Yesterday we wrote about New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s attempts to end the practice of paying bonuses to public sector employees, just for not calling in sick to work.

Across the Hudson River, a New York school district is also suffering the side effects of its unused sick leave payouts.

LoHud.com reports that employees of Yonkers Public Schools can get paid for 300 days of unused sick and vacation time, a policy that allowed one district employee to receive a $92,325 payout in 2010.

The story was a big embarrassment for the cash-strapped district last summer, when it announced that 187 employees were being laid off, in addition to the 250 who were retiring. The district ended up cutting $41 million from its budget, laying off 90 teachers and cutting advanced placement classes and electives such as drama, music, cooking and industrial arts, according to the New York Times.

It’s clear that Yonkers schools’ expensive union perks ended up hurting students’ overall education.

Still, the financial shenanigans aren’t finished.

(more…)

From the Sun-Sentinel:

For years, Weston developer Roy Rogers planted gardens designed to lure butterflies to Broward schools, using volunteer labor and donated supplies. His generosity and commitment to teaching kids about nature drew plaudits as did his signature act: placing a butterfly on the tip of a delighted child’s nose.

Stay on top of the news: Get breaking new alerts sent directly to your phone

Beginning in 2004, however, the gardens and Rogers’ services were no longer free. The district began paying for them.

Ultimately, over the next four years, Rogers’ firm collected more than $394,000 from the school system, mostly for butterfly gardens but also to aid a school in the hunt for grant funding.

(more…)

If President Obama is really serious about education reform, he ought to consider putting D.C. school Chancellor Michelle Rhee in charge of the effort.

This lady is not afraid of a major challenge, as evidenced by her latest brawl with the AFT.

Rhee is courageously targeting the sacred cow of teachers unions – tenure. It’s the system that pretty much guarantees a teacher a job for life, if he or she can make it through the first few years. It doesn’t matter if they go on to become good, mediocre or bad teachers. With tenure, they are pretty much protected until retirement.

But Rhee understands that such a system can no longer be tolerated in Washington D.C. schools, which have a dropout rate of nearly 40 percent. She knows that the school district must have the power to sift through the teaching staff, keep the good ones, work with the middle-of-the-roaders, and get rid of the bad apples.

She also understands that it has to work both ways. She’s willing to develop a compensation system that would offer teachers much higher pay, in exchange for the union abandoning, or at least reforming, the concept of tenure.

(more…)

The federal website that tracks the final destination of the $787 billion “stimulus” package reported more than 640,000 jobs were created or saved by the funds as of October 30. A closer look at one state’s reporting, however, should cast serious doubt on that number’s veracity.

Washington state is listed as the third-highest job-generating state, according to www.recovery.gov, which records the number of jobs created or saved as 34,517.13. The problem is that at least 24,000 of those jobs were not really in jeopardy.

You read that correctly.

(more…)

Our stomachs turned a bit this morning when we watched a YouTube video of part of last weekend’s DC AFT rally in Washington, D.C.  You can see it here:

The event was billed as the “Rally for Respect.” If the AFT wants respect, we respectfully submit the following suggestions:

Number one – Stop threatening people. During the rally, an unidentified male speaker was clearly heard on the video threatening D.C. school Chancellor Michelle Rhee. “Michelle Rhee had better watch her back,” the large, angry man chanted into the microphone. That clearly sounds like a physical threat, typically used by street gangs. His next few words were not clear, but then he added something about “She’s going down.”

Perhaps Ms. Rhee would be wise to contact D.C. police. Union thugs may very well have her on their target list. How disturbing.

(more…)