If one was looking for fiery, crowd pleasing, political rhetoric from former Speaker Newt Gingrich as he addressed CPAC today, they were likely disappointed. What Gingrich did do was run through a litany of policy solutions he claimed he has committed to implement immediately upon taking office in January of 2013.

Contrasting an America that can versus an America that can’t, Gingrich compared America’s speed and might in winning WWII versus her current inability to seal its own border. In a lighter moment, the former Speaker contrasted the efficiency of package tracking by Federal Express with the government’s inability to track illegal immigrants, suggesting sending each one a package may be the best way to apprehend the latter.

He also mentioned repealing Obamacare, Dodd Frank, and Sarbanes Oxley on his first day in office. He stated his desire to be a “paycheck president” versus a “food stamp president,” a term he used to denigrate Barack Obama.

Calling for a Fall campaign focused on substance, Gingrich also mentioned eliminating the Capital Gains tax and implementing 100% expensing for all new equipment written off in one year to help get the economy growing. Additionally, he called for a modernization of the workforce, proposing that unemployment compensation be linked to business training programs to avoid paying people for 99 weeks “for doing nothing.” (more…)

LANSING, Mich. – During a legislative hearing at Michigan’s state capitol last week, a member of the education establishment made a stunning admission about how parents are viewed by the “experts.”

Debbie Squires, associate director of the Michigan Elementary and Middle School Principals Association, explained to members of the House Education Committee why her association opposed allowing more cyber (or online) schools to operate in the state.

“Educators go through education for a reason,” Squires said. “They are the people who know best about how to serve children. That’s not necessarily true of an individual resident. I’m not saying they don’t want the best for their children, but they may not know what actually is best from an education standpoint.”

Committee chairman Tom McMillin, a Republican, seemed taken aback by Squires’ comments.

“Wow … Parents don’t know what’s best for their child?” McMillin asked.

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COLUMBIA, S.C. – It seems that most states are looking to reform their K-12 public education system, either out of necessity – lack of money, low student achievement – or on the principle that families should have the right to choose their child’s education.

South Carolina is no different. During the current legislative session, state lawmakers are expected to consider a number of education reforms, including the possibility of increasing the number of charter schools in the state, linking teacher pay to student learning, and giving principals the power to fire ineffective teachers.

What distinguishes the Palmetto State’s K-12 reform debate from all the others is that it’s being led by an outspoken, retired Army brigadier general and former college president who is eager to take on the “liberal education establishment.”

State Superintendent of Education Mick Zais, a Republican, won election in 2010 by a huge margin of 108,000 votes. He has been in office for just over a year, but he has rankled lawmakers of both political parties by refusing to accept federal education dollars from President Obama’s Race to the Top initiative that gives states money in exchange for approved school reforms.

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Well, at least the kids weren’t singing – everybody now – “Mmm mmm mmm…Barack Hussein Obama.”  But the latest example of Big Education fawning over Barack Obama isn’t much better.

On Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, Cass Elementary School in Livonia, Michigan aired a video of still images of Obama, with a speech by King and – strangely – a Bob Marley song playing in the background.

The students looked about as interested as if they were watching paint dry.

It’s unclear how long the song actually was, as the citizen journalist video is 1:20 long and the song was clearly longer.

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Are Wisconsin and Ohio still presidential swing states? Republicans swept to power in the Badger State and the Buckeye State in 2010. During the past year, Governor Walker and Governor Kasich have refused to settle for taxation & spending trends that drove away hundreds of thousands of jobs between 2000 and 2011.

If Midwestern voters see the benefits of free-market reforms at the state level, it’ll be bleak news for Barack Obama’s 2012 class warfare roadshow.

Early results for Walker and Kasich have been mixed, as they’ve both been demonized relentlessly by Big Labor. Wisconsin Democrats fled to protect their union financiers, but Walker and the Wisconsin GOP prevailed. How’s that working for taxpayers?

According to a report by the MacIver Institute, as of September 1, “at least 25 school districts in the Badger State had reported switching health care providers/plans or opening insurance bidding to outside companies.” The institute calculates that these steps will save the districts $211.45 per student. If the state’s other 250 districts currently served by WEA Trust follow suit, the savings statewide could reach hundreds of millions of dollars.

If Big Labor’s failure in Wisconsin Senate recall races is any sign, voters can do the math.

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RACINE, Wis. – Left-wing Wisconsin teacher Al Levie believes his mission in the classroom is to help students “become engines of positive change in our society.”

Some of his former students, however, describe their experience in his class a little bit differently.

“This man is a socialist and proud of it. Not someone I wanted to learn from and I feel that I was not taught the truth,” a former student wrote on the popular website RateMyTeachers.com. “I was only taught the propagandized version of the truth. This man is a danger to American society.”

Another student described him as “a wolf in sheep’s clothing,” and advises parents, “do not allow your kids to attend his class.

“He is the reason our high schools/colleges have become so progressive and this type of influence just solidifies our entitlement society.”

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Fear the sweater vest!

So much for Governor Mitch Daniels’ “truce” on social issues. Rick Santorum refused to raise the white flag on his principles and charged ahead. Tonight he celebrates a trifecta victory in Missouri, Minnesota, and Colorado, all but shattering the myth of Romney’s inevitable cruise to victory in the presidential primary.

I’ll admit it. I didn’t see it coming. To be sure, this victory comes with caveats, as I wrote here. Santorum picked up only five delegates tonight and has 22 delegates to Romney’s 106, but it’s a move in the right direction. (The delegate count is here.)

But Santorum understands something that few of the other candidates can put into words: that the power to mandate is the power to compel and compulsion must be grounded on something higher than the mere will of the sovereign. This is a very effective argument against Barack Obama, but it it also a very effective one against Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich, who also supported the Wall Street bailouts, cap and trade (taxing breathing) and of course, the individual mandate in health insurance. Both Gingrich and Romney are essentially progressives in their view that there is nothing government mustn’t do.

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Fresh on the heels of an exclusive report detailing a 7-day Caribbean cruise that National Education Association staffers are currently enjoying, Education Action Group has learned that dozens of teachers unions around the country are running out of money.

According to reports published by the National Staff Organization – a group made up of NEA and state affiliate union staffers:

“Fifteen states are considered to be financially distressed because of membership loss and their very survival is in jeopardy. And because of financial hardship, 41 state executives are on NEA’s payroll instead of being paid by their state. Two states—Indiana and South Carolina—remain under an NEA trusteeship.”

Teachers union accounts are buying red pens by the box these days.

NSO President Chuck Agerstrand called it a lesson in “trickle-down economics.”

Or maybe it’s just “trickle-down karma.”

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Imagine your organization is facing attacks from all sides.  Imagine it’s losing members and revenue.  Imagine governors and mayors – of both political parties – publicly denouncing your industry as “broken” and move swiftly to stifle your power and influence, while you flail away helplessly.

What to do?  What else to do but go down drinking?

That’s what members of the National Education Association’s National Staff Organization have apparently decided.  The NSO is an association of sorts for teachers’ union staff – political and communications types.

Following an “Advocacy Retreat” with the theme “Building Our Unionism,” members set sail on a 7-day cruise from Miami on February 5^th “with stops at Cozumel, Grand Cayman Island and Isla Roatan.”  Sounds fun!  [In case the Facebook link disappears, never fear: here’s a PDF of the NSO newsletter.]

Guess what union staff?  There are going to be cameras all over the ship documenting your every move – from every Fuzzy Navel to every game of shuffle board. Just think how your rank-and-file members might appreciate seeing all the “fun in the sun” you’re having, courtesy of their dues dollars.

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Here’s a headline from a Minnesota Public Radio news story that should cause some sleepless nights for leaders of the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers: “Teacher seniority, NCLB top education in low-key legislative session.”

The story reports that Minnesota lawmakers want to end the practice of basing teacher layoffs on seniority rankings, a disgusting practice known as “last in, first out.”

The state currently mandates “that schools use quality-blind seniority privileges for retention decisions,” said state Rep. Pat Garofalo, a Republican, according to MPR News.

“That doesn’t work; it’s being widely criticized. I think we’ll take a look at repealing that,” Garofalo said.

Here’s why this story should have teacher union leaders reaching for the antacid. Not only is “last in, first out” in danger of being repealed in the union-friendly state of Minnesota, but a left-wing media outlet describes the proposal as being part of a “low-key legislative session.”

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A teacher charged with 23 counts of lewd conduct for allegedly molesting and abusing children in his classroom evaded actual termination from the Los Angeles Unified School District enabling him to retain his lifetime health benefits.

Former Miramonte Elementary School teacher Mark Berndt, 61, was exposed for blindfolding children ages 6 to 10 and molesting them after a film processor reported the existence of a film roll of 40 pictures depicting Berndt blindfolding young girls and taping their mouths shut. Police later found 400 more incriminating photos in Berndt’s home. The charges Berndt currently faces are for acts from 2008-2010.

According to a Los Angeles Times report:

Some photos allegedly showed Berndt with his arm around children or his hand over their mouths. Other photos showed children with live bugs the size of hissing cockroaches on their mouths or faces.

Others depicted girls with what appears to be a spoon up to their mouths as if they were going to ingest a clear-white liquid. Children were fed Berndt’s semen from a spoon or on cookies, investigators said.

Kids reported being fed something distasteful. A blue plastic spoon and container found in the trash in his classroom tested positive for his semen, authorities said.

The kids reportedly told police their teacher said it was a game and the substance was “sugar.”

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Wednesday night, the House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed H.R.3567; The Welfare Integrity Now for Children and Families Act of 2011; which makes it illegal to use an EBT card in a strip club, liquor store or casino. The concern began, shortly after welfare recipients were issued funds electronically through ATMs, when Welfare Reform passed in 1996. Since then there has been a disturbing trend of welfare not being spent on the things people think welfare should be spent on.

And I don’t understand that concern. It is the theory of most Democrats that giving money to people stimulates the economy. It should be of no concern to anyone whether that money is used to stimulate patrons of a strip club, liquor store owners, or casino magnates (who BTW are often HUGE political contributors).

The bill is almost completely futile. It won’t insure that welfare money is not spent at a strip club; it only means that the ATM at the gas station across the street from the strip club is going to see a lot more traffic.

This is just the kind of government bias, that gives legitimate business a bad name. Certainly those girls are working as hard as any SEIU employee; whose pensions were paid out of stimulus funds, while they protested in Wisconsin. Money spent on bikini wax, cover stick, and glittery lingerie will trickle down through the economy just like any other stimulus package.

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CHESTER, Pa. – Three thousand students at Pennsylvania’s largest charter school face the imminent risk of having their school year cancelled in the coming days or weeks, and seeing their school “stop operations” entirely due to a lack of funds.

That grim reality is a direct result of decisions by officials in the nearby Chester Upland School District to keep state funds legally owed to the Chester Community Charter School, and to use them instead to bail the district out of its “self-inflicted budgetary crisis.”

That’s according to a legal brief filed by attorneys representing the Chester Community Charter School in response to last month’s judicial ruling that gave the Chester Upland School District a $3.2 million state bailout, and left the charter school holding almost $7 million in I.O.U. notes.

Attorneys for the Chester Community Charter School (CCCS) say the school faces a very real risk of shutting down because it cannot pay its bills.

As a result, it is “extremely likely that Chester Community Charter will have to stop operations, turning in excess of 3,000 students, nearly 700 with disabilities, out on the streets in the middle of the school year.”

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WASHINGTON, D.C. – It’s no secret that Big Labor is dependent on dues and fees automatically withdrawn from the payroll checks of union members and non-members alike.

The automatic deductions funnel millions of dollars into public sector union coffers each year, with a portion frequently going toward partisan political causes and liberal candidates who promise to preserve or expand the unions’ forced dues racket.

But this vicious cycle is finally being challenged in states and municipalities around the nation. Perhaps the most important challenge, Knox vs. Service Employees International Union, was heard earlier this month by the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court.

The case is one of a growing number of examples of how public employees, including public school teachers, are pushing back against forced union dues – something many consider a violation of their First Amendment rights. American citizens should not be forced to financially support an organization or political causes they don’t agree with, union objectors rightly contend.

By forcing members and non-members to subsidize its radical political agenda, Big Labor may have finally cooked its Golden Goose.

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You just have to love it when government uses taxpayer resources to convince taxpayers to cough up more.  It takes an unusually large set of brass ones to do such a thing.

But that’s apparently how they roll in the Western School District, near Battle Creek, Michigan.

Apparently unaware for the past dozen years that technology can play a role in improving education, school officials want to raise taxes (about $180 annually for a $100,000 home) to pay for technology upgrades.

The school district has blurred ethical lines in order to accomplish its mission.

The “Vote Yes!” campaign posted a picture on Facebook of what appear to be elementary students standing in campaign t-shirts giving the thumbs up.  It had the caption, “These future WHS Panther wrestlers hope you support the bond proposal and vote ‘YES’ on February 28th.”

Source: Western Schools Bond Facebook page

[Here is a screen grab of the Facebook page, should it “conveniently” disappear.]

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RACINE, Wis. – Al Levie must be proud of himself.

The Racine teacher had his fifteen minutes of fame this month when he refused to accept an award from Congressman Paul Ryan at a Martin Luther King, Jr. event at a local college. A video of Levie’s antics, accompanied by a lame explanation for his defiance, is circulating online.

“Paul Ryan is a lackey for the one percent,” Levie contends in a video interview after the event.
The video made Levie an instant folk hero for leftists.

But our research shows that silly antics are nothing new for Levie, an ends-justify-the-means type who routinely uses his students to promote his personal political agenda.

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WEST HEMPSTEAD, N.Y. – Bill Signorile has regularly attended West Hempstead school board meetings for the past two years, in hopes of getting board members to curb the district’s spending.

He says the board’s big-spending habits, particularly when it comes to union labor costs, are jeopardizing the financial futures of taxpayers and younger school employees, and threatening the quality of instruction for students.

Over the past decade, Signorile has watched his school property taxes increase by 232 percent – from $2,584.97 in 2001-02 to $5,994.71 in 2011-12.

During that same period, the West Hempstead Union Free School District’s budget has increased by 56.7 percent – from $34.7 million to $54.4 million – even while enrollment has dropped by 200 students.

Signorile says “runaway” taxes make it difficult for him to keep his home or send his children to college, while the ballooning school budget puts the jobs and pensions of district employees at risk.

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HARTFORD, Ct. – Since 2010, Connecticut has had the dreary distinction of having the largest student achievement gap in the nation.

Students in Connecticut’s well-to-do school districts significantly outperform students in poor, urban districts, which is a major economic and moral dilemma. But it appears that state lawmakers are finally ready to get serious about addressing the problem.

Gov. Dannel Malloy, a Democrat, is promising education reforms that will be “the most far-reaching in our state’s history,” and has targeted six areas for improvement – including increasing the number of charter schools, revising teacher tenure and seniority, and authorizing “intensive interventions” for the lowest-performing districts.

Education reform groups such as the Connecticut Coalition for Achievement Now and the Connecticut Parents Union are expected to bend lawmakers’ ears about the need to link teacher evaluations to student achievement.

Former teacher and State Rep. Douglas McCrory, a Democrat, put the upcoming education reform fight into perspective.

“This is winner-take-all, folks,” McCrory said in a recent speech. “I don’t think we’re going to have another opportunity like this in the state of Connecticut any time soon. We need to get it done now, or you know what the future looks like.” (more…)

When I watched the video of the Wisconsin teacher snubbing Congressman Paul Ryan, I knew instantly he was little more than an activist teacher seizing his moment.  Respect-be-damned, it was his moment to stick it to an ideological foe.  He became an instant folk hero for leftists.

But the silliness was nothing new for Racine teacher Al Levie.  He has a history of using students in his personal political agenda.

Case in point is an article Levie penned for the National Education Association magazine, NEA Today, titled, “Don’t Scold, Organize!”  He concluded it by writing:

“By engaging students in real-life issues and encouraging them to act on a political level, we will transform schools into places where authentic learning takes place.

“At the same time, we will help our students become engines of positive change in our society.”

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