Constitutional Class Sizes
The Miami Herald reports that Florida’s statewide teachers union has filed a lawsuit to stop the state from counting votes on a constitutional amendment that would alter class sizes in the state. A lawyer for Florida’s statewide teachers union asked a judge Wednesday to block the counting of votes cast on the Legislature’s proposed state [more...]

Posted Thu, 09 Sep 2010 .

It’s Hard to Get Specific When Everything Specific Is Shot Down
There was a minor dustup over at the Huffington Post when Davis Guggenheim (the director of the pro-education reform documentary Waiting for “Superman”) was criticized by Dan Brown (not the author of The Da Vinci Code, but a schoolteacher) for offering gauzy platitudes instead of actual suggestions for reform. Wrote Brown: Guggenheim presents his teacher [more...]

Posted Wed, 08 Sep 2010 .

No Reason For Elections?

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After pressuring members of the House of Representatives to pass the comically misnamed “Employee Free Choice Act” in March 2007, union officials continued their drive to rewrite organizing rules by raising the issue in the Senate in June.

Labor leaders hope to dramatically change the way working Americans join unions — by stealing every employee’s right to a personal, private vote. Why would union bosses do this? Because they need to rebuild their shrinking membership, and it’s easier to coerce and cajole employees under the “card check” method, which is like an open petition. This is a process rife with intimidation, coercion, and confusion because everyone knows each employee’s preference and because there is often no opportunity given to tell the side of the story union bosses don’t want exposed.

Bruce Raynor, a top union president, claims: “There’s no need to subject the workers to an election.” It would be better to listen to the words of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, which said “workers sometimes sign union authorization cards not because they intend to vote for the union in the election but to avoid offending the person who asks them to sign, often a fellow worker, or simply to get the person off their back.”