Los Angeles students in 30 failing public schools can expect much of the same, inadequate instruction they have for years thanks to its weak-kneed school board and political pressure from the local teachers union.

     The school board recently voted in the interest of the United Teachers Los Angeles union to turn 30 “chronically underperforming” schools over to a conglomeration of nonprofit education groups, most of which are formed by the very teachers and administrators who already work in the buildings.

     We are baffled by the decision, to say the least. How exactly can the same teachers and administrators who drove these schools into the ground be expected to turn them around?

     They’ve had their chance for years. They failed.

     The sad part is that the school board was heading in the right direction with a plan for nontraditional school operators to take over about a third of its 800 schools. About 160 of those schools have been transformed.

     So what gives?

     “I think it was completely political pressure,” said Lauren Carter, spokeswoman for ICEF Public Schools, one of the private management firms that were recommended by the LA superintendent to revive the schools.

     “They weren’t making decisions on behalf of the kids. These were adult-based decisions, not what was best of children,” Carter said.

     Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa called the action a “terrible blow to reform” and accused the school board of “trying to protect a failed status quo.”

     We couldn’t have said it better ourselves. After all, that seems to be what the nation’s teachers unions do best.

     Hopefully the public backlash from the board’s decision, and the obvious self-serving agenda of the UTLA will gain enough media coverage to give other school leaders pause before deciding to sentence their kids the more of the same.

The Cleveland school district is working out the details of a proposed “transformation plan” to improve several of the city’s lower performing schools. One part of the plan is to allow “Breakthrough Schools,” an umbrella organization of four area charter schools, to take over management of the troubled public schools.

The problem is that the Cleveland Teachers Union (AFT) is insisting that the schools continue to be staffed with union teachers.

It’s called destruction through infiltration. The unions long ago gave up the idea of trying to kill the charter movement by preventing the alternative schools from opening. Now they want to force them out of business by forcing the union model on them.

“If they operate in the Cleveland schools, working with the Cleveland kids, they ought to be our members,” union President David Quolke told the Cleveland Plain Dealer. “We represent teachers in the Cleveland schools.”

Perry White, executive director of one of the Breakthrough charter schools, does not agree.

“The overriding question is how will having a teachers union improve on our ability to educate all of our children and make sure they’re ready to graduate from college?” White said. “We respect that they represent the interests of teachers. We represent the interests of students.”

We believe White summed up the situation perfectly.

One of the main reason charter schools exist is because traditional public schools, with their union teachers, have failed to get the job done. Many experts believe that forcing charters to employ union teachers will destroy their very nature, and weigh them down with the kind of workplace rules and expenses that traditional plague public schools.

Eugene Sanders, chief executive director of the Cleveland school district, said he will allow the charter school managers and the teachers to decide if the union should organize the buildings. We believe Sanders is making a mistake by leaving the door open to the teachers unions.

If Sanders wants the folks from Breakthrough Schools to fix a few of the traditional schools, he should allow them to run the schools the way they see fit. The new managers should not be bogged down by the presence of a union that disapproves of charter schools in the first place.

Sanders should tell the union to stand aside and allow the charters to try it their way, to see if the students respond positively. The kids of Cleveland deserve this chance, whether the unions like it or not.

    The Education Action Group Foundation will support Central Falls, Rhode Island school Superintendent Frances Gallo with a billboard dedicated to this public school patriot, smack dab in the middle of downtown Central Falls.

     We are taking a stand.  To stand with us, make a tax-deductible contribution and we will post similar billboards in the community.

     Gallo’s recent decision to push past teachers union obstruction and do what’s best for the district’s struggling high school students is a prime example of the bold actions needed to turn around the nation’s failing schools.

     Gallo recommended firing all 74 Central Falls High School teachers after the local teachers union refused to sign off on long overdue reforms needed to save the chronically failing school, which has been on the state’s list of underperforming schools for seven years. Less than half of Central Falls High School’s students graduate and only seven percent are proficient in math, state data shows.

     Gallo offered to pay teachers $30 an hour for some of the additional duties, and expected them to kick in a bit of their own time to improve instruction.

     Central Falls Teachers’ Union balked, then demanded $90 per hour for the extra work.

     We believe the situation in Central Falls is a perfect example of the “me first” teachers union mentality plaguing school districts across the country. Affiliates of the nation’s two largest teachers unions, the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association, have long opposed virtually any reforms that bring accountability to the classroom, or affect the union’s bottom line.

     We are applauding Gallo’s efforts with a billboard. It should be on display in downtown Central Falls by the end of the week.

     We trust her courageous actions will be supported by the state’s education leaders, who charged her with turning the school around. Hopefully, Gallo’s work in Central Falls will serve as a catalyst for other schools to stand up for their students.

     It is about time somebody did.

     Superintendent Gallo’s actions are tough but necessary.  The entitlement mentality and the notion that teachers unions have the right to obstruct critical reforms that will benefit children has got to come to end.  Hopefully Gallo’s brave stand will serve as a flash point for other underperforming schools across America.

     Virtually every other sector of the economy is being asked to step up, pitch in and help our country through these difficult times.  To have a teachers union with its hand out – and penalizing children on top of it – is particularly insulting.

     Hopefully Gallo’s actions serve as a shot across the bow of every teachers union that is putting its interests ahead of the children they purport to serve.

    EAGF plans to promote bold reform efforts in other parts of the country with similar billboard messages. We are calling on others with a commitment to transforming the country’s troubled public schools to help toward that end by contributing to our campaign with an online donation at EAGFdn.org.

     The entire teaching staff at Rhode Island’s Central Falls High School was issued termination notices this week after local union leaders refused to sign off on sorely needed reforms necessary to turn the failing school around.

     School Superintendent Frances Gallo informed all of the high school’s 74 teachers by mail Thursday that she will recommend their termination at the end of the 2009-10 school year, the Providence Journal reports.

     It reflects the drastic measures forced on school district leaders by American Federation of Teachers and National Education Association affiliate unions that remain out of touch with the country’s sagging economy, and the communities they serve.

     Gallo didn’t make her decision lightly. Central Falls High School has been on the state Department of Education’s list of underperforming schools for seven years. Less than 50 percent of the school’s students graduate, only 7 percent are proficient at math, and roughly half cannot read proficiently, state data shows.

     State Education Commissioner Deborah Gist charged Gallo with reversing that trend, and Gallo formulated a transformation plan with the help of the Central Falls Teachers’ Union.

     But reform talks broke down last week when the CFTU refused to sign off on many changes because the district is unable to pony-up enough extra cash to motivate its teachers. Those changes include a 25-minute longer school day, a formal tutoring schedule, lunch with students once a week, and better teacher evaluations.  

     Gallo offered to pay teachers $30 an hour for other extra duties, and $1,800 for two weeks of additional training in the summer, the Journal reports. The union demanded $90 an hour, and pay for more of the additional duties.

     “I know I tried as hard as I could to get the local union leadership – who are constantly telling me they are committed to reform – to agree to these reforms,” Gallo told the Journal.

     We certainly don’t envy Gallo’s position, but we do applaud her commitment to improving instruction at Central Falls High School. That’s far more than we can say for the CFTU.

     Business Insider reports that teachers at the high school make between $70,000 and $78,000 per year, more than three times Central Falls’ median household income of $22,628. Rhode Island’s unemployment rate is 12.3 percent, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

     About 96 percent of the school’s 808 students live in poverty.

     The union’s stubborn refusal to put forth a little extra effort to help those kids build a brighter future goes far beyond the typical union selfishness. It’s pure greed.

     The Central Falls school board will vote on Gallo’s decision next week. We hope they support their school’s leader, whom we consider a rare breed with enough backbone to do what is truly best for the district’s students.

     If approved, all of the school’s 74 teachers can reapply for their positions, but no more than 50 percent can be re-hired, under the reform model.

     We hope the teachers that are committed to their students’ success agree to do what’s necessary, and earn back their positions at the head of the class.

     To those mulish enough to snub their noses at Gallo’s reforms, we say good riddance.

     Next year, thousands of Houston Independent School District teachers will be evaluated in part by student progress after the school board approved a policy to fire teachers whose students fall short on standardized tests.

      In a heated meeting this month, the Houston school board voted to use a measure of student progress in evaluations of educators teaching core subjects in grades three through eight.

     The vote was praised by parents, and protested by hundreds of teachers. The decision is a warning shot to more than 400 of the district’s underperforming teachers who could lose their jobs if they don’t improve, according to the Web site for radio station Majic 102.1.

     Hallelujah.

     It’s about time that a school board had the gumption to buck the status quo and implement meaningful reform with a focus on improving student learning.  The current union-contrived tenure system has proven to produce far too many lackluster educators, with no incentive to improve. The HISD decision is a big step toward fixing the problem.

     HISD Trustee Anna Eastman said the program “data has room to grow, but our kids deserve to have an effective teacher in every single classroom,” the radio station reported.

     The board vowed to provide training and mentoring for weaker teachers, and reserve termination as a last resort. That was little comfort for the district’s two largest teachers groups, the Houston Federation of Teachers and the Congress of Houston Teachers.

     “We do the best we can,” said middle school teacher Tuesdey Neal, the radio station reported. “I do not want to suffer and lose my job because I love what I do.”

     Bill Perkins, a local businessman who attended the meeting, summed up our thoughts with an analogy to the airline industry.

     “We have bad pilots. We know the results can be disastrous,” Perkins said. “We don’t have that many bad teachers, but we need to get rid of them.”

     American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten took the opportunity to condemn the board’s actions, despite a recent speech in which she called for linking student test scores to teacher evaluations.

     “The plan has all the wrong components, and it’s one of the reasons why teachers and parents are opposed to standardized testing,” she said.

     If Randi opposes the board’s decision, then we believe it surely has the potential to make a difference for Houston’s school kids.   

     We’re confident that the dozens of parents and business leaders who came to the meeting in support the new policy would agree.

     A recent study of contributions made by the nation’s two largest teachers unions reveals that both shelled out millions in 2008-09, with a good chunk going to radical and scandal-ridden organizations.

     The study, posted online by the Education Intelligence Agency, is further proof that the National Education Association and American Federation of Teachers are out of step with their members, which union officials claim are evenly split between Democrat, Republican and Independent parties.

     This is what the EIA found:

     The AFT gave $46,894 to the scandal-plagued Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN). That organization’s members gave tax evasion advice to pimps and prostitutes, encouraged struggling homeowners to walk away from their mortgages, and championed radical causes like softer immigration regulations and a government takeover of health care.

     The AFT’s interest in government-run healthcare is also apparent in its $407,208 donation to the Economic Policy Institute, a union-funded progressive think tank that advocates for the expansion of unionized government jobs, and generally promotes organized labor’s interests.

     The AFT also sent $125,000 to Health Care for America Now! HCAN, which is led by SEIU and ACORN, promotes a government takeover of health care.

     The Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network received $10,000 of AFT dues money to fight for gay rights. GLSEDN’s leaders have a long-documented history of promoting sex-related issues to elementary-aged kids.

     The AFT made smaller donations to groups that generally promote causes like the redistribution of American wealth. Those included $15,000 to the Apollo Alliance, and $25,000 to Jessie Jackson’s Rainbow PUSH Coalition.

     In total, the AFT spent $5.3 million in dues income promoting radical left-wing advocacy groups and charities. Most of the money went to seemingly innocuous organizations with radical policies.

     The NEA, which doled out $26 million in dues dollars, also sent the bulk of its money to the far left.

     The anti-American, human rights fanatics at Amnesty International banked $7,500 from the NEA. The Economic Policy Institute got a quarter-million in NEA membership money. GLSEN received $157,500, and HCAN got $450,000 from the NEA.

     MediaMatters, which attacks and distorts reports from conservative organizations, earned a $100,000 NEA check.

     The NEA also gave a $10,000 donation to Al Sharpton’s National Action Network and $165,000 to People for the American Way, two organizations with extreme left-wing agendas.

      The population control advocates at the Sierra Club pocketed $150,000 in NEA dues dollars. The Zimbabwe Teachers Association is even partially bankrolled ($10,000) by the NEA. Seriously?

     That union, the ZIMTA, is aligned with despotic dictator Robert Mugabe’s political party, media reports show.

     Some will argue that these teachers unions can contribute their income to whatever organization they like. We agree, and strongly defend that freedom.

     But we also feel that union membership, and the taxpayers that pay their wages, deserve to know where the money is going and why. We also believe that teachers should be able to keep their dues dollars from financing union PACs, if they wish.

     Former NEA president Reg Weaver has repeatedly claimed that the NEA’s membership is evenly divided into Democrats, Republicans and Independents. We suspect AFT members are similarly split.

     Then why does their union not distribute their dues dollars evenly to reflect that split? That’s a good question, and one we would encourage union teachers to demand an answer to.

     Perhaps the most compelling evidence in support of teacher tenure reform made headlines this week in the New York Post.

     His name is Alan Rosenfeld.

     Queens, NY school officials exiled Rosenfeld, a former typing teacher, in 2001 because of repeated allegations that he made lewd comments to junior high girls. The Department of Education can’t fire him because “we have to abide by the union contract,” DOE spokeswoman Ann Forte told the Post.

     So he’s spent nearly a decade managing a multi-million dollar real estate empire and personal law practice from a “reassessment center” for misbehaving New York City teachers, also known as a “rubber room.”

     He collects a $100,049 salary, full health benefits, and promise of a hefty pension from the district while managing his business interests by cell phone from the rubber room.  He will also be paid for 435 unused sick days he’s collected when he retires, the Post reported.

     It’s inconceivable to us that anyone, including his union, the American Federation of Teachers, would defend such behavior, let alone require the city’s hard-working taxpayers to foot the bill to keep Rosenfeld employed.

     In New York City, the DOE pays out $40 million a year to 757 rubber roomed educators it would rather fire, according to Post reports. Meanwhile, the city is considering cutting 2,500 teachers to make up for a $4 billion budget gap, and the teachers union is requesting a 4 percent raise. That raise would also apply to exiled teachers.

     Some may argue that NYC’s rubber rooms, and Rosenfeld are extreme examples of the problems inherent in the tenure system. They probably are.

     But there are thousands of bad teachers across the country who are protected by absurd tenure laws. Districts that successfully fire these teachers are forced to pay six figures, mostly in legal fees. They simply can’t afford it, and without the luxury of rubber rooms, these bad apples remain in the classroom.

     Something must be done.

     We are sure the vast majority of taxpayers would rather revise the obviously flawed and outdated tenure system, then see another penny of public money go to the likes of Rosenfeld.

     In Camden, New Jersey, union teachers are racking up more sick days than the students they teach and putting a heavy strain on cash-strapped school budgets, according to local news reports.

     The problem is made possible by teachers union contracts with copious sick day allowances (typically a dozen days off in an 187-day school year) and compounded by the steady need for substitutes to fill teacher vacancies. The problem is expected to cost Camden schools $2 million this year alone.

     According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average teacher absenteeism rate was nearly double the national average for all private sector employees in 2008, Camden’s Courier-Post reported.

     Researchers at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education have documented the correlation between teacher absenteeism and student success, according to Raegen Miller, lead author of one recent study.

     “Teacher absences are causing the reduced achievement,” Miller told the Courier-Post. “If there is plenty of leave available, teachers will take lots of it.”

     Some teachers in Camden have defended the days off, and compared their class assignment to war.

     “If you feel like you’re in a combat zone or under a lot of pressure, or you’re covering others for a lack of substitutes, it kind of wears on you,” Camden teacher Karen Borrelli told the Courier-Post.

     We’re sure U.S. troops stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan can sympathize with the teachers, Karen. But we doubt public school conditions are comparable to the situation in Kabul.

  It’s interesting that, like the teaching profession, soldiers chose their career path, yet the public rarely hears a peep from them regarding their lack of sick days.

     The sick day problem is bigger than Camden. We at EAGF recently studied a sampling of Michigan teachers union contracts that revealed similar excesses in our home state. In most school districts we reviewed, teachers were granted around a dozen days off per 187-day school year, and can cash out unused days when they leave the district.

     In Michigan’s Rochester School District, for example, the district currently owes its teachers $732,032 for those unused sick days. In Ypsilanti, the district spent $449,104 for substitutes last year.

     While the financial cost on taxpayers for excess sick days is staggering, we feel it’s relatively small compared to what it could cost our country down the road. How can we expect to produce educated future leaders if teachers don’t show up for class?

     Something needs to be done to stop the bleeding. We believe it starts with the teachers, and the contracts that govern their employment. As citizens and taxpayers, we need to demand local school boards negotiate contracts that will keep teachers in front of students.

     If we ignore the problem, it could cost us far more than money.

     The refusal of New York City’s teachers union to sign off on the federal “Race to the Top” competition demonstrates the American Federation of Teachers’ continued opposition to using test data to evaluate teachers, despite union president Randi Weingarten’s statements to the contrary.

     The New York Post reports that United Federation of Teachers officials refused to endorse the city’s RTTT application because federal provisions require that teachers’ evaluations include student test-score data. It is a move that likely will cost city schools $700 million in RTTT dollars.

     Instead, the UFT offered its own suggestions and omitted the test-linked evaluations, a critical element of RTTT.

     “What the union was proposing … not only was not in accordance with the mandates of Race to the Top but would have damaged the state and the city’s ability to win the $700 million award,” Deputy Schools Chancellor John White told the Post.

     The union’s opposition isn’t unique to New York City. Many teachers unions, both AFT and National Education Association affiliates, attempted to block RTTT applications because the program’s reforms run counter to union interests.

     But AFT President Randi Weingarten made quite a spectacle a couple weeks ago when she announced that the union officially supports using student tests to evaluate teachers.

     “We propose rigorous reviews by trained experts and peer evaluators and principals, based on professional teaching standards, best practices and student achievement,” she said earlier this month at the National Press Club in Washington D.C.

     Apparently, her statements don’t apply to the UFT, where she previously served as union president.

     Frankly, we’re not surprised about the flip-flop. The AFT and NEA are notorious for saying one thing, then doing another.

     In New York City, for example, UFT President Michael Mulgrew told the Post that the union is “willing to sit and work with the state on coming up with some sort of (teacher-evaluation) system.”

     A copy of the UFT-signed memo, however, specifically, repeatedly states that “test-score data cannot be used for teacher evaluation or individual compensation,” the Post reports.

     It’s double talk, and it’s what the AFT does best. The sad part is that this time it cost New York City $700 million and long-overdue reforms that would have improved education for millions of students.

    Some Detroit teachers have filed a lawsuit over a union-negotiated and ratified contract concession designed to save Detroit Public Schools from financial ruin.

     In December, the Detroit Federation of Teachers agreed to a contract concession in which salaried teachers lent the district $10,000 apiece through pay deductions over two years. The Termination Incentive Plan, as it’s known, ensures teachers receive the money back when they leave the district.

     The plan was put together by the district’s Emergency Financial Manager Robert Bobb and Detroit Federation of Teachers President Keith Johnson. Detroit teachers ratified the agreement by a roughly two-to-one margin.

     But it appears that some Detroit teachers believe their collective bargaining process shouldn’t apply to them, and filed a lawsuit alleging that the agreement violates Michigan’s Payment of Wages and Fringe Benefits Act.

     DFT’s Johnson called the lawsuit “absolutely ridiculous” in a recent Detroit News article.

     We agree.

     Not only does the lawsuit undermine the hard work and dedication by the district’s education leaders to keep Detroit schools financially afloat, it stifles other districts’ efforts to compromise during these tough economic times.

     Will other teachers unions or school boards consider similar concessions to save their district knowing a lawsuit may be around the corner? Not likely.

     So far, only a handful of teachers have joined the lawsuit, the News reported, but state officials expect “scores more.” Meanwhile, others are attempting to recall Johnson over the contract agreement.

     Cass Tech Teacher Steve Conn told the News that he’s helped to collect more than 1,300 signatures calling for Johnson’s resignation. The contract agreement betrays the interests of teachers by “dismantling” public education, he said.

     We believe Steve needs to get a grip on reality. The contract concession may be one of the few things keeping him and the rest of Detroit’s teachers employed. Without it, Steve and those involved in the lawsuit likely would be spending their last days at DPS “dismantling” their classrooms for scrap metal.