Earlier this week we told you about Rhode Island public schools trashing the time-honored but completely irrational concept of teacher seniority.

    Now, just a few days later, there’s even more exciting news.

    The Los Angeles Unified School District has announced a plan that will allow a simple majority of parents in a given community  to basically fire the administration of lower-functioning schools and allow the district to hire outside, private management companies for those schools.

    According to Education Week, that  new policy is part of a larger reform effort in LA schools. Under the plan, approximately 200 underperforming districts and 50 new schools that will be built over the next four years will be automatically put under  alternative management – either private companies or an in-house group of staff members. Prospective managers will send the unified district specific  proposals and compete with each other to run the schools.

    Finally, a huge school district where the customers – the parents – have the final word.  This is a huge step in the right direction, and it should have the positive affect of scaring some administrators and teachers at underperforming schools into action.

    Of course, United Teachers Los Angeles, which has ties to both the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association, hates the reform plan. The union is preparing a lawsuit to block the new policy.

    That’s because parental control threatens the unions’ traditional position atop the educational heirarchy. Parental control means accountablity, putting students first and attempting new programs that might help kids succeed. Accountability and change are two concepts that make the teachers unions break out in blisters.

    Our answer to the union? Get in the game or get out of the way. If a school continues to fail, year after year, parents have the right to rise up and demand something better. Thank goodness LA school officials had the good sense and courage to give them that right.

The non-educational actions of America’s two largest teachers’ unions continue to boggle the mind.

The American Federation of Teachers, along with the National Education Association, have come out to publicly oppose an amendment by Sens. David Vitter (R-LA) and Robert Bennett (R-UT) “that would require the 2010 Census to ask all individuals whether they are citizens or lawful residents of the United States,” according to CNSNews.com.

It’s the American census, it seems perfectly reasonable to count Americans and legal aliens.  Also:

The bill also would stipulate that for purposes of apportioning congressional seats, the population should be based on the number of legal residents of the United States.

An opponent of the Vitter/Bennett amendment, Simon Rosenberg of the “liberal think tank” New Democrat Network, said:

“If enacted, the amendment would almost certainly disrupt an orderly census count next year, eventually be found unconstitutional, all the while starting a highly divisive conversation about race, the Civil War and the 14^th amendment in the very first year of America’s very first African American president.”

His partner at a recent press conference, Wade Henderson of Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, was equally bizarre:

“The Vitter amendment is deeply troubling. Not only does it undermine ten years and billions of dollars of preparation for the 2010 Census, it also contradicts what Americans stand for – the idea that all people are created equal.”

What am I missing here?  And why on God’s green earth would national organizations, that allegedly have a little credibility, not want to only count Americans and those here legally?

The AFT and NEA aren’t alone in the fringe group.  Consider the others listed in the article:

Other groups that oppose the amendment include the American Civil Liberties Union, American Federation of Teachers, Asian American Justice Center, National Council of La Raza, National Education Association, People for the American Way, and the Service Employees International Union.

That’s pretty much the power base in Washington – the only one missing is the Center for American Progress.  A few weeks ago, we listed at BigGovernment.com a list of several “partner” organizations in the 2010 Census.  That’s funny: many of those opposed to the Vitter/Bennett amendment are census partners.  Just another indication the 2010 Census is nothing more than a boondoggle for the left.

    Every day it seems like we’re tripping on some bit of exciting news about the growing momentum of national education reform.

   But it would be hard to top the news that came out of Rhode Island over the weekend.

   It seems that state Education Commissioner Deborah Gist ordered school superintendents around the state to stop assigning teachers to classrooms, or particular duties, based on their level of seniority. In other words, teachers will be assigned based on their abilities and performance, not how long they’ve managed to ride their tenure status and hang around the district.

   And it gets better. It seems that Gist based her order on Rhose Island’s new Basic Education Plan, which according to the Providence Journal states that “districts must select and train only the most highly effective staff, and teacher assignments must be based on student need.” It goes on to say that a school district “must maintain control of its ability to recruit, hire, manage, evaluate and assign its personnel.”

   Wow. What a huge victory for Rhose Island students. And what a huge blow to the outdated collective bargaining system that the teachers unions ferociously cling to.

   When announcing her order, Gist made the following statement: “I’ve been very clear that every decision I make will be made in the best interest of children. And there is nothing more important than the placement of a highly qualified teacher in every classroom.”

   Hallelujiah! You go, girl!

   Of course the Rhode Island teachers unions – the National Education Association Rhose Island and the Rhode Island Federation of Teachers and Health Professionals - immediately cried foul and threatened to take the issue to court.

   That threat drew the following response from Rhode Island Board of Regents Chairman Robert Flanders: “To the extent that there are contract provisions that are at odds with the Basic Education Plan, it’s our view that those provisions would be unlawful. If a challenge were to be brought, we would expect to prevail.” 

    These folks obviously want to improve their schools, and they obviously mean business. How refreshing to hear state officials telling the teachers unions how things are going to be, instead of the other way around.

    When we think about it, it’s quite amazing that it took so long for state officials to identify seniority as one of thefundamental problems plaguing our nations’ schools. The very idea  that a teacher could be maintaind on staff, or assigned to a particular classroom, based on anything but the ability to effectively teach is frightening and absurd.

   The antiquated seniority system is based on the premise that teachers’ longevity is more important than the educational needs of students. As a nation we’re starting to understand what a stupid, self-destructive concept that is, and we’re not going to subscribe to it anymore.

   Gist put the situation in perfect perspective when she said, “I will use every tool available to put a system in place that is child-centered. We have a lot of systems that are focused on grown-ups. Change is always hard. It’s always going to mean that people feel uncomfortable.”

    Actually, we’re quite comfortable with your idea of change, Ms. Gist. We just wish you worked in our home state of Michigan, where the teachers unions still maintain a significant amount of political power. But we believe your message of student-based education, rather than labor-based, will continue to spread and benefit students coast-to-coast.

   Either there is very poor communication between departments at the American Federation of Teachers headquarters, or the AFT has quickly changed its tune about this website.

   Earlier this week we told you about a threatening letter we received from an AFT attorney, demanding that we stop using the acronym AFT anywhere on this website, and surrender the domain name “AFTexposed.com” to the union. The strong implication was that our failure to comply could lead to legal proceedings.

    Then today, this website received a written comment from Liz Rose, press secretary of the AFT. Her message was quite different. She wrote that the “AFT is deeply committed to free speech and would never attempt to stifle free expression.” She went on to imply that the union’s only concern was our website’s use of a logo that bore a strong resemblance to the AFT logo. “Just as the law protects your right to free speech, it protects our logo from improper use,” she wrote.

    No mention of the use of the AFT acronym. No demand that we turn surrender the website domain.

     To address Ms. Rose’s concern, we have already altered our logo to make sure it could not be mistaken for the official AFT logo. Our attorneys told us that this was not absolutely necessary, but we were willing to make a small alteration to decrease the chance of a frivolous lawsuiit.

     In the meantime we were happy to see Ms. Rose write “Keep up the free speech. We are all for that.”  We never had any intention of stopping, and are  in fact prepared to battle the union over this issue to the bitter end. Perhaps the AFT, after reading a response from our attorney questioning the legal basis for the union’s demands, has thought twice about trying to bully us.

    If this means “case closed”  – and we’re certainly not counting on that  – we’ll happily second that motion. We have more important things to do than fight with the AFT over domain names and logos, like fighting the AFT over its political tactics and opposition to school reform.

   In case you didn’t see yesterday’s press release regarding the AFT’s attempt to close this website through  legal intimidation, we thought we would review one point that was included in the release:

   The AFT’s embarassing ties to ACORN, the criminal organization that’s been accused in recent months of a variety of illegal activities in several different states.

    According to the AFT’s latest LM-2 report, which it’s required to file with the federal government every year, the union donated $25,000 this year to ACORN’s “event sponsorship” fund, plus another $21,894 to D.C. ACORN’s “organizing assistance” initiative.

     This is not to suggest that the AFT had any knowledge of the multiple misadventures  that ACORN has been accused of, including voter registration fraud, misuse of tax dollars, and helping a presumed pinp and prostitute secure a home for illegal purposes.

     But ACORN was suspected of slimy behavior long before the poop hit the fan, and it’s hard to believe that its sponsoring agencies were really under the impression that it was the urban equivalant of the Boy Scouts of America.

    A quick look at the rest of the LM-2 report shows that the union gave freely this year to many radical left-wing organizations, some with reputations nearly as sullied as ACORN’s.

    They include American Rights at Work ($1.5 million), Working America ($595,000), Apollo Alliance ($15,000), HCAN ($225,000), Center for American Progress ($10,000), Rainbow Push Coalition ($25,000), the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the U.S. Senate ($500,000) and the  SEIU general fund ($377,093).

   They say we’re judged by the company we keep. SEIU employs many of the same tactics as ACORN, like picketing in front of the homes of company executives. The Center for American Progress, funded by George Soros, is the feeder organization that supplied many of the more controversial figures in the Obama administration.

   So why would a national group of teachers, whose primary concern is supposedly the education of our children, be rubbing elbows with so many left-wing political groups? Maybe because it’s devolved into little more than a left-wing poltical group itself, misrepresenting the fundamental beliefs of many of its members, and drifting far away from its original purpose.

   We have to believe many rank-and-file AFT members remain ignorant of their organization’s political activities, and the type of people who benefit from union dollars. If they really understood, we believe the AFT membership list would shrink considerably in a short period of time.

     We knew the national teachers unions were becoming increasingly isolated and paranoid, but we didn’t realize they would resort to legal threats in an effort to silence their critics.

    Pathetically, it’s reached that point.

     We at the Education Action Group Foundation received a letter last week from the general counsel of the American Federation of Teachers, demanding that we stop using the acronym “AFT” anywhere on this website, and that we turn over the domain registration “AFTexposed.com” to the union.

     The strong implication was that if we failed to cooperate, we could find our tiny organization dragged into court by the big, wealthy AFT.

     To that we say, bring it on.

     Our attorneys have assured us that we’re doing nothing illegal by using  “AFT” in the title of our website, or by referring to that acronym on the website. And we firmly believe that it’s our First Amendment right to comment on the activities of a political organization that uses its wealth and influence to block necessary reforms in our public education system.

     “The American Federation of Teachers apparently will stop at nothing to squash dissent,” said Kyle Olson, vice president of the EAG Foundation. “We will stand up to its attempt to silence us and neuter our website.”

    We’re sure the AFT doesn’t appreciate a website that keeps a close eye on its activities nationwide, then presents all the news it doesn’t want you to hear in a simple, one-stop format.

    But in America, you’re not allowed to simply muzzle your political opposition. We have a Constitution that prevents that.

    If the AFT wants to silence its critics, it will either have to change its ways, or convince the American people that the old way is the right way for public education. We think the former, rather than the latter, would be a much easier sell.

    In the meantime, we’re going to keep doing exactly what we have been doing, regardless of the AFT’s ugly threats. We’re actually proud that the AFT is taking us so seriously just weeks after the launch of the new website, and we can’t help but chuckle at the union’s overblown reaction to criticism.

    As Olson put it in a press release, “For being so well known for bullying school administrators and school boards at bargaining time, it turns out the elephant really is afraid of the mouse.”

     Our stomachs turned a bit this morning when we watched a YouTube video of part of last weekend’s AFT rally in Washington, D.C.  You can see it here:

    The event was billed as the “Rally for Respect.” If the AFT wants respect, we respectfully submit the following suggestions:

     Number one – Stop threatening people. During the rally, an unidentified male speaker was clearly heard on the video threatening D.C. school Chancellor Michelle Rhee. “Michelle Rhee had better watch her back,” the large, angry man chanted into the microphone. That clearly sounds like a physical threat, typically used by street gangs. His next few words were not clear, but then he added something about “She’s going down.”

    Perhaps Ms. Rhee would be wise to contact D.C. police. Union thugs may very well have her on their target list. How disturbing.

     Number two – Stop opposing every reform proposal that comes along. The American people, including our president and education secretary, are demanding more school choices for students and more accountability from teachers. This is a national movement that’s gaining momentum by the day. Only the unions are standing in the way. If you want respect, start acting like education professionals and stop opposing efforts to improve educational opportunities for our kids.

   Number three – Stop calling for an end to the valuable D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, a voucher initiative that allows children to escape horrible schools in your city.

   Number four – Drop your ridiculous lawsuit that’s attempting to block teacher layoffs in D.C. Public schools are broke and cuts have to be made somewhere. If you want to save some jobs, adjust your wage and benefit demands, so there will be more money to keep a few more teachers working.

   In the meantime, don’t be surprised at the lack of respect your organization is getting from the public these days. You stand for a time that has passed, when public schools were employee-based, not student-based. The American public will not accept that any longer. Join us as we search for ways to make our schools better, or just get out of the way.

   There’s no question that the education reform movement has gained a boatload of momentum in the past year, particularly since President Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan came on board.

    But has the war already turned into such a rout that the teachers unions are starting to wave their white flags?

    Consider this. According to Blog.Newsweek, the AFT recently shocked everyone by announcing that the recipients of its new Innovation Fund grants would use the money to develop model teacher evaluation systems that will actually consider student achievement as legitimate criteria.

     Both the AFT and NEA have stridently opposed this idea in the past, and in several states even pushed through legislation preventing such evaluations from occurring.

     But now Randi Weingarten, president of the AFT, has been quoted as saying “Teachers and their unions are not afraid to take risks and share in the responsibility for student success,” and that her union “isn’t shying away from the issue that the evaluation system is broken.”

    Perhaps somebody should check Ms. Weingarten’s temperature. She doesn’t sound like herself in those quotes.

     Then we tripped across an article in Labor Notes, which reported that a group of union teachers from across the nation, calling themselves “reformers,” recently met in Los Angeles to develop their own plan for changing and improving our public schools.

 . They’re going to meet again in October to plan a series of forums and press events to publicize their “vision of education reform that puts educators, not education management organizations, in the driver’s seat.”

     Does all of that sound promising? Perhaps. But we’re more than a little skeptical of the union’s sudden conversion to reform.  Our guess is that they’re quickly developing a strategy designed to beat the true reformers at their own game.

     We’re willing to bet that any teacher evaluation system designed in conjunction with the AFT will put only limited weight on student achievement. But that window dressing may be enough to win millions of “Race to the Top” federal dollars for some states.

    Don’t think for a second that the teachers unions aren’t interested in getting some of that money for their states and schools, despite the nasty things they’ve said about “Race to the Top.” If that means pretending to be interested in student achievements, so be it.

    As for the group of union teacher reformers, their strategy is a bit too obvious.

    By coming up with an alternative reform agenda that presumably doesn’t involve charter schools, merit pay, tenure reform or any other popular concepts, they’re trying to position themselves to remain in control of the educational establishment. If things have to change, the unions want to make sure they change in the most comfortable ways possible. What better way to guarantee that than to design the “reforms” themselves?

    A clever bunch, these union teachers. They may be conniving, deceptive and unscrupulous, but they’re definitely not stupid. They’re not surrendering. They’re simply adjusting their strategy on the run, like a good quarterback trying to salvage a broken play.

    Stay tuned. . .

  We were wondering how long it would take for our union friends to visit.

   We’ve always gotten a kick out of monitoring the number of hits our very first website, the Michigan-based  educationactiongroup.com, received  from folks connected to the teachers unions. Over the past year, officials from the Michigan Education Association visited the site 276 times, while their legal firm visited 224 times.

  Good Lord, we’re afraid to ask how much we’ve cost them in legal fees.  Hopefully not too much, since at last report the MEA was about $36 million in debt.

    Now it appears union offficials have discovered our two new sites – AFTexposed.com, which you are currently reading, and NEAexposed.com, which you should check out if you haven’t.

    In the past week, AFTexposed.com has drawn visits from AFT oficials 8 times and NEA officials 7 times. During the same period, NEAexposed.com has drawn visits from NEA officials 14 times and AFT officials three times.

    Our old friends at MEA have visited NEAexposed.com twice.

    Not bad numbers, considering the two new sites have only been active a few weeks. It tells us that we’re touching a nerve with the unions by addressing the right issues. The more they watch us, the more we know we’re providing useful information that the public will want to know – and the unions don’t necessarily want the public to know.

    But anyway, all are welcome, including our union friends. Perhaps they will learn a few things about their own organizations that they never knew before.

  This three-way lovers quarrel is getting a little heated. and inquiring minds are wondering if a high-profile breakup could be in the works.

   Last week AFT President Randi Weingarten derisively called President Obama’s “Race to the Top” education initiative “an extension of No Child Left Behind” and “Bush III,” according to Education Week.

   Meanwhile, the NEA filed a statement with the Department of Education, sharply criticizing the “Race to the Top” program, according to Townhall.com.

    These are the same organizations that gave millions of dollars, as well as their hearts, to the Obama campaign in 2008. These are the same organizations that expected Obama to lead them from the dark shadow of accountability under the Bush administration, back to the carefree days when nobody on the left questioned their superiority or competence.

    It’s clear that the love affair is not over, as evidenced by the videos we saw last week of schoolchildren in several classrooms around the nation, singing songs of praise for Obama. We’re pretty sure the kids didn’t write those songs themselves.

    But the unions are starting to get a little bit frustrated, because the president insists on joining the crowd that wants better schools and more choices for our kids.

     “Despite growing evidence to the contrary, it appears the administration has decided that charter schools are the only answer to what ails America’s public schools,” the NEA was quoted as saying in the document filed with the Department of Education.

      Then came the following statement in the same document, which clearly shows that the president is concerned with more than just charter schools: “It is inappropriate to require that states be able to link data on student achievement to individual teachers for the purpose of teacher and principal evaluation.”

      The fact is that the president, like his predecessor, is determined to force schools that accept federal money to improve their performance on behalf of our children. And like his predecessor, he’s particularly concerned about minority students being stuck in underperforming urban districts.

     President Obama should consider Weingarten’s comparison of “Race to the Top” and “No Child Left Behind” a compliment.

    Remember, President Bush was the first to call out America’s teachers for the ugly practice of social advancement for minority students, based on the very racist premise that many black kids could not graduate if they were held to high standards. Bush accurately called it the “soft bigotry of low expectations.”

    So we’re not at all surprised that our first African-American president has adopted the same basic position on education reform. After all, Obama is living proof that black kids can accomplish anything that white kids can accomplish, given the proper opportunities and instruction.

    But we can’t help but be amused by this strange new twist in the ongoing love affair between the NEA, AFT and Obama. And we can’t help but wonder if the unions will stand by their man in 2012 if he fails to back down from his high educational standards by then.