Seattle's Teacher's Unions Oust Best and Brightest

Seattle's Teacher's Unions Oust Best and Brightest

While teacher's unions in California and New York have made it impossible to fire teachers -- including those accused of sexual abuse -- the teacher's union in Washington State sought to get rid of six teacher's who were awarded for their excellence.  The California Political Review has the story: Last week, I wrote about the particularly egregious case of a teacher in Rochester, NY who sent sexually charged emails to her principal and was subsequently jailed for ignoring a restraining order. Upon her release, she returned to the classroom, and in short order was accused of fondling her middle school students. But due to her union’s pressure tactics, the school board cannot get rid of this tenured teacher. Across the country in Seattle, we now have a situation where it would appear that the local teachers union may have success in getting six teachers removed from the district. Pedophiles? Of course not. They are talented Teach For America teachers who have received good reviews from their principals. In what could be a new low for teachers unions – and that’s really saying something – it would appear that through heavy pressure from the Seattle Education Association, the Seattle School Board may terminate the contracts of the six teachers for absolutely no good reason. Founded in 1990 by Princeton graduate Wendy Kopp, TFA chooses the best and the brightest – only one in eight are accepted into the program – and trains them to work in the nation’s worst schools. These committed and enthusiastic college graduates get five weeks of teacher training, ongoing support once in the classroom, and must commit to teach for two years. The program has been very successful. But there is an anti-TFA animus among those for whom the status quo is next to godliness. The “problem” with TFA teachers is that they tend to be very idealistic and don’t fit into the cookie cutter mold that teacher unions so need and insist on. TFA teachers really care about teaching and frequently can’t abide the straitjacket rules inherent in every union contract. On its website, SEA does its best to “inform” the public by posting nine reasons to oppose Teach for America’s intrusion into Seattle Public Schools.
Teacher Union Local Hauled-in more than $139 million, Spent Lavishly on Staff

Teacher Union Local Hauled-in more than $139 million, Spent Lavishly on Staff

New York's forced dues have been very good to teacher union bosses according to a report release by the Education Intelligence Agency.  And, New York teachers aren't the only ones paying for extravagant union boss salaries and benefits: Top 36 Teacher Union Locals Took In $337.7 Million. For the first time ever, the Education Intelligence Agency has compiled in one table the finances of the highest-earning teacher union local affiliates in the nation. Using Internal Revenue Service data from the 2009-10 school year, the table, posted on the EIA web site, contains revenue information and employee compensation figures for each K-12 teacher union local affiliate that accumulated more than $2 million in total revenue that year. The 36 affiliates that met the threshold received $337.7 million in total revenue. Topping the list was the United Federation of Teachers in New York City with more than $139 million - a 1 percent increase over 2008-09. UFT also had the highest employee compensation expenditures - a 12.8 percent increase to $47 million. United Teachers Los Angeles ranked a distance second with more than $44.4 million in revenue, while the Chicago Teachers Union ranked third with almost $30.1 million. The top 15 locals were all either American Federation of Teacher affiliates or merged NEA/AFT affiliates, highlighting the difference in structures of the two organizations. NEA's state affiliates are the primary source of funds and services while in AFT the locals rule the roost. The highest-earning "NEA only" local was the Milwaukee Teachers Education Association at $4.3 million. Of the 36 locals listed, 27 saw boosts in revenue over the previous year, but some experienced financial difficulties. The Detroit and Cleveland locals were forced to use dues revenue to cover investment losses.
Unionists Hijacking Charter Schools

Unionists Hijacking Charter Schools

Terrance Scanlon finds compelling evidence that the union bosses have sent their sights on charter schools which are not required, currently, to join union collective bargaining units. The union bosses see this both as a threat and a pool of potential union dues that are not being tapped: If you can’t beat them, take them over. That seems to be the new union strategy on charter schools. Charter schools are publicly funded schools that are governed by private groups that sign a contract, or charter, with the state. The charter requires that the school meet certain standards of accountability in return for taxpayer funding, but in other areas it exempts the school from many burdensome state or local regulations. Some of the most burdensome are rules required by labor unions. Charter school teachers usually are not required to join existing union collective-bargaining units. This means charter schools can more easily promote good teachers and fire bad ones. But, of course, this has made charter schools targets for hostile union action. Unions correctly view charter schools as a threat to their stranglehold over public education and the tax dollars that come with it. Unions have denounced charter schools for “skimming” off the best students from the public schools, and they have sued school districts that introduce charter schools. Unions have tried to block or repeal charter school laws, and they’ve tried to limit the number of charter schools allowed by states. But in Minnesota, the teachers unions are moving in a new direction. State officials recently have given the Minnesota Guild of Charter Schools, an organization created by the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers (MFT), the right to authorize charter schools. The prospect of union-authorized charter schools disturbs many observers, who predict it will lead to conflict. A report sponsored in part by the Progressive Policy Institute summarized the source of the hostility between the two sides: “Unions believe in professionalism through clearly defined roles, rights and responsibilities for teachers. Charter school leaders equate this vision of professionalism with resistance to change and protection of unfit teachers. Charter leaders believe in competition and entrepreneurialism. Union leaders equate these ideas with indifference to disadvantaged students and treatment of teachers as commodities.”
Breitbart Exclusive: SEIU Aim to Destroy Free Market

Breitbart Exclusive: SEIU Aim to Destroy Free Market

Working with the Occupy Wall Street radicals, the SEIU union bosses have created an alliance designed to destroy capitalism. Breitbart.com has received exclusive tape of an Occupy Strategy Session at New York University, billed as a group talk on “The Abolition of Capitalism.” One of the headline speakers at this session was Stephen Lerner, former leader and International Board Member of the SEIU and frequent Obama White House visitor. Lerner argued in favor of people not paying their mortgages and “occupying” their homes; he spoke in favor of invading annual shareholders meetings to shut them down. But his big goal was to get workers to shut down their workplaces. That’s where the SEIU agenda and the Occupy agenda truly meet: once workers begin to occupy. Here are the relevant portions of the transcript: Let me just throw out a couple ideas here. One, I think a theme here that’s really important is Occupy Homes as a key part of the stew in multiple spheres. There’s eviction defense, there’s folks who are moving back into homes that they were evicted from that have been sitting empty, there’s community organizing, there’s a fight with Fannie and Freddie, but this notion that millions of people are losing their homes and we can physically help them save it, very important … This second question, this question of moving money, which has mainly been an individual act so far, you know, move your account out of a bank, getting institutions, schools, universities, school boards, to move money out of banks as a way to put them into either credit unions or things that do economic development, it captures both what is wrong with finance capital, but then it’s something everybody can do … In fact, it’s infused by the energy of somebody that just got thrown in jail for trying to keep their home … But here’s the real crux of the matter: How do we give workers the confidence? … How do we create a mood in the nation where we’re occupying our workplaces, where we’re shutting down our workplaces? … Where workers are sitting in, where workers are shutting down their places of work, and when the police come, when the injunctions come, we’re all there with them, so we can really deal with part of the reason that the economy’s so screwed up … which is a few people have got all the power. Think stew, think hope, death to the Stockholm Syndrome!