Archive for August 2012

A Big Labor payback at the state level?  Christopher Keating of the Hartford Courant, has the story. The governor Tuesday nominated longtime teachers’ union leader Sharon Palmer to be the state’s next labor commissioner, a selection hailed by labor officials and Democrats.     Palmer, 68, has led the state chapter of the American Federation of Teachers, the state’s…

The Boston Teacher Union filed an unfair labor practice over teacher evaluations.  Matt Stout reports in the Boston Herald:   A “dismayed” Boston Teacher’s Union today threatened to bring additional unfair labor practice charges against the city’s school department if it plows forward with implementing a new teacher evaluation system this school year, a warning that drew a…

These are the words of Annie Lee Hudson, the Chicago teacher, who, with help from National Right to Work Foundation attorneys, carried her case all the way to the Supreme Court, in Chicago Teachers Union, Local No. 1, AFT, AFL-CIO, et al., v. Hudson et al. Thirty-two years of teaching elementary school students in Chicago have…

You Are Now Entering the Mallory Factor Spin Zone http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036789/ns/msnbc_tv-morning_joe/#48762499 Union kingpins are getting huffy about the success of Shadowbosses, the new book by journalist, editor and academic Mallory Factor and attorney Elizabeth Factor (the two are spouses). Shadowbosses investigates how special-interest statutes and executive orders at the state and federal levels have, starting more than half-a-century…

California Teacher Empowerment Network Executive Director Larry Sand, as usual, has produced a thoughtful and hard-hitting response to an article, “6 Reasons Teachers Unions Are Good for Kids.6 Reasons Teachers Unions Are Good for Kids,” refuting her unsubstantiated statements with facts about the California Teachers Association’s power in the state legislature.   Larry’s stinging response to…

Now here is an idea that is really about the kids – and the teachers. At least three Douglas County, Colorado, school board members want own job back, presenting 4 proposals which would greatly diminish teacher union power in that district.  Mike Shedlock cheers them on with good reasons which are good for students, teachers and taxpayers.  Unionwatch.org…

Democrats like Michelle Rhee, of StudentsFirst.org, and Joe Williams, who heads up Democrats for Education Reform, take education reform to the highest level by making it a nonpartisan issue.  Part of their incredible effectiveness and power to accomplish reform is their willingness to take the politics out of the issue.  Or, rather, they make education…

A Right to Work doesn’t prevent taxpayers and teachers from the danger, and cost, of monopoly bargaining.    An opinion blog in the Las Vegas Review Journal tells the story:  If the loss of more than 1,000 teaching positions in this county’s underperforming school district wasn’t enough to alert the public to the state’s political and policy…

AFT (AFL-CIO) teacher union officials have been picketing in Chicago district, allowing their industrial union roots to show.  With 400,000 Chicago school children being subjected to gaze at a giant inflatable rat, which is usually employed by the industrial unions, citizens must wonder where professionalism went.  School board officials have set designated $25 million to…

The NEA falsely claims that “Right-to-Work Laws Increase Poverty, Decrease Productivity” but reality proves these Big Labor propagandists wrong: Right to Work States Benefit From Faster Growth, Higher Real Purchasing Power – 2011 Update. Top bosses of the National Education Association (NEA) and American Federation of Teachers (AFT/AFL-CIO) teacher unions, as well as officers of the…