Eli Lehrer & Skip Stitt: America’s labor movement has become increasingly concentrated in the public sector. As a result, modern debates about formal labor relations often take for granted that many of the workers involved are government workers. For people holding public office in much of the country, building relationships with these public-sector unions has … Continue reading Rethinking Public-Service Unions
Scott Girard: Madison Teachers Inc. has filed a complaintagainst the Madison Metropolitan School District related to a survey sent out to staff last week. The Prohibited Practice Complaint was filed Monday with the Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission and seeks an immediate cease and desist of the survey and asks that the district be made to destroy … Continue reading MTI files complaint with state employment relations commission over budget cuts survey
Logan Wroge: Madison’s teachers union is shifting its stance on school-based police officers and is now advocating they be taken out of the city’s main high schools — but only if 33 additional support staff are hired. In a statement Sunday, Madison Teachers Inc. said it backs the removal of school resource officers, or SROs, … Continue reading Madison teachers union backs removal of police from high schools
Noam Scheiber, Farah Stockman and J. David Goodman: Over the past five years, as demands for reform have mounted in the aftermath of police violence in cities like Ferguson, Mo., Baltimore and now Minneapolis, police unions have emerged as one of the most significant roadblocks to change. The greater the political pressure for reform, the … Continue reading Governance: How Police Unions Became Such Powerful Opponents to Reform Efforts (Act 10)
Peter Cook: After spending eight long years at odds with the Obama Administration, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and National Education Association (NEA) viewed the 2016 elections as an opportunity to reassert themselves within the Democratic Party and to regain a measure of influence over federal education policy. As a result, the two unions … Continue reading K-12 Influence Peddling: 2016 Election
Kevin Williamson: During the 2008 Democratic primary, Obama gave an off-the-record speech to a group of Wall Street financial executives in which he shared his frustration with the sclerotic and bureaucratic state of American education, and declared that he was close to publicly endorsing a nationwide school-choice program. (This is according to one of those … Continue reading Money, Politics, K-12 Governance and Teacher Unions
Samantha Marcus and Susan Livio: The constitutional amendment would require the state increase payments into the government worker pension fund. It must be approved by the voters in a public referendum. But Senate President Stephen Sweeney (D-Gloucester) has so far declined to hold a vote on the referendum until lawmakers resolve a transportation funding impasse. … Continue reading NJ teachers union to Dems: No campaign cash for you until pension amendment vote
Liam Dillon: California’s largest teachers union has given more than $13 million to the effort to extend income tax hikes on California’s highest earners, according to newly released state campaign finance reports. The report shows the California Teachers Assn. gave $3 million between April and June this year, in addition to the $10 million the … Continue reading California State teachers union has given more than $13 million to extend income taxes on wealthy Californians
Mike Antonucci: An initiative on the November ballot in Massachusetts would lift the state’s cap on charter schools just enough to allow 12 new charters or expansions of existing charters each year. That seems relatively innocuous as political issues go, but the Massachusetts Teachers Association (MTA) has made the referendum its line in the sand. … Continue reading $10.6M MTA spending to defeat charter expansion
John Higgins: After nearly a year of deliberation, the state Supreme Court ruled 6-3 late Friday afternoon that charter schools are unconstitutional, creating chaos for hundreds of families whose children have already started classes. The ruling — believed to be one of the first of its kind in the country — overturns the law voters … Continue reading Washington State Supreme Court: Charter schools are unconstitutional…
Washington policy center : New research finds that some justices on the state supreme court have received political contributions from a lead party in a key lawsuit now before the court. Parties in the case, League of Women Voters, Washington Education Association, et al vs State of Washington, are asking the court to strike down … Continue reading Justices receive political contributions from lead party in charter school lawsuit
Madison’s Capital Times This fall, 305 local union organizations representing public school teachers, support staff, and custodial workers held recertification elections in school districts across the state. Despite everything that Walker has done to undermine them, more than 90 percent of the local unions were recertified. Indeed, according to the Wisconsin Education Association Council, 97 … Continue reading School unions vital defenders of public education
John Mooney: The political spending by the New Jersey Education Association is no secret anymore, with the latest numbers — in the tens of millions — continuing to astound. A new report by the state’s election finance commission tallied more than $57 million spent by the teachers union on political campaigns and lobbying in the … Continue reading New Jersey Teachers Union Spent $60m over the past 15 years on Campaigns & Lobbying
Madison 2005 (reflecting 1998): When all third graders read at grade level or beyond by the end of the year, the achievement gap will be closed…and not before On November 7, Superintendent Art Rainwater made his annual report to the Board of Education on progress toward meeting the district’s student achievement goal in reading. As … Continue reading Madison’s Lengthy K-12 Challenges Become Election Grist; Spends 22% more per student than Milwaukee
Chris Bragg: Less than a month before Mayor Bill de Blasio struck a major contract agreement with the United Federation of Teachers, its parent union, the American Federation of Teachers, gave $350,000 to a nonprofit run by de Blasio advisers, which lobbies on behalf of the mayor’s priorities, newly released records show. The AFT’s donation, on … Continue reading Before contract, New York teachers gave to de Blasio charity