Public School Monopoly: A National Disgrace.

Competitive Enterprise Institute

What Big Labor Wants

As General Motors finally filed for bankruptcy on Monday, some critics of the move have already made the case that Congress, not a White House task force, should have planned the bankruptcy. They are right about one thing: a White House task force should not have planned the bankruptcy. But they are 180 degrees wrong about what the government should have done. The bankruptcy needed much less “public policy” input, not more. If GM were going through a “normal” bankruptcy, here is what would have happened:

When it saw it was running out of cash last November, GM would have been forced to put together a plan that immediately stopped its financial haemorrhaging by selectively suspending its obligations and asked for protection from its creditors by filing under Chapter 11 of the bankruptcy code. To keep going through the process without liquidating, it would have had to get a debtor-in-possession loan (a high-priority loan secured by all the company’s assets). As a condition of providing the DIP loan, the government, like a private lender, might have insisted upfront on installing a management committed to a successful bankruptcy. Once in bankruptcy, GM management would have been required to propose a reorganisation plan with a reasonable chance of success. GM would have been able to determine which contracts to reject, giving it the chance to restructure its dealer networks, supply and long-term debt, secured and unsecured. Crucially, using Section 1113 of the bankruptcy code, it would have been able to reform its labour contracts to the extent necessary to achieve a successful reorganisation. If its proposals are rejected by the union without good cause, the court can impose it.

During bankruptcy, GM would have been able to sell off divisions, facilities and brands. Finally, if a plan of reorganisation that was likely to get a better outcome than liquidation was proposed, the court would approve it and a “new” GM would emerge.

Full article Michael Levine Financial Times

WASHINGTON POST

D.C. vouchers on life support

A congressional 'compromise' means slow death for a worthy program.

Monday, December 14, 2009

Excerpts:

IT IS DISTRESSINGLY clear that congressional leaders never really meant it when they said there would be a fair hearing to determine the future of the District's federally funded school voucher program. How else to explain language tucked away in the mammoth omnibus spending bill that would effectively kill the Washington Opportunity Scholarship Program?

Deep in the folds of the thousand-page 2010 spending bill, which wraps together six bills, is language that (thankfully) would continue funding for students currently in the program but close it down for new students. Also included are onerous requirements about testing and site visits.

Contrary to claims of this being a compromise, the measure is really slow death for a program that provides $7,500 annually to low-income students to attend private schools. The number of students participating in the program has already shrunk from more than 1,700 to 1,319, and the nonprofit that administers the scholarships has said that it may have to pull out because the conditions would be untenable. It's also possible that some schools that now enroll voucher students could be forced to shut down.

Full article Democrats Again Victimize Black Kids In Washington D.C. Bow Once Again To ONE OF Their Masters, The Teachers' Union

Andrew J. Coulson

09.12.08

Education and Child Policy

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Visit: cato-at-liberty

Ron Matus of the St. Petersburg Times writes that Florida’s school choice movement has a couple of new recruits: former teachers union leader Doug Tuthill and former St. Petersburg Times editorial writer Jon East — both erstwhile critics of the state’s education tax credit program.

The two have just signed on as the new president and new communications director, respectively, of the Florida School Choice Fund.

The Fund accepts taxpayers’ donations and then offers tuition assistance to low income families who want to send their children to private schools. The taxpayers making the donations can then claim dollar-for-dollar credits against state taxes.

As noted twice before on this blog in just the past several months, the times they are a changin’. Support for private school choice was once a thoroughly partisan affair, and seen in some quarters as a threat to the ideals of public education. That is becoming less and less the case. Sooner or later, educational freedom will reign in this country.

For now, there are still politicians who send their own children to private schools while opposing programs that would bring that same choice within reach of lower-income families.

Perhaps, in the long run, they may be forgiven by posterity. In the medium term, though, they are likely to pay a price at the ballot box.

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Orange County Register

A victory for parents

Appeals court reverses itself and declares home-schooling to be legal. This is good news.

Full article

Ocean County Register

Excerpts:

A California Appeals Court has reversed its February decision that essentially had outlawed home-schooling. The court now says that, yes, indeed, home-schooling is legal in California, despite what it had ruled earlier. The decision is welcome news for home-schoolers and anyone who believes in fundamental concepts of freedom. There's little doubt the court reacted to political pressure, so kudos to the California public for getting sufficiently agitated over an injustice. Hopefully the Public School Monopoly is listening.

The original ruling was disturbing in its authoritarian language. The justices declared that "parents do not have a constitutional right to home-school their children." Fortunately, the state's political establishment – from Republican Gov. Schwarzenegger to Democratic state schools chief Jack O'Connell – criticized the ruling and affirmed the view that home-schooling is a legal educational choice in California.

Home-schooling is complicated by the fact that state law does not directly address the matter. California's education law requires children to be taught in public schools unless they meet a handful of exceptions, such as being taught in a private school or tutored at home by someone with a teaching certificate.

Drew Cline Union Leader.Com

I know you’ll be shocked to learn this, but Barack Obama sends his two daughters to an extremely expensive (elite!) private school run by the University of Chicago.

The tuition bill for both kids: $38 grand a year. And, oh yes, Obama opposes school choice. Can’t have people abandoning the public schools.

As Obama says, we must devote our resources to improving them, not abandoning them. Like, um, he did. By “we,” he means, “you.” His kids are outta there. Yours are stuck there. Good luck to them.

By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY

The Toughest Test?

Friday, August 01, 2008

Full article INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY

Excerpts:

Education: A private takeover of L.A.'s infamous Locke High may already be starting to turn it around. Success here would send a message to other failing schools: You've run out of excuses.

Readers of these pages may recall Alain Leroy Locke High School, in the Watts area of Los Angeles. Now and then it's in the news — we've mentioned it before — and invariably the news seems bad.

In 2005, a 15-year-old student was killed there by gunfire from a gang shootout. Earlier this year, Locke was the scene of a melee involving about 600 students, apparently sparked by a fight between rival graffiti gangs. Its dropout rate is among the worst.

WALL STREET JOURNAL

July 28, 2008; Page A14

Full article Wall Street Journal

Excerpts:

The profound failure of inner-city public schools to teach children may be the nation's greatest scandal. The differences between the two Presidential candidates on this could hardly be more stark. John McCain is calling for alternatives to the system; Barack Obama wants the kids to stay within that system. We think the facts support Senator McCain.

"Parents ask only for schools that are safe, teachers who are competent and diplomas that open doors of opportunity," said Mr. McCain in remarks recently to the NAACP. "When a public system fails, repeatedly, to meet these minimal objectives, parents ask only for a choice in the education of their children." Some parents may opt for a better public school or a charter school; others for a private school. The point, said the Senator, is that "no entrenched bureaucracy or union should deny parents that choice and children that opportunity."

Mr. McCain cited the Washington, D.C., Opportunity Scholarship Program, a federally financed school-choice program for disadvantaged kids signed into law by President Bush in 2004. Qualifying families in the District of Columbia receive up to $7,500 a year to attend private K-12 schools. To qualify, a child must live in a family with a household income below 185% of the poverty level. Some 1,900 children participate; 99% are black or Hispanic. Average annual income is just over $22,000 for a family of four.

HERITAGE FOUNDATION

June 20, 2008

Safer Kids, Better Test Scores: The D.C. Voucher Program Works

by Shanea Watkins, Ph.D.

Full article by Shanea Watkins Heritage Foundation

Excerpts:

In January 2004, Congress passed the District of Columbia School Choice Incentive Act of 2003, the first federally funded school voucher program in the United States. Now known as the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, this initiative provides scholarships of up to $7,500 to more than 1,900 low-income students in the District. A recent U.S. Department of Education (DOE) evaluation of the program should provide policymakers with some encouragement, as the report demonstrates that the Opportunity Scholarship Program is having a positive impact on students and families alike.[1]

Public School Monopoly

Academic Achievement

The DOE evaluation reviews the first two years of the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, examining approximately 19 months of instruction. The results indicate that students who received vouchers realized higher academic achievement than students who were not awarded a voucher, though the differences between both groups of students were not statistically significant.[2]

Despite this lack of statistical differentiation, students who participated in the Opportunity Scholarship Program achieved higher reading scores than students who did not. The study also indicated that certain subgroups of students experienced significant positive gains in reading achievement.[3] These results are encouraging because they offer compelling evidence of two years of positive achievement gains for D.C. voucher program participants.[4]

THE HILL

David Keene

Many a child left behind

By David Keene

Posted: 06/16/08 05:19 PM [ET]

Full article David Keene The Hill

Excerpts:

The news that the District’s representative in Congress has joined with organized labor and liberals within the Democratic Party to demand an end to Washington’s successful voucher experiment shouldn’t come as much of a shock.

Voucher programs and public charter schools are under attack all over the country by the very people who like to justify more federal programs than I can possibly list here as needed “for the children.” The problem is that in the liberal ideological and political world, the interests of the “children” almost always take a back seat to their belief that every interest must be serviced through government and unionized government workers or not at all.

The liberal mindset sees this insistence on denying children, and particularly minority children, access to any institutions other than traditional public schools as evidence of some ethereal goodness and insists that anyone who seeks to change the educational status quo is an enemy of education itself. It seems not to matter a whit to most of these people that many of the schools they would force children to attend don’t work.

Seize chance to bring school choice to Detroit

The Detroit News

June 11, 2008

Full article The Detroit News

Excerpts:

The Detroit Public Schools system will get a free pass for its chronic failure if the school funding bill now before the state House passes as written. And Detroit parents and children will lose an opportunity to gain an expanded escape route from a system that by nearly every measure continues to get worse.

The school funding bill, which could go to a vote in the House as early as today, contains a clause that would change the definition of a first-class school district. Under current law, a first-class district has enrollment above 100,000 students. That means only Detroit, and it qualifies the district for extra funding, in some years as much as $15 million more.

The new legislation would redefine first class as being the largest district in the state, anticipating that Detroit will fall under the 100,000 mark this fall. That change would continue all special Detroit school funding.

If the law passes that way, it would forfeit an excellent opportunity to provide more school choice to Detroit parents and children.

Will minority parents allow the Public School Monopoly to continue to reap its destruction.

Is it time for these parents to reexamine the Democratic Party and its role in supporting the fierce determination of the NEA-National Education Association and the AFT American Federation of Teachers to continue its Public School Monopoly.

The Greatest Scandal

For more than 30 years, per-child cost of education has steadily risen.

What do we have for it? Declining results when compared to international competitors but more importantly minority kids being sentenced to lives of despair, crime and imprisonment to much too large a degree.

Republicans have been fighting to break the Public School Monopoly for years, with actions not words.

The fraud of Democrats is woeful.

WASHINGTONPOST.COM

Charter Schools' Big Experiment

New Orleans's Post-Katrina Test May Offer Lessons for Ailing Systems

By Jay Mathews

Monday, June 9, 2008; Page A01

Full article Jay Mathews Washington Post

Excerpts:

NEW ORLEANS The storm that swamped this city three years ago also effectively swept away a public school system with a dismal record and faint prospects of getting better. Before Hurricane Katrina, educator John Alford said, he toured schools and found "kids just watching movies" in classes where "low expectations were the norm."

Now Alford is one of many new principals leading an unparalleled education experiment, with possible lessons for troubled urban schools in the District and elsewhere. New Orleans, in a post-Katrina flash, has become the first major city in which more than half of all public school students attend charter schools.

For these new schools with taxpayer funding and independent management, old rules and habits are out. No more standard hours, seniority, union contracts, shared curriculum or common textbooks. In are a crowd of newcomers -- critics call them opportunists -- seeking to lift standards and achievement. They compete for space, steal each other's top teachers and wonder how it is all going to work.

WALL STREET JOURNAL

Democrats for School Choice

May 19, 2008; Page A14

Full article WSJ

Excerpts:

When Florida passed a law in 2001 creating the Corporate Tax Credit Scholarship Program for underprivileged students, all but one Democrat in the state legislature voted against it. Earlier this month, lawmakers extended the program – this time with the help of a full third of Democrats in the Legislature, including 13 of 25 members of the state's black caucus and every member of the Hispanic caucus. What changed?

Our guess is that low-income parents in Florida have gotten a taste of the same school choice privileges that middle- and upper-income families have always enjoyed. And they've found they like this new educational freedom. Under the scholarship program, which is means-tested, companies get a 100% tax credit for donations to state-approved nonprofits that provide private-school vouchers for low-income families.

THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION

GEORGIA ENACTS NEW SCHOOL CHOICE PROGRAM

Full article The Heritage Foundation

Excerpts:

Earlier today Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue signed legislation (HB 1133) to create a $50 million school choice tax credit program. The legislation will allow individuals and businesses to take a dollar-for-dollar credit on state taxes for contributions to non-profit groups that fund tuition scholarships. In all, Georgia taxpayers can claim $50 million in tax credits for donations to scholarship organizations.

The Alliance for School Choice estimates that will fund as many as 10,000 scholarships:

“With his actions today, Governor Perdue has sealed his legacy as one of America’s foremost ‘education governors,’” said Lori Drummer, director of state projects for the Alliance. “Georgia is now a national leader in a school choice movement that is gaining momentum.”

THE WASHINGTON POST

WashingtonPost.com

Vouching for Vouchers

How Long Will America Tolerate the Public School Monopoly?

The educational interests of 1,900 D.C. children are riding on Adrian Fenty's trip to the Hill tomorrow.

Tuesday, April 29, 2008; Page A16

Full article Washington Post

Excerpts:

IN MAKING education his top priority, D.C. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty has been guided by one principle: Children trump politics. It's an idea that Mr. Fenty might want to expound on when he goes to Capitol Hill this week to defend funding for the city's unique school voucher program. Political ideology and partisan gamesmanship should not be allowed to blow apart the educational hopes of hundreds of D.C. children. Congress must respect the judgment of District leaders in giving parents a choice in one of the most crucial aspects of their children's lives.

A minefield awaits Mr. Fenty as he prepares to testify tomorrow before a House appropriations subcommittee. President Bush's budget includes an unprecedented $74 million to bolster education in the District, dividing the money along three pathways. Public schools would get a big chunk to undertake such initiatives as teacher "pay for performance" and leadership training for principals. There would be money to replicate high-performing charter schools

And $18 million would go to the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, which provides grants for low-income children to attend private schools; it is this third purpose that's expected to come under scrutiny, if not attack. A Republican-controlled Congress barely approved the program in 2004, and the Democrats who now rule the House are sworn enemies of vouchers. It doesn't help that District Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D) has been a fierce opponent.

WALL STREET JOURNAL

Twenty-Five Years Later, A Nation Still at Risk

By CHESTER E. FINN JR.

April 26, 2008; Page A7

Full article Chester E. Finn Jr.

Excerpts

Today marks the 25th anniversary of "A Nation at Risk," the influential Reagan-era report by a blue-ribbon panel that alerted Americans to the weak performance of our education system. The report warned of a "rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as a nation and a people." That dire forecast set off a quarter century of education reform that's yielded worthy changes – yet still not the achievement gains we need to turn back the tide of mediocrity.

After decades of furthering educational "equality," the 1983 commission admonished the country, it was time to attend to academic excellence and school results. Educators didn't want to hear this and a generation later many still don't. Our ponderous public-school system resists change. Teachers don't like criticism and are loath to be judged by pupil performance. In educator circles, one still encounters grumbling that "A Nation at Risk" lodged a bum rap.

Others heeded the alarm, though, and that report launched an era of forceful innovation and accountability guided by noneducators – elected officials, business leaders and philanthropists.

Visit: Center For Union Facts

Every day, millions of union members have money taken from their paychecks to support some union presidents' political agenda. In 1996, Rutgers economics professor Leo Troy estimated that union political expenditures totaled about $500 million in each election cycle.

More recently, the National Institute for Labor Relations Research estimated that total union political expenditures reached $925 million in the 2004 cycle. Over time, this has added up: According to The Center for Responsive Politics, eight of the top ten all-time political contributors are labor unions.

Labor leaders have made the use of employee money for political causes a popular practice — but it's far less popular among the public and the members themselves.

Use of Member Money for Politics is Unpopular and Misunderstood

Use of members' money for political goals was second only to corruption as the reasons Americans disapproved of unions, according to a 2004 Zogby poll.

That poll also found that 63 percent of all employees, and 61 percent of unionized employees, agreed that union members shouldn't be forced to contribute.

A McLaughlin & Associates poll indicated that 67 percent of workers were unaware of their right to withhold mandatory dues for politics (to see how to keep your dues, learn more about resigning your union membership).

Giant Sign of the Times (Square)

In case our mobile billboard wasn’t enough, the Center for Union Facts has also unveiled an enormous seven-story billboard in Times Square. The billboard tells New Yorkers and tourists about the “Ten Worst Union-Protected Teachers” contest we’re running (click here to read about some pretty egregious New York City examples). We’ve already received some pretty scary nominations (such as yesterday’s Nominee of the Week, the Drunk Gunman), but with this board reaching so many eyeballs, we expect to receive a lot more. Click here, here, here, and here to see more photos.

Center For Union Facts

###

From: Teachers For Union Facts

Full article Teachers UnionFacts

Excerpts:

For this massive new project, the Center for Union Facts filed freedom of information requests with dozens of America’s major school districts.

From the stacks of paperwork that ensued, we have calculated a variety of statistics that document how teachers unions – and the laws and policies they defend – keep bad teachers in classrooms. Read on to discover just what all that dues money pays for in many cities around the country.

Boston Teachers Union: Protecting Bad Teachers

The Boston Teachers Union (BTU) is the exclusive bargaining agent for teachers from the Boston Public Schools district. According to district records, however, policies defended by BTU and its parent unions (AFT Massachusetts and the American Federation of Teachers) mean that practically no teachers are ever fired by the school system after they work for three years and thus acquire tenure.

Send this to a Friend

From: campusreportonline.net

Educational GIVEaway

by: Paul M. Weyrich, March 06, 2008

Full article Paul M. Weyrich campusreportonline.net

Excerpts:

This week the House of Representatives is scheduled to vote on H.R. 2857, the Generations Invigorating Volunteerism and Education Act, more creatively known as the GIVE Act. If passed and signed into law, the bill would revise and reauthorize appropriations for numerous community service programs through Fiscal Year 2012.

Among the revisions to some of the programs is the addition of four “purposes” to the National and Community Service Act of 1990. These include “providing year-round opportunities in service-learning; involving citizens in emergency and disaster preparedness, relief, and recovery; increasing service opportunities for retiring professionals; and encouraging service by Baby Boomers and continued service by national service alumni.”

NEA=National Education Center

From: LaborPains.org. A great site to visit

To LaborPains.org

NEA Rings the Dinner Bell

Today the National Education Association issued a press release that displayed remarkable candor about the union’s institutional tilt to the left, urging Democratic presidential contenders Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton to take the union’s electoral clout more seriously while expressing no interest in appealing to Republicans. According to the teachers union’s release, “[w]ith both [Democratic] candidates scrambling to gather enough delegates to win the nomination, NEA is uniquely poised to play a major role in either campaign.”

The NEA’s latest Democrats-only summons is just the latest example of a lengthy trend: between 1990 and 2006, more than 93 percent of donations made by National Education Association political action committees and individual officers went to Democrats, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. That’s not to say that anywhere close to 93 percent of NEA members are Democrats, however; the NEA’s own “Status of the American Public School Teacher 2000-2001” [PDF] indicates that only 45 percent of public school teachers are Democrats.

From: Education Policy Institute

The Teacher Unions: Enemies of Reform

by Charlene K. Haar, EPI President

Full article: Education Policy Institute

Excerpts:

From the school house to the White House, the teacher unions are the most formidable foes of meaningful education reforms -- reforms, which I believe are necessary to achieve superior educational outcomes for children at lower costs to parents and other taxpayers through competition.

Despite their rhetoric, the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers, like other labor unions, were established to redistribute income from employers to employees and the unions. There is no incentive to reduce costs when taxpayers must pay upon demand. There is no reason to excel when the best employees are paid what the worst are paid. For decades, the NEA/AFT have negotiated highly inefficient contracts covering such items as

Public School Monopoly

hours of employment and compensation

teacher work load and duties

teacher qualifications

teaching assignments and seniority

benefits

teacher evaluation and tenure

taxpayer subsidies to the unions, such as paid time off for union work, use of school mail system, payroll deduction for dues and NEA/AFT PACs at no cost to the unions, and retirement credit for full-time service as a union employee.

Peter Brimley is the author of the 2003 book THE WORM IN THE APPLE: HOW THE TEACHER UNIONS ARE DESTROYING AMERICA

Summarizing just a small portion of this very worthwhile read, is the following:

It is no coincidence that the thirty year decline in U.S. K-12 education and the simultaneous surge in education spending began at the same time that the modern teacher unions were created,

Today, the biggest union in the country is the National Education Association, which has nearly 3 million members.

Its agenda is not to provide better teaching in schools; it is to provide more money and benefits for teachers-and above all for itself. It accomplishes this through collective bargaining muscle and by buying political influence.

Even worse the unions want to turn curriculum, textbook and grading standards into bargaining chips in labor negotiations.

How much longer will we allow the Public School Monopoly continue?

Peter Brimelow exposed the teacher unions for what they are; a political and economic monopoly that is choking the education system, like the "trusts" that put a stranglehold on American business a hundred years ago. Until the unions are held accountable, and public schools opened up to market forces, no education reform, no matter how worthy, will succeed. It is time, Brimelow convincingly argues, to bust the Teacher Trust.

From: Family Security Matters

FSM’s Second Annual ‘America’s Most Dangerous College Courses’

Jason Rantz

Full article Family Security Matters

Excerpts

It’s been two years since I’ve begun investigating insipid, scary and yes, downright dangerous college courses – sometimes funded by tax dollars – and unfortunately, little has changed. Arrogant professors, protected by tenure and faint-hearted administrators, use their classrooms to spread their twisted views of America and its allies. Sometimes, entire courses are focused on anti-American views; other times, professors take time from non-political classes, such as math or Kinesiology, to complain about George Bush, the war on terrorism, social justice, and whatever it is that happens to bother them at the time of their rants. Consequently, students are not being taught properly and universities and colleges are robbing their students of the well-rounded educations they are paying for and deserve.

As was the case with the first installment of this list in 2006, courses for this list are based on a variety of criteria:

* The course must focus on the issue or issues detailed in the syllabus or class description. That is, a math course with a professor who may rail against America will not be considered. * The course must also express an agenda far beyond any honest or accurate academic cause. That is, professors who teach courses that lie, manipulate facts, propagandize students, or express a dishonest and fact-deficient extremist view on the class topic, will be considered. * Courses that may be required as part of a “core” curriculum will also be considered if they offer nothing more than to stroke the ego of the professor’s fascination with silly topics that offer little academic value to students.

###

Public School Monopoly

From CampusOnlineReport.net

Leaning Tower of PISA

by: Bethany Stotts, December 18, 2007

Full Article Campus Report On Line

Excerpts

The recently-released 2006 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) results have been heralded by some as proving that American science and math illiteracy are endangering American competitiveness abroad, and will lead to an economic crisis within the next generation.

The results rank the U.S. 21 out of the 30 advanced industrial Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) member countries, and American students scored an average 489 points on the combined science literacy scale compared to the 500-point OECD average.

In response to these gloomy results, Department of Education Secretary Margaret Spellings announced on December 4th that the 2006 PISA results reinforced the need for school reform according to “what President Bush has long been advocating for: more rigor in our nation’s high schools; additional resources for advanced courses to prepare students for college-level studies; and stronger math and science education.”

She states that President Bush’s reform initiatives such as No Child Left Behind, increased state accountability, and the National Math Panel will all improve America’s future scientific success.

Public School Monopoly

However, Newt Gingrich and Roy Romer disagree that current reforms have enhanced America’s economic strength, arguing in their December Washington Times editorial “Losing the Race” that the PISA results show

“America is falling behind its global competitors and the economic security of our children is at risk.”

They add, “If an American corporation produced such mediocre outcomes, then the CEO would be fired immediately. Yet, American schools continue to churn out below-average students with no fear of consequences.”

Huckabee's Upcoming Union Endorsement

Press Release From the CLUB FOR GROWTH

Visit The Club For Growth

Washington - When it comes to education policy, Mike Huckabee looks more like Hillary Clinton than a conservative Republican.

Apparently, the National Education Association agrees.

Today, Mike Huckabee will receive the recommendation of the New Hampshire affiliate of the National Education Association along with Democrat Hillary Clinton in their respective presidential primaries.

“No doubt, the NEA’s endorsement has something to do with Huckabee’s opposition to private school choice and his support for a federally mandated and funded arts and music curriculum,” said Club for Growth President Pat Toomey.

“Like Hillary Clinton, Mike Huckabee puts the interests of a labor union ahead of children’s education.”

“In contrast, the other major Republican candidates support school choice as an important step towards achieving a competitive education system that will give parents the freedom to choose which school best suits their children’s needs.

While Huckabee claims he is an economic conservative, he is aligning himself with those who oppose competition and choice.”

Possibly the biggest scandal in America is the Democratic Party's collusion with the powerful teacher's unions.

Back in April, after an agonizing effort to satisfy all sides in the state of Utah a compromise was worked out and legislation was passed to allow kids in that state to receive vouchers and go to the school of their choice, even compensate schools that lost children by giving the school the amount lost for 5 years.

This did not satisfy teachers. They do not want their monopoly curtailed in any way.

They got a measure on the ballot, flexed their muscles and knowing the Democratic Party is in their hip pocket for all their efforts, brought the voucher effort down.

No Relaxation Technique Left Behind!

Taxpayers Now Paying For Schools To Teach Yoga Classes

Michelle Malkin Has This To Say:

According to the piece, “Less Homework, More Yoga, From a Principal Who Hates Stress,” the head of Needham High School in the Boston suburbs is pushing “stress reduction” through better stretching and breathing.

Principal Paul Richards, who last earned nationwide mockery when he ditched publishing the honor roll, is part-Oprah, part-Deepak Chopra, part-Richard Simmons, and all edu-babble.

Michelle facetiously suggests:

Math test scores have plummeted. Solution: Remove the U.S. from international competitions.

Public School Monopoly

Students are failing. Solution: Hide the honor rolls so the under-achievers don’t feel bad.

Elementary pupils don’t like drills and spelling tests. Solution: Fuzzy math and inventive spelling.

Families can’t manage their time. Solution: Less homework, more yoga.

Full article

Taxpayers Paying For Yoga in Public Schools

Public School Monopoly

Do you know any former prisoners of war (POW'S) or their family members? If so, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) needs your help.

VA is once again reaching out to former prisoners of war not currently using VA benefits and services, urging them to contact the Department to find out if they are eligible for health care, disability compensation and other services.

Learn More

Public School Monopoly