Commentary: Eliminating Standardized Testing Had Shockingly Bad Results

Test Taking

For years, liberals have scoffed at the idea that standardized testing is the best predictor of academic success. The National Education Association, for instance, claims standardized tests are “both inequitable and ineffective at gauging what students know.” Activists’ campaign against standardized testing — and their assertions that such tests discriminate against “underrepresented minority students” — culminated in the decisions by more than 1,000 colleges to drop their standardized testing requirements.

This week, cold, hard data showed just how foolish those decisions were. The University of Texas at Austin released the academic performance data for students who submitted standardized scores versus those who did not submit such scores. The result is unambiguous: Students who did not submit standardized tests performed drastically worse than students who did submit their scores. The students who did not submit ACT or SAT scores finished the fall 2023 semester with a grade point average 0.86 grade points lower than students who did. This demonstrates an average difference of almost an entire letter grade. Had the University of Texas utilized all applicants’ standardized scores, it very well might have decided against admitting many of those who did not provide their scores. Students who did not provide scores had a median SAT of 1160, markedly lower than that of the students who did provide their scores: 1420. The University of Texas would have been correct in deciding against admitting those students with lower scores given how much better students with a higher average SAT performed academically.

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Teachers Unions Spending Millions on GOP Primaries in 32 States

Randi Weingarten

A new report claims that teachers unions, which are overwhelmingly left-wing, have been spending millions on Republican primaries in recent years, with the campaign stretching across 32 different states.

As Fox News reports, the report from the Daily Signal suggests that various local affiliates of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and the National Education Association (NEA) have been increasingly donating more money to Republican primary candidates for state legislatures over the last six years.

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Commentary: School Choice Keeps Spreading

Classroom

In just three years, the number of states with universal or near-universal private school choice programs has grown from zero to 10, and the number of students eligible for these programs has increased by 60%. According to the latest ABCs of School Choice – EdChoice’s comprehensive report about all matters pertaining to educational freedom—32 states (plus Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico) are using school choice as of 2023. Additionally, policymakers in 40 states debated 111 educational choice bills last year alone. Overall, approximately 20 million students—or 36% of all kids—are now eligible for some kind of private-choice program.

But what’s good for children and their families is problematic for the teachers’ unions and their fellow travelers. As such, on January 22—not coincidentally the beginning of National School Choice Week—the Partnership for the Future of Learning released a toolkit, maintaining that “voucher programs are “deeply rooted in segregation, racism, and discrimination.” The PFL, which is comprised of predominantly left-wing outfits—the National Education Association, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Learning Policy Institute, etc.—adds that private schools “do not have necessary accountability measures.”

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Commentary: Teacher Union Power Is Still in Full Bloom

CTA Event

As a result of the Janus decision in 2018, no teacher or any public employee has to pay a penny to a union as a condition of employment. The good news is that since then, 20% of workers in non-right-to-work states have dropped out of their unions, according to a report from the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. The not-so-good news is that 70% of teachers nationwide are still willingly paying union dues, a great deal of which goes to politics, specifically to progressive candidates and causes.

The California Teachers Association has the honor of being the biggest political-spending teachers’ union in the country. A recent report reveals that between 1999 and 2020, the 300,000+ member union spent an astonishing $222,940,629 on politics – about $6 million was spent on the federal level, while almost $217 million stayed in the state – with 98.2% of all spending going to Democrats. The top advocacy issues for CTA include regulating charter schools, immigration reform, social justice, and a slew of almost exclusively left-wing causes.

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Commentary: The Year in Teacher Union Double Dealing

This has been an egregious year for the country’s teachers unions. Okay, you may be thinking, so what else is new? But 2023 has exposed them as hypocrites par excellence.

The National Education Association convention in July provides myriad examples. While one might think a gathering of teachers would be concerned with the lack of literacy in public school students, he would be dead wrong. This year’s NEA convention in Florida was strictly political, and sex- and gender-obsessed ideas were front and center.

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Teachers Union Tells Teachers to Destroy Evidence of Student Gender Identity Surveys: Report

A Colorado affiliate of the nation’s largest teachers union, the National Education Association, told its teachers to destroy any evidence of having given students a gender identity survey, according to a recent report.

CBS Colorado notes that while the JeffCo Public Schools district says it is “unclear” whether surveys about “preferred pronouns” are in violation of state law, it advised teachers against using them as lawsuits are ongoing.

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Wisconsin Congressman Scott Fitzgerald Introduces Bill Taking on National Education Association’s Political Clout

U.S. Representative Scott Fitzgerald (R-WI-05) introduced a bill that would check the power of the National Education Association (NEA).

The Stopping Teachers Unions from Damaging Education Needs Today (STUDENT) Act aims to reform the NEA’s federal charter and “rededicate the organization to the pursuit of increased student learning and quality education in schools across America,” according to the congressman.

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National Labor Union Data Contradicts Pennsylvania Teacher Exodus Claims

Teacher compensation across Pennsylvania grew over the past decade, despite claims from officials that low salaries and high stress scare educators from the state in droves.

The data, gleaned from a recent report from the National Education Association – one of the country’s largest labor unions – found that teachers in Pennsylvania earned an average of $73,072 during the 2021-22 school year – the 11th highest rate in the nation.

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Teachers Union Tells Minnesota Members to Toss Letter on Opting Out ‘In the Garbage’

The St. Paul Federation of Educators (SPFE) is encouraging teachers to ignore a letter from the Freedom Foundation notifying them of their right to opt out of Education Minnesota, the state’s teachers union.

Caitlin Reid, lead organizer for SPFE, sent an email with an “anti-union postcard alert” telling members to toss the letter from the Freedom Foundation “in the garbage” and let their building organizers know if they received it, according to a copy of the email obtained by Alpha News. Reid did not respond to a request for comment.

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America’s Largest Teachers Unions Unveil LGBTQ Toolkit Detailing ‘Ze/Zim’ Pronouns, How to Address ‘Bias’

The country’s largest teachers union released an LGBTQ toolkit Wednesday for educators, explaining “ze/zim” pronouns and how to address bias around sexual orientation and gender identity within the classroom.

The National Education Association’s (NEA) newest guidance aims to provide resources to educators to help them support LGBTQ students within the classroom by “using inclusive language [and] addressing harmful comments.” The toolkit includes a guide that encourages teachers to introduce themselves with their pronouns and use “gender neutral” pronouns such as “they, them, or their” when they are unsure of someone’s gender.

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Minnesota Teachers Union Boycotting Annual Education Conference

St. Paul Federation of Educators (SPFE) is boycotting the National Education Association’s (NEA) annual meeting, which will be held in Florida, claiming Florida is hostile towards minority and LGBTQ communities.

The SPFE urged the NEA to cancel the 2023 Representative Assembly (RA) or convert to a virtual format. The RA is where delegates annually vote on issues that will nationally impact education and the teachers unions.

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Education Superintendent Tom Horne Blasts Opposition to Teacher Pay Increase Bill

Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne (R) released a statement Tuesday blasting opposition from Democrats and the state’s teacher union to House Bill (HB) 2800, sponsored by Representative Matt Gress (R-Phoenix).

“Shockingly, the Arizona teacher’s union and a number of Democrats in the legislature, oppose the bill. All we can think of is that they are opposed to it because it is a Republican bill. These kinds of questions should be bipartisan, and people should not oppose a good bill, just because [a] Republican introduced it,” Horne said.

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Mastriano Proposes Bill for Pennsylvania School Curriculum Transparency

Pennsylvania state Senator Doug Mastriano (R-Gettysburg) this week announced he is introducing legislation requiring public K-12 schools to post their curricula online. 

Should the policy become law, school districts and charter institutions must provide public web access to syllabi for all classes and thorough lists of the textbooks planned for use in those courses as well as commonwealth academic standards for all course offerings. Should a school make any curricular revisions, it would have 30 days to publish them. 

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Ohio School District Requests Court to Dismiss Lawsuit over Indoctrination and LGBTQ ‘I’m Here’ Badges

Less than a week after parents sued Hilliard City School in federal court because teachers are engaging in “intimate sexual conversations” with pupils as young as 6 years old, school officials are requesting the court to dismiss the lawsuit.

In a motion submitted by Columbus attorney Jessica Philemon in the U.S. District Court in the Southern District of Ohio on Monday, the district claims that the parents lack standing to launch a lawsuit because they ” have not alleged an actual case or controversy that would invoke the jurisdiction of the federal courts.”

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Parents Sue Hilliard School District over Indoctrination and LGBTQ ‘I’m Here’ Badges

The removal of staff-worn LGBTQ badges is being demanded by a number of parents from central Ohio who are suing Hilliard City Schools in federal court because teachers are engaging in “intimate sexual conversations” with pupils as young as 6 years old.

In the case, Ohio Republican Council of Clubs’ attorney Joshua Brown said he represents parents who claim activist instructors are conducting private conversations with their children about sexuality and mental health while keeping those conversations hidden from parents.

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Sen. Obenshain Tries Again with Charter School Constitutional Amendment

Senator Mark Obenshain (R-Rockingham) has introduced a constitutional amendment to add approving charter schools to the Virginia Board of Education’s powers.

“We’ve seen a huge number of parents move their children to private or homeschooling environments, and the only people who can’t take advantage of it are the people who can’t afford it. And I just don’t think that we ought to be depriving Virginians of a high-quality education either because they can’t afford it or because of the zip code we’re in,” Obenshain told The Virginia Star.

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Commentary: Teachers Don’t Want to Tell Parents What’s Going on in Classrooms

Do parents have the right to know what their children are being taught in public school?

Parents say yes; teachers say no.

Of course, it’s not quite that simple. The description of the latter party can be tweaked to “teachers unions” — although you don’t hear many individual teachers bucking the union line — but the dichotomy remains: parents want to know what’s going on in their kids’ classrooms, and teachers, administrators, and their union bosses would rather not tell them.

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Teachers Flee Unions as Membership Plummets by Almost 60,000

The nation’s largest teachers unions, the National Education Association (NEA) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), declined by at least 59,000 members during the 2021-2022 school year, according to the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) disclosure reports.

The NEA, the nation’s largest teachers union, lost 40,107 members while the AFT, the nation’s second largest teachers union, declined by 19,078, according to the DOL reports. The decline comes as public schools added 95,000 educators from September 2021 to 2022.

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Commentary: The Systemic Racism of the Teachers Unions

Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case that could reverse the 2003 Grutter v. Bollinger decision, in which SCOTUS asserted that the use of an applicant’s race as a factor in an admissions policy of a public educational institution does not violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The current case specifically cites the use of race in the admissions process at Harvard and the University of North Carolina. The plaintiffs, Students for Fair Admissions, maintain that Harvard violates Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, “which bars entities that receive federal funding from discriminating based on race, because Asian American applicants are less likely to be admitted than similarly qualified white, Black, or Hispanic applicants.”

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Teachers’ Union Bosses Sidestep Unprecedented Student Achievement Losses Linked to COVID School Closures They Demanded

The heads of the nation’s largest teachers’ unions had little to say following the release Monday of national test scores that showed massive declines in student math and reading achievement following pandemic school closures the unions insisted were necessary for teacher safety.

Becky Pringle, president of the National Education Association (NEA) “remained silent,” Fox News reported Monday as results of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) revealed the damage tied to school closures during the COVID crisis.

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Teachers’ Union Suggests Summer Reading About Kneeling for the National Anthem

The country’s largest teachers’ union suggested a book about kneeling for the national anthem as part of its August 2022 summer reading list, according to its website.

The National Education Association (NEA) listed the book “Why We Fly” by Kimberly Jones and Gilly Segal, which features marijuana use and tells of two girls on the cheerleading squad who take a knee for the national anthem after being inspired by a football star protesting in the media, according to the website. Discussion questions and related resources on athlete activism are also provided by the NEA to pair with the reading.

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Two Studies Raise Concerns About Public School ‘Serious Violence Incidents’

At a time when school shootings are a concern for many Americans, serious violence incidents are also up in schools across the nation, reports two recent studies.

One study, from the National Center for Education Statistics, shows a 35% increase in serious violence incidents in K-12 public schools from the 2015-16 school year to 2019-20. Serious violence incidents include rape, attempted rape, sexual assault other than rape, threatened rape, physical attacks, fights with a weapon, threat of physical attack with a weapon, and robbery with or without a weapon.

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Largest Teacher’s Union Plans to Compile List of Opposition Groups to Target

The National Education Association (NEA), the country’s largest teacher’s union, committed to spending more than $140,000 to research and target opposition groups at a convention July 3-6, according to Education Week.

NEA will research and create fact sheets on at least 25 organizations “that are actively working to diminish a student’s right to honesty in education, freedom of sexual and gender identity, and teacher autonomy,” according to a convention business item seen by the Daily Caller News Foundation.  The resolution was approved for $140,625 at the NEA’s convention last week, and the fact sheets that will be distributed to NEA state affiliates, according to Education Week.

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National Education Association President: ‘Radicalized Supreme Court Issuing Decisions That Do Not Reflect Views or Values of America’

The president of the nation’s largest teachers’ union told union delegates at the start of the Representative Assembly (RA) Sunday that 2016 was the year of a “fateful election,” one that made clear the U.S. Supreme Court would become “radicalized.”

In her keynote address Sunday in Chicago, National Education Association (NEA) President Becky Pringle targeted former President Donald Trump for his choices in appointing Supreme Court justices.

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Cincinnati-Area School District Sued for Dropping Racialist Instruction

Parents in the Forest Hills Local School District filed a lawsuit this week in response to school directors’ move on June 22 to ban the use of critical race theory and other identity-based teachings from curricula and hiring decisions.

In what school leaders titled a “Resolution to Create a Culture of Kindness and Equal Opportunity for All Students and Staff,” the majority of the School Board enacted a policy against the use of ethic, socioeconomic, gender or cultural identity in hiring or academic administration. The new rule also forbids requiring a student to take on assignments that prompt consideration of that child’s social or cultural identities as a “deficiency or a label to stereotype the student as having certain biases, prejudices or other
unsavory moral characteristics….”

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Teachers’ Union Boss Raked In Massive Six-Figure Salary While Fighting to Close Schools

Randi Weingarten at AFGE

American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten was paid nearly half a million dollars during the 2021-2022 school year, a report from Americans for Fair Treatment stated Wednesday. Weingarten raked in six-figures while simultaneously pushing for schools to stay shutdown during the COVID-19 pandemic.

With teacher’s union dues, Weingarten is paid $449,562, the Americans for Fair Treatment report stated. Weingarten’s salary is about seven times more than the average high school teacher makes as of 2021, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor.

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Black Lives Matter at School ‘Week of Action’ Teaches Kindergartners to Replace Nuclear Families with ‘Villages’

Elementary and high schools throughout the country this week are having children participate in Black Lives Matter at School’s “Week of Action,” using lesson plan “resources” based on the activist organization’s core principles that seek to disrupt Western family structure, and teach children to affirm the “transgender” and “queer” lifestyles.

Black Lives Matter (BLM) at School has provided a toolkit for schools and teachers with a curriculum that features a movie for different grade bands matched to “the 13 guiding principles of the BLM movement.”

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Teachers Unions ‘Hold the Education of Kids Hostage,’ Worker Rights Group Says

A worker rights group is calling out two powerful teachers unions, claiming that they “hold the education of kids hostage” in a press release.

Mark Mix, president of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation (NRTWLDF), told the Daily Caller News Foundation that teachers unions like the National Education Association (NEA) and American Federation of Teachers (AFT) are taking advantage of a labor law provision passed in the 1930s for the private sector.

“In several states across the country, union officials, specifically teachers’ union officials, have been granted a really unique privilege called exclusive monopoly bargaining,” Mix said, adding that former President Franklin Delano Roosevelt opposed granting such privileges to public-sector unions while in office.

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Teachers Get Raises, Bonuses From Federal COVID Relief Funds Meant to Reopen Schools Safely

This week’s Golden Horseshoe once again goes to the U.S. Department of Education for allowing school districts to use pandemic relief funds for pay raises and bonuses for teachers despite the funds being appropriated to reopen schools safely.

Schools nationwide received $190 billion through three relief packages passed. Of that total, the largest sum, $122 billion, was from President Biden’s American Rescue Plan.

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Report: NEA Boycotting Texas, Cancels Annual Convention

According to a new report, the National Education Association, which is America’s largest teacher’s union, has canceled its annual convention that was set to be held in Texas in July. 

“The union took the unprecedented step of canceling its Texas plans due to its displeasure with a series of bills that came out of a special session of the state legislature having to do with voting, abortion and critical race theory, internal NEA sources say,” according to The 74 million. “Several state affiliates had threatened not to send their delegates to the convention if it were held in Texas.”

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Analysis: Woke Teaching Programs Create K-12 ‘Social Justice Educators’

Integrating activism in the K-12 classroom is the trickle-down of liberal bias in higher education. The results are seen as educators mirror anti-racist trainings and social justice workshops, which evolved from college campuses.

For instance, University of California, Los Angeles’ Teacher Education Program (TEP), trains “social justice educators” and follows an “anti-racist and social justice agenda.”

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Report: Teachers Unions Bullied the White House, CDC into Changing School Masking Guidelines

The National Education Association (NEA) teachers union threatened to publicly criticize President Joe Biden’s administration if it did not implement stricter mask guidance, according to internal emails obtained by watchdog group Americans for Public Trust and provided to Fox News.

Following a statement published by the NEA, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) specified that regardless of vaccination status, masks should be worn by everyone in schools, Fox News reported. The NEA originally sent a drafted statement to White House officials criticizing the CDC’s guidance, but ended up publishing a statement with a milder tone, according to the emails.

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More Than 150 Minnesota Principals Sign Pledge to ‘De-center Whiteness’ from Education

A large number of school principals in Minnesota have formed a coalition pledging to “de-center Whiteness” in education.

The 162 principals call themselves the “Good Trouble Principals,” a nod to the late civil rights icon and congressman John Lewis, and say they are “a loose collection of local principals bound together by a commitment to changing our nation’s future by engaging in better, more equitable education practices.”

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National Teachers’ Union Formalizes Belief That Educators Must Acknowledge Existence of White Supremacy Culture

The National Education Association added a new section to its Resolutions, titled “White Supremacy Culture,” in which it states the belief that educators must acknowledge the existence of White supremacy culture as a primary root cause of institutional racism, structural racism, and White privilege. The National Education Association (NEA) is the largest professional employee organization – union – in the country, with a reported 3 million members at every level of education including pre-school to university graduate programs. The NEA has affiliates in every state, with the Tennessee Education Association (TEA) being listed as the Tennessee state affiliate. The TEA, as reported by The Tennessee Star, was very active in 2018 state elections, spending more than $500,000 during the election cycle. The “White Supremacy Culture” resolution was included in the 2017-2018 report of the NEA Resolutions Committee, which was presented to the NEA Representative Assembly held July 2 through 5, 2018, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where a reported 6,200 delegates attended. According to NEA, the Representative Assembly is the highest decision-making body within the 3-million member body with over 8,000 delates, making it “the world’s largest democratic deliberative body.” The NEA holds a 10-day long annual meeting and representative assembly each…

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JC Bowman Commentary: A Modern Approach to Educator Representation

teacher

Most educators are not buying into a more militant, progressive labor movement beholden to the far left. Educators nationally often spend hundreds, or sometimes even thousands of dollars per year on union dues.  There are much more cost-effective alternatives, like Professional Educators of Tennessee.   That is what makes groups like Professional Educators of Tennessee different.  We offer a modern approach to educator representation, legal protection and unmatched educational advocacy, as well as promoting professionalism, collaboration and excellence without a partisan agenda.  There are non-union alternatives for educators in other states as well.  Nobody wants to return the 1950’s.    

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Steve Gill Commentary: The Californication of the Teachers’ Union

NEA

At the recent National Education Association (NEA) Annual Meeting, where Tennessee Education Association (TEA) representatives participated along with other affiliates across the country, the highly partisan NEA took strong positions against immigration reform  and Republicans in general.  They even gave an award to controversial former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick to honor his activism in leading protests against the National Anthem. Now NEA President Lily Eskelsen Garcia has weighed in on the US Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.  Not surprisingly the NEA opposes Kavanaugh.  Their opposition is NOT based on his rulings as a Court of Appeals Judge, but primarily upon the hysterical concerns generated in liberal circles with completely bogus claims about recent Supreme Court rulings.  For example, she claims the Supreme Court  weakened the right of educators and other working people to come together in their unions and through collective bargaining to advocate for fair pay, benefits, and working conditions (Janus v. AFSCME, a 5-4 vote). Janus actually granted teachers and others the freedom NOT to be forced to join a union if they didn’t want to. And the “Muslim ban” that the Supreme Court confirmed, where travel from certain countries was restricted based on national security interests and…

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