(Guest Post by Matthew Ladner)
He’s going to stab it with his steely knife, and he just might kill the beast…
NJ Governor Christie: NJEA = Hotel California
June 5, 2010
52 Comments | 
teacher union | Tagged: Chris Christie, New Jersey Education Association, New Jersey teacher unions, NJEA | 
Permalink
Posted by matthewladner
Enlow: It’s Bailout v. Vouchers
May 25, 2010
(Guest post by Greg Forster)
Need an antidote to Whinegarten in the Journal? Try Robert Enlow in USA Today:
If this president and Congress really wanted to help children and benefit teachers, it would emancipate students so their parents could use their own tax dollars to obtain educational services wherever they wanted — at charter schools, virtual schools or with a voucher to transfer to the private school of their choice. But that’s not really what they want. Instead, they want to maintain a status quo that is designed to benefit the adults rather than brighten the future of children.
It’s not just this $23 billion bill, it’s the whole stinking system that’s one big slow-motion perpetual bailout. What are the odds you’ll get serious change without school choice? 3,720 to none.
4 Comments | money myth, teacher union, vouchers | Tagged: Randi Weingarten, Robert Enlow, USA Today, Wall Street Journal | Permalink
Posted by Greg Forster
Never Tell Her the Odds
May 20, 2010
(Guest post by Greg Forster)
Today’s Journal wastes precious op-ed space on Randi Weingarten’s whiney pitch for an education bailout. It’s tough out there for a public school bureaucrat trying to keep his (or her) fiefdom from shrinking – but they should have thought of that before setting off on a multiple-decade teacher overhiring binge. Of course there are teacher layoffs!
Whinegarten wants $23 billion. With the enormous geyser of money we pour into the system every year, will a piddling $23 billion make any difference to performance? Forget about 3,720 to one – not even C-3P0 can calculate those odds.
Delightful schadenfreude bonus: Some mischievous elf in the Journal‘s offices decided to place the Whinegarten piece directly below Daniel Henninger’s column singing the praises of Christo Rey. Are they laying off teachers? I would ask whether they’re likely to hire any of the teachers who got laid off from the public system, but I won’t – because the public system is so dysfunctional it’s more likely to lay off good teachers than bad ones.
6 Comments | charter schools, money myth, teacher union | Permalink
Posted by Greg Forster
Whoever Wins, We Lose
May 14, 2010
(Guest post by Greg Forster)
A judge in LA has ruled that doing layoffs strictly by seniority is illegal because it denies low-income students their right to an education under the state constitution. The lawsuit, brought on behalf of three inner-city schools by civil rights groups, has the backing of Gov. Schwarzenegger, Mayor Villaraigosa (whose nonprofit operation manages two of the plaintiff schools), the state board of education, the city superintendent, and I don’t know who-all else.
The unions are saying they can’t comment because they spent the last several decades endorsing this kind of legally bogus judicial power grab and now it’s come back to bite them in the they haven’t read the decision yet.
I honestly don’t know whom to root for, the judicial tyrants who will cut down all the laws to do their will (which in this case happens to be good except for the cutting-down-all-the-laws-to-do-it part) or the unions, who are of course execrabale, but who, for once, are the legitimately aggreived party here.
You remember what Sellar and Yeatman wrote about the Cavaliers and the Roundheads, right?
HT Whitney Tilson
Leave a Comment » | teacher quality, teacher union | Tagged: Antonio Villaraigosa, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Greg Forster, Los Angeles | Permalink
Posted by Greg Forster
Union Lobbyist Goes Down Hard
May 3, 2010
The unions talk tough. So did Michael Spinks.
(Guest post by Greg Forster)
Collin Hitt of the Illinois Policy Institute just sent me this wonderful nugget, pulled off the official recording of the proceedings of the Illinois House Executive Committee last week.
Dramatis personae: Illinois Education Association thug lobbyist Jim Reed, and Rep. Daniel Burke.
Reed: I think the question to the downside [of the school voucher bill] is the fact that while you may think that you’re helping these 24,000 kids, the fact that you’re diverting funds from public schools means that the kids who are left in those existing public schools are going to have fewer resources. So there is a downside in terms of those students who are actually left in our public school system. That’s the downside.
Burke: Could they do any worse than what they are doing now, whether they’re funded or not?
Reed: You mean our public schools generally?
Burke: No. These schools that we are discussing, that are going to be affected by this legislation.
Reed: Probably not. They are the lowest of the lowest.
Wow! I bet Reed is still digging his teeth out of the carpet.
That’s quite a trick – I’ve never seen checkmate in one move before.
Unofficial transcript of what Rep. Burke said next
4 Comments | teacher union, vouchers | Tagged: All your base are belong to us, Best of Greg, Collin Hitt, Daniel Burke, Greg Forster, Illinois Policy Institute, Illinois Vouchers, Jim Reed, Michael Spinks | Permalink
Posted by Greg Forster
Escaping from ‘Awaiting Moderation’ Purgatory
April 21, 2010
(Guest Post by Matthew Ladner)
Greg’s post on the UFT elicited a unintentionally humorous response from my Sith Apprentice, Darth Leo, about how “Democracy flows in the life blood” of the teacher union. I asked Leo whether his union would support school districts holding school board and bond elections on the uniform November date. After all, it wouldn’t do to have someone taking advantage of notoriously low turnout affairs and riding on a high horse about “democracy” at the same time.
Leo, like any good egocentric New Yorker began to instantly conflate the goings on in NYC with the interests of the known universe. New Yorkers can be such hicks. Anyhoo, I wrote a response to Leo in this exchange, which he has left “awaiting moderation” for two days. Since Leo seems too distracted to moderate his blog, I’ll post the comment myself:
Leo-
I have no dog in the mayoral control hunt. Whether or not I would support a move to mayoral control would depend upon the circumstances involved. Mayors are elected officials, even in NYC, so it seems obvious that there is a clear opportunity for the voters to express their displeasure at the ballot box if they wish.
You however are avoiding the broader question by obsessing over your parochial NYC concerns. Speaking only for yourself, shouldn’t someone who claims to have democracy flowing in the life blood of their organization be willing to state that maximizing voter turnout in school district elections is a good idea?
If you want to wrap yourself in the flag of democracy, shouldn’t you practice it? Instead, what I see is an organization supporting hundreds of school board candidates and bond elections every year in embarrassingly low turnout elections held on irregular election dates blowing hot air about “democracy.”
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
5 Comments | teacher union | Tagged: Leo Casey | Permalink
Posted by matthewladner
The Unions Doth Protest Too Much
April 19, 2010
(Guest post by Greg Forster)
Wow, the graphic above seems to have struck a sensitive spot with our Sith apprentice, Leo Casey. Here’s his surprisingly defensive overreaction.
Leo thinks he has my motives all figured out. He thinks my post last week was trying to sow division within the union by pitting their internal constituencies against one another.
Er, no. I don’t think many UFT members read Jay P. Greene’s Blog, except the ones who are paid to.
Leo’s evidence about my motives consists entirely of a passage from a book written 20 years ago by people who have no connection to me. Oh, and he lists my affiliation as being with “the Milton Friedman Foundational Educational Choice.” Two words right out of five ain’t bad – at least by his standards.
You would think that a person who has been caught participating in eggregious political fraud and promoting scandalous calumny would be more careful. Or maybe you wouldn’t.
Sherman Dorn likewise misconstrues my purpose (although without the foot-shooting intellectual slapstick we’ve come to expect from Leo). Dorn writes of my post: “This is corruption! is the implication.”
Er, no. I not only didn’t say anything about corruption, I didn’t imply anything about it. There’s nothing corrupt about UFT representing more non-teachers than actual teachers.
Dorn invokes my status as a political scientist with hoity-toity academic credentials in order to sadly lament that I failed to provide an extensive discussion of the academic literature on different types of voting systems in my blog post. Well, let’s try to satisfy him by adopting some unnecessarily opaque academic jargon as we look back at the actual, clearly and explicitly expressed purpose of the post.
My post is what political scientists call “positive theory.” That is, I’m offering an explanatory model of the unions’ behavior. Why do unions invest so much of their effort in racking up a trillion dollars in mostly-unfunded pension obligations, rather than taking a more evenhanded (and thus presumably less noticeable) approach to what kinds of swag they grab? Why do they support policies that make working conditions worse for teachers?
Down here in the dark bowls of the earth where we “trolls” live, the prevailing explanation is that the union leadership has incentives to do things that fatten themselves at the expense of the union membership. Well, I’m not saying that’s not true! But there’s at least one other plausible theory, and my post offered it. Or both could be right!
But . . . I’ll admit that I did have a hidden agenda! Namely, I wanted to create some transparency about whether the UFT represents “teachers.” It’s not wrong for UFT to represent more non-teachers than it does teachers, but it’s wrong for UFT to puff itself up as The Voice of The Teacher in order to promote policies that serve another agenda. Not that I think a union should puff itself up as The Voice of the Teacher even if it does primarily represent teachers, any more than I think the National Organization for Women should puff itself up as The Voice of Women. But how much more shameless would it be if most voting members of NOW were men?
5 Comments | teacher union | Tagged: Greg Forster, Leo Casey, Sherman Dorn, UFT | Permalink
Posted by Greg Forster
Charlie Crist Vetoes Tenure Bill
April 15, 2010
(Guest Post by Matthew Ladner)
Florida Governor Crist vetoed a tenure reform bill despite the fact that he endorsed it publicly on multiple occasions.
22 Comments | teacher quality, teacher union | Tagged: Charlie Crist, Flip flops | Permalink
Posted by matthewladner
Only 40% of UFT Voters Are Actual Teachers
April 14, 2010
(Guest post by Greg Forster)
Over on NRO, Rick Hess points out that only 40% of the voters in last week’s UFT elections were actual teachers.
Do you think this sort of thing might have something to do with the problem of runaway, unfunded teacher pensions? Looks like at least one union is representing retirees at least as much as teachers.
This also sheds some light on why the unions favor policies that destroy the working environment for public school teachers. Only 40% of their voters are affected by the destruction of the teacher working environment.
And this is after the implementation of a new rule that counts each vote by a retiree as only 0.72 of a vote. If the retirees’ votes hadn’t been diluted, the teachers would only be 34% of the electorate and the retirees 46%.
In case you’re wondering, the other 22% of the UFT vote is composed of what the union calls “functional teachers,” i.e. almost entirely non-teachers (librarians, nurses, counsellors, etc.)
1 Comment | teacher union | Tagged: Greg Forster, NRO, Rick Hess, UFT | Permalink
Posted by Greg Forster
NJEA Local Prays for Christie’s Death
April 9, 2010
(Guest post by Greg Forster)
The Bergen County Education Association, a local chapter of the NJEA, recently circulated a memo praying for the death of Gov. Chris Christie:
Dear Lord this year you have taken away my favorite actor, Patrick Swayze, my favorite actress, Farrah Fawcett, my favorite singer, Michael Jackson, and my favorite salesman, Billy Mays. I just wanted to let you know that Chris Christie is my favorite governor.
But remember, it’s those horrible tea partiers who are vitriolic, hateful, unstable and potentially violent!
I’m not sure which is more embarrassing for the NJEA, the fact that their local is circulating memos praying for the governor’s death, or the fact that their local is headed by a person whose favorite actor is Patrick Swayze, favorite acress is Farrah Fawcett, and favorite singer is Michael Jackson.
9 Comments | teacher union | Tagged: Bergen County Education Association, Greg Forster, NEA, NJEA | Permalink
Posted by Greg Forster
Jay P. Greene's Blog 