Nowhere in Colorado is rank-and-file teacher dissent with the union so apparent as in the heart of Denver - for a multitude of reasons that cannot begin to be explored in this brief post. But an increasingly strained contract debate with the school board (Barack Obama alluded to it in his speech yesterday) - after the board offered a substantial raise as part of a progressive compensation system. Now a new splinter teachers group with an online presence has emerged in Denver (H/T Alan Gottlieb). It would be great to see these teachers continue posting on the blog they started. Interestingly, the local union president hasn't posted anything to her blog since this splinter group has emerged. The National Education Association, to which … [Read more...]
Debunking “49th in education spending” Colorado Fallacy … Once Again
In a story about the new $18 billion state budget signed by Gov. Bill Ritter, a local Fox TV news station reporter stated:In education spending, the State of Colorado ranks 49th. Of course, this sentence is suspect from the start, because it doesn't tell us whether it's measuring higher education or K-12 education. If the article is referring to K-12 education, then it wasn't true two years ago, it wasn't true last year, and it isn't true this year, either. There are two reliable sources for K-12 education funding data. First, Statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau show Colorado ranks 36th in "current" per-pupil spending. The lowest possible ranking that could be devised shows Colorado at 47th in spending per $1,000 of personal … [Read more...]
Teachers Union Corruption and Abuse Served Up South of the Border
I am critical enough of the Colorado Education Association and the National Education Association. But to be fair, NEA/CEA has been outdone by their counterparts to the South: Mexico's National Union of Education Workers. The Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) has documented the waste and corruption and horrible inefficiencies of the Mexican education system due to the union's political power and influence (H/T Mark Krikorian at The Corner). Teachers unions in this state and country have caused their own significant share of problems, but their work is cut out for them to match the scale of abuse and destructive influence that CIS has documented about their sister union south of the border. Wow. … [Read more...]
Barack Obama’s “No, We Can’t” About-Face on School Vouchers
I almost missed this one... From the editors of the New York Sun comes notice that Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama may be more cynical and duplicitous than widely given credit for:No sooner had we issued Elizabeth Green's dispatch under the headline "Obama Open to Private School Vouchers" than his campaign was scrambling to undo the potential damage with the Democratic primary electorate. On February 20, his campaign issued a statement headlined, "Response to Misleading Reports Concerning Senator Obama's Position on Vouchers" that said, "Senator Obama has always been a critic of vouchers." The statement went on, "Throughout his career, he has voted against voucher proposals and voiced concern for siphoning off resources from … [Read more...]