Teachers unions are standing in the path of teachers being held accountable for crimes against students. A high school science teacher in Bronx, NY, who had already been warned about touching female students brushed his lower body against one student’s leg during a lab exercise, coming so close that she told investigators she could…
Some big city Democratic mayors, who were formerly teachers or teachers’ union activists, organizers and supporters are now challenging guess who……. teachers unions. Democratic mayors in cities across the country, Chicago, Cleveland, Newark and Boston among them, are challenging teachers unions in ways that seemed inconceivable just a decade ago. At time when…
Less government and lower taxes enhance education despite the cries of special interests. Money is spent more efficiently by the private sector than by governments, so it is reasonable to expect that states with lower overall taxes have better economic environments than states with high taxes and more government spending. Lowering taxes can be…
Two expense items are playing havoc with the budgets of most American families today. Monstrous premiums for healthcare policies and ballooning tuition for our college students are threatening to burst the budgets of the average family. In an effort to understand what has caused this crisis it helps to examine the history of central…
Education strategy has been too narrowly focused on an academic, classroom-based approach which fails to address the need to provide a path to employability for many. Despite decades of efforts to reform education, and billions of dollars of expenditures, the harsh reality is that America is still failing to prepare millions of its students…
Thirty years ago, a Reagan administration report warned of “a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as a nation and a people.” The report, “A Nation at Risk,” tied that mediocrity to the failure of America’s schools. Fast forward to 2012, and the story hasn’t changed, former New York City Schools…
Grade inflation is a national scandal, though widely ignored. Why? It’s a win-win for students, parents, politicians, and university administrators. False pride is still pride, and therefore spendable in the marketplace. Should we blame the faculty? Yes and no. Most of them are totally powerless today, caught between student evaluations (which serve as…
We all know how inflation works, with the government printing money it can no longer back, the postwar legacy of many vanquished countries. At first people take the currency at face value, remembering the past when it held value. But a crash is on the way. Student debt and taxpayer waste will remain. …
A dear friend, Tonchi Weaver, has a great idea (wish it were my idea, but it wasn’t) and I will share it here with you. On second thought, I will not just share it, I will promote it unabashedly. Monday, March 19, 2012 is “Veto Day” in the South Dakota Legislature in Pierre. It is…
Everything that emanates from the Obama Administration is either a power grab or a money grab, or both. The push for centralized control over what every child should learn is no exception. The Obama Administration has pressured states to adopt the Common Core State Standards Initiative, conditioning more than $4 billion in Race to…
