout Update, where he expresses that the two new Democratic appointees, Sharon Block and Richard Griffin, are even more radical than Craig Becker, which is unimaginable. Additionally, Mr. Wilson expressed that Board Chairman Mark Pearce is the true engine behind achieving Card Check, and that the recent appointments provide Pierce the radical majority he needs to achieve Obama’s and Big Labor’s coveted goal of an Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) style regulatory scheme, aka “EFCA Through the Backdoor,” in time to support Obama’s 2012 Presidential run.

The goal is to implement new regulations such as the “Persuader Rule,” “quickie elections,” and the Posting Rule,  as described in Phil Wilson’s 2012 Predictions that will allow Big Labor to utilize the Persuasion of Power to prosecute brutal Corporate Campaigns against employees and employers in time to raise money, register voters and put union foot soldiers on the ground for the 2012 Election. The frightening political machines behind them are recounted in my new book The Devil at Our Doorstep.

(more…)

The National Right To Work (NRTW) joined by the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), and Coalition for a Democratic Workplace (CDW) took off the legal gloves and are forcing the Obama Administration to defend its unconstitutional appointments to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).   Some say that President Barack Obama is creating a serious constitutional crisis.

This is the first legal challenge regarding these NLRB Board appointees who Obama appointed without a U.S. Senate confirmation process; but, more are expected.

From the NRTW release:

Washington, DC (January 13, 2012) – Today, National Right to Work Foundation attorneys filed a motion in federal court challenging the legality of President Barack Obama’s recent purported recess appointments to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).

The legal challenge is part of a larger case attacking controversial new NLRB rules that require every employer to post incomplete information about employee rights online and in the workplace, even if they’ve never violated or been accused of breaking federal law. The NLRB’s posting rules do not require union officials to issue information about workers’ rights to refrain from union membership or opt out of union dues. Currently employers can only be required to post notices if the Board has ruled that a violation of labor law occurred.

The Foundation’s case has been consolidated with other legal challenges to the biased NLRB notice posting rules brought by the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), Coalition for a Democratic Workplace (CDW), and two small businesses. Those parties filed the joint motion today raising the issue of the NLRB’s lack of authority to implement the rule given the unprecedented recess appointments.

The new filings in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia case comes after NLRB lawyers notified the court that President Obama’s recent recess appointees were now parties in the ongoing legal battle. Under the U.S. Supreme Court’s New Process Steel decision, the NLRB needs three members to act. However three of the five current NLRB members were installed by unilateral Presidential appointment earlier this year, despite the fact that the Senate was not in a self-declared recess.

(more…)

INDIANAPOLIS – Would you like a vivid example of how dysfunctional leadership and top-heavy bureaucracy can cripple an inner-city school system?
Just take a good look at Indianapolis Public Schools. The horrifying results speak for themselves.

Less than 60 percent of IPS students graduate high school on time, third- and eighth-graders score more than 20 percentage points below the state average on math and English tests, and six out of seven of Indiana’s worst schools are within the district.

Those sobering statistics are the impetus behind an encouraging new proposal to remake the district, drafted by education reformers at The Mind Trust, an Indianapolis nonprofit charter school advocacy group.

In the report – “Creating Opportunity Schools, A Bold Plan to Transform Indianapolis Public Schools” – The Mind Trust outlines how excessive and illogical labor spending in the district could be redirected into classrooms, where it belongs.

The report calls for drastic restructuring of the district, including decentralizing of the administration, expanding school choice, and giving high performing schools greater control over their budgets and staffs.

(more…)