The union assault on charter schools in California has intensified, but resistance isnotfutile. Parents, students, conscientious teachers, lawmakers and concerned citizens are stepping up. There are many ways to fight for charter schools, which represent one of the few bright spots in an otherwise dismal performance by California’s K-12 system of public education.

In anApril 2019 reportin the respected websiteCalMattersentitled “Charter-mageddon: Lawmakers advance a raft of union-backed charter school curbs,” the ongoing battle between charter school advocates and their foes is updated as follows: “While the two sides have battled for decades—typically to a draw—the political momentum has shifted in favor of organized labor this session.”

This is an understatement. On April 4th, three charter-killer bills cleared the State Assembly’s Education Committee, and all of them have a good chance of moving on to the Governor’s desk, where Gavin Newsom is considered far more likely to sign them than former Gov. Brown would… Read More

I’m just a Navy mom of a United States Naval Academy graduatewho is currently a Navy special ops officer, and has had two long Middle East deployments. I wasn’t going to weigh in on the liberal California councilman and public school teacher who told his students “military Are ‘dumbsh*ts” and “lowest of our low.” That is, until I read that the school district officials of Gregory Salcido, El Rancho High School history teacher and a current member of thePico Rivera City Council, were covering for him, even after he said when speaking about our military, “They’re the frickin’ lowest of our low,” in one of three videos that surfaced last week.

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Here’s an axiom of California politics. When it’s the teachers union against everyone – that’s right, everyone else – the teachers union wins. Yesterday’s decision by the California Supreme Court to not hear the Vergara case is just the latest example.

Prior to losing on appeal, which brought the case to the attention of the State Supreme Court, the original Vergara ruling upheld the argument of the plaintiff, which was that union supported work rules have a disproportionate negative effect on poor and minority students.As reported in the Los Angeles Times in June 2014:

“Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Rolf M. Treu tentatively ruled Tuesday that key job protections for California teachers violated students’ rights to equal educational opportunity. Treu struck down state laws that grant teachers tenure after two years, require seniority-based layoffs and govern the process to dismiss teachers. He ruled that those laws disproportionately harmed poor and minority students… [writing:]

‘All sides to… Read More