Tag "CFT"
Back to homepage
In debate, Torlakson misrepresents teacher-discipline bill
State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson debated challenger Marshall Tuck on Wednesday night and once again found himself on the defensive over the teacher tenure laws targeted in the Vergara decision. Cabinet Report details how Tuck went after …
Read More
Absurd Prop 2 provision shows extent of teacher unions’ clout
If you want an example of just how powerful the teachers unions are in Sacramento, consider Proposition 2. The measure was placed on the November ballot by the Legislature at the urging of Gov. Jerry Brown, who depicts it with
Read More
Teacher compensation database undercuts CTA claims
The Transparency California group’s database of school district compensation undercuts teacher unions’ claims that teacher pay scales are ungenerous and capped at unfairly low levels. When very generous health benefits and good pension benefits are factored in, that doesn’t look
Read More
Torlakson says real problem is low teacher pay, not tenure
This was predictable: Friday’s announcement that state Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson wanted an appeal of Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Rolf Treu’s ruling that teacher tenure laws are unconstitutional because they funnel the worst teachers to struggling schools
Read More
Historic Vergara ruling finalized; state has weighty decision on appeal
A court decision that puts the interests of Latino and black students and parents on a collision course with those of the mostly white members of the California Teachers Association and the California Federation of Teachers has been finalized: The
Read More
Unlike Brown, Hawaii gov took on teachers — and paid
As someone who went to college in Hawaii and spent eight years there as a journalist, I know the state’s politics pretty well. It is so solidly Democrat that it only has one Republican in its state senate. This monolithic
Read More
Scam exposed: UTLA wants $ for troubled students to fund 17.6% raise
When Gov. Jerry Brown signed the Local Control Funding Formula for state schools into law in the summer of 2013, it was billed as the biggest education reform in California in decades. The premise of the law — and the
Read More
Behind push against truancy/absenteeism: unions’ money hunt
What is by far the single most important factor in how California government functions? I stand by my theory that I wrote up last year for Cal Watchdog: Like Neo figuring out how life was coded to work in “The
Read More
CA law promoting school choice, competition barely used
Advocates of education choice in California have been fighting the good fight for decades. They’ve gotten nowhere with school vouchers but have a strong record with charters — albeit a record that requires a constant struggle to defend against the
Read More
Feeble CalPERS reform shows Brown who runs Sacramento
Taken at face value, the pension reforms touted by Gov. Jerry Brown in 2011 and 2012 were genuinely far-reaching for a California Democrat, even one as allegedly independent as Brown. But from the 2014 perspective, two of the key provisions
Read More