The Tampa Bay Times printed a flattering story of how “parent groups” stopped the Parent Trigger legislation in Florida recently. Unfortunately, the reporter completely bought the labels of this “grassroots” “coalition of disparate, but determined parent groups.” Indeed, it’s reflected in her lead:
It was one of the hardest-fought battles of the legislative session.
On one side: a coalition of disparate, but determined parent groups.
On the other: former Gov. Jeb Bush and the powerful school choice lobby.
I did have to laugh that she considers the school choice lobby powerful, but makes no mention or comparison of their power compared to teacher unions, their most consistent and much better (publicly) financed foe.
From Ann Althouse comes word the Wisconsin Teaching Assistants’ Association (TAA) voted last week against seeking state certification as a union for the purpose of collective bargaining.
TAA is the first public employee union known to have held a union certification vote and the first one known to have voted against certification.
[click to continue…]
Thanks to The Washington Examiner for publishing my piece today bout how the teachers unions in Connecticut worked behind the scenes to neuter the Parent Trigger school reform. The AFT bragged of their success on their website for days — until the cynical documents started to gather attention, at which point the union erased it from the site.
An excerpt of my op-ed:
The bill approved by Connecticut legislators allows the councils of elected community members only to advise school officials rather than empowering them to force needed reforms.
The report also touts as “karma” that “the chief legislative proponent of the original parent trigger bill lost his re-election in November 2010″ and “the House Co-Chair [who allowed the bill to move forward] lost his race for Majority Leader and has a thorny relationship with the Black and Puerto Rican Caucus on education issues.”
The report also makes clear AFT officials must be hoping Biddle’s discovery does not become more widely known because it destroys the union’s carefully erected image as reform-minded partners who love to “collaborate” with parents and communities.
[click to continue…]
Today’s Wall Street Journal has six letters taking apart Thomas Geoghegan’s inane and outrageous attack on Boeing wanting to open a manufacturing plant in South Carolina that appeared in Monday’s paper.
Rarely have I read something so insulting and poorly reasoned in the WSJ. Here’s the angle I took in my response to the WSJ. The newspaper ran a letter from me two or three weeks ago, so I knew there wasn’t much chance it would get in, but it was worth a shot:
To the editor:
I live in the North, yet I was still insulted by Thomas Geoghegan’s argument that Boeing opening a manufacturing plant in South Carolina would represent “another American firm seeking to ruin its reputation for quality” because it “wants a less-skilled, lower-quality work force” (“Boeing’s Threat to American Enterprise,” June 20).
Atlanta-based Coca-Cola is one of the world’s most successful corporations. Ask Coca-Cola executives if they staff their headquarters with low-skilled, low-quality workers.
[click to continue…]
Many people embedded in education reform acknowledge its bipartisan nature—mostly because the American system is so bad not even the willingly blind can help but bump into it. Add Joel Klein, NYC’s former schools chief now inventing education technology at Rupert Murdock’s News Corp., to the list of middle-roaders too sick of the stench to not shout for help.
His recent (and lengthy, but worthwhile) piece in The Atlantic offers thunderous proof of, well, what we at The Heartland Institute have been telling you for decades:
According to a Department of Education internal analysis, the average NYC teacher works fewer than seven hours a day for 185 days and costs the city $110,000—$71,000 in salary, $23,000 in pensions, and $16,000 in health and other benefits.
I’ve had normal, middle-class Americans tell me teachers “work just as hard as any farmer.” Perhaps some teachers do—family members and friends who teach prove the profession still does have a few hard workers, somehow—but clearly not in New York. And, I suspect, elsewhere.
Another shameful anecdote:
[click to continue…]
So-called “Right to Work” laws have been reinforcing government tyranny and putting artificial pressures on labor markets for too long. States have felt the pressure to rule against private union agreements–lawful contracts between a shop and a union–since the passage of the Taft-Hartley Act in 1947. The act added regulation on employers, disallowing them from entering into exclusive contracts with employee unions to create a “closed shop.” The Act made exception to contract for a “union shop” which would allow any worker to be hired, so long as they join the union within 30 days.
While all of this regulation, and the preceding National Labor Relations Act, are unnecessary government interference in the market, one element stands out from the rest. The Taft-Hartley Act contains a clause under which any state government (not local) can also outlaw the “union shop” thereby creating so-called “right to work” states. As each state adds the mandate–often as a result of anti-union political sentiment–surrounding states are pressured to do the same, in order to remain competitive. [click to continue…]
Reactions to recent events by Harrison Schmitt — Heartland Institute Board member, former U.S. Senator (R-N.M.), and the last man (and first scientist) to set foot on the moon. (Cross-posted at America’s Uncommon Sense):
Space
Although one should not be surprised by anything the Obama administration does, the list now includes a politically cynical decision by NASA to not house one of the retired Space Shuttles at or near the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. This NASA Center has been the focal point of American human spaceflight operations since 1962 as well as the design, training, and operations focus of all Space Shuttle missions. No other location has a stronger claim for long-term care of a Space Shuttle than Johnson, certainly stronger than New York City. No rationale for this decision appears to exist other than political payback against Texas by a supposedly non-political, independent agency.
One also must question if the decision of where to house the remaining Space Shuttles is NASA’s to make. In the past, once space hardware has no more use to NASA, legal responsibility for that hardware has been transferred to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. One can hope that reason will prevail. The legislation introduced to locate the remaining Space Shuttles in Texas, Florida, California, and at the Air and Space Museum in Virginia properly recognizes the national responsibilities for the Shuttle Program, as well as the Smithsonian’s role in archiving space artifacts.
Labor
[click to continue…]
I haven’t been able to figure out why state employees are so enraged at the possibility of having to contribute to their pensions and health care benefits. They took over the State Capitol in Wisconsin, eating, sleeping, and not showering there for many days and nights. They were banging on drums relentlessly, screaming obscenities at lawmakers and their staff, and blocking access to restrooms for all but their own. About 200 of them ganged up on one single Republican state senator until police could rescue him.
Sure, the money’s important, but that important? What I didn’t realize is that it’s also about working conditions. Silly me.
Some items subject to collective bargaining in Wisconsin, according to Governor Scott Walker’s office, include: [click to continue…]
Part of my job as director of communications for The Heartland Institute is to defend the organization when attacked by the left. If I responded to every salvo — especially the spittle-flecked variety found on most blogs — I’d do little else in my every waking moment.
Of course, I’m of the mind that if the statists on the left aren’t attacking us and our advancement of free markets, I need to be better at my job of promoting our principles. Happily (I guess), that’s not the case.
A fellow named Max Garland from Eau Claire, Wisconsin took to the letters-to-the-editor page of The Wisconsin State Journal in Madison today to express his displeasure that the paper quoted one of our scholars in its coverage of the current state of affairs at the Capitol. I reproduce it below, and will rebut below that:
[click to continue…]
Teachers’ unions in Wisconsin are scurrying to win school district of teachers union contracts before Gov. Scott Walker’s budget repair bill gets approved.
Currently, teachers and other state employees pay six percent of their health care premiums and virtually nothing toward their pension costs. Under Walker’s bill, they would pay 12.8 percent of their health care premiums and 5.8% of their salaries toward their pensions.
But if they able to renew their contracts before the bill goes into effect, all Walker bets are off.
[click to continue…]
