Posts tagged public schools
Op-ed: Ohio needs to wrest control of public schools from the teachers’ un
August 25, 2025 // Bureaucratic schools where merit doesn’t matter. Unions have used their clout, including their ability to elect pro-union school boards, to secure lengthy, incredibly detailed employment contracts that advance their interests while tying up school leaders with red tape. These contracts include job protections (even for incompetent teachers), onerous procedural hoops that schools must follow to evaluate or discipline an employee, and benefits that exceed what many private sector employees enjoy (e.g., generous healthcare, even for retirees, and paid leave). Moreover, following a union-supported state law, these contracts require Ohio teachers to be paid according to rigid salary schedules that reward seniority and degrees instead of classroom effectiveness and individual talent—a merit-based approach to compensation that has proven to benefit students in the (few) places where it has been tried. Escalating spending.
Opinion: We can’t abolish America’s largest teachers union. But Congress can do something else
August 7, 2025 // If this is what happens when NEA completely controls an event and its programming, the union’s tremendous influence over classrooms is a five-alarm fire not just for public education, but the future of our country. Congressional action addressing the pernicious influence of the teachers unions is long overdue. That’s why I (Mr. Fitzgerald) and Sen. Cynthia Lummis from Wyoming have introduced the Stopping Teachers Unions from Damaging Education Needs Today (STUDENT) Act, which would overhaul the NEA’s federal charter to make the union more accountable and less partisan.
Op-ed: Virginia Must Clarify Its Labor Laws
June 9, 2025 // The ideal outcome for Virginia would be to repeal the Democrats’ 2020 law and return Virginia to being one of the few states that outright prohibit collective bargaining in the public sector. North and South Carolina have for decades, and Utah joined them with a new law signed by Governor Spencer Cox (R.) this year. But with Democrats currently in control of the Virginia General Assembly, a repeal effort would go nowhere. In the meantime, the proposed regulations are needed to make sure local government unions are following the law. Virginia is a right-to-work state with many strong protections for employees in unionized workplaces. Public employees deserve those protections just as much as private employees do.
CA requires public school unionization lessons, bans mandatory anti-union work meetings
January 2, 2025 // Two new laws — AB 800, signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2023, and now SB 399, signed into law by Newsom this year, are set to help maintain or even increase union membership in the state. AB 800, signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2023, requires California high school juniors and seniors to be taught about their workplace rights, the achievements of organized labor, and students’ right to join a union. Education site Chalkboard News used public records requests to discover what exactly this new law is having teachers cover.
Chicago Teachers Union took over Acero charter schools to stifle parents’ rights
December 28, 2024 // The Chicago Teachers Union played a long game with Acero charter schools: unionizing them, undermining them and then taking them over. Now students and parents are left without the charter schools they chose.
Blue State Just Let Teachers Unions Off The Hook For Failing Public Schools
July 12, 2024 // Under the new law, teachers’ unions will be able to collectively bargain over performance reviews, preventing ineffective teachers from facing any consequences, according to the WSJ. New York spends almost twice the national average on education at $29,873 per pupil, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Staff at New Orleans’ French immersion school, Lycée Français, vote to unionize
May 16, 2024 // This week's vote comes as Republican state lawmakers have introduced several bills aiming to weaken public-sector unions. However, one of the harshest measures, which would outlaw collective bargaining for teachers and other public employees, would not apply to charter schools because the federal labor board has ruled that they are entitled to union protections. Lycée Français is the seventh New Orleans charter school to unionize since 2013, when Morris Jeff Community School joined UTNO. The other union schools are Rooted School, International High School, Bricolage Academy, Ben Franklin High School and the Living School, though that school is set to close.
MPS support professionals vote to authorize strike
April 27, 2024 // Education support professionals working in Minneapolis Public Schools voted to authorize a strike on Friday. Support professionals overwhelmingly approved the potential strike in a vote last night. This comes after the teachers chapter of the union reached a tentative agreement with the district. The union said 92% of members who voted were in favor of the authorization.
If Only Low-Income Kids Had a Union
March 21, 2024 // Lawmakers failing to align with the unions’ objectives may jeopardize their backing during election season, which not only includes financial funding but also campaign support such as organizing get-out-the-vote efforts and door-to-door canvassing to secure the victory of their favored candidates. Parent activists are growing increasingly frustrated with being overshadowed by teacher unions. During a Feb. 28 press conference at the Legislative Office Building, the Connecticut Parents Union (CTPU), an advocacy group focused on educational reform, joined forces with activists from Danbury and Middletown to urge lawmakers to fund and open charter schools in these cities. The state Board of Education has already given approval to the schools in question, but the General Assembly has yet to allocate the required funds. Specifically, Danbury Prospect Charter School received approval in 2018, and Capital Preparatory (CPREP) in Middletown was greenlit in 2023.
Will the Teachers’ Union Crush Education Opportunity in Connecticut?
March 5, 2024 // Ultimately, their reluctance to embrace opportunity scholarships forces one to question the priorities of those who lead the teachers’ union: Is it to teach children so they’re prepared to engage in the world and lead lives of dignity and purpose? Or, cynically, are union leaders afraid that if students opted for private schools, their coffers would receive less funding from local and state boards of education?