Tag Archives: Teacher Unions

Obama’s new economic plan: more money for unions and Solyndras

Obama says that we need to take taxpayer money away from job creators and give it to teacher unions and green energy companies run by Obama fundraisers.

Excerpt:

Obama said he wants to give public schools the “resources” they need to hire and reward good teachers.

“So I don’t want folks in Washington to be bashing teachers,” he said.  “I don’t want them to defend the status quo.  I want us to give schools the resources they need to hire good teachers, reward great teachers.”

Of course, the evidence shows that throwing money at public schools doesn’t produce better outcomes. The right solution is to let parents choose the schools their children would attend with a voucher. That works, but Obama is opposed to that because it would take money away from Obama campaign – which is funded by money taken from union dues. So this part of Obama’s plan is just about funneling money through the teacher unions into his campaign war chest.

Next:

Obama additionally said he wants to “double down” on the money he has already put into solar and wind power, biofuels and electric batteries.

“Let’s double down on clean energy that has never been more promising — solar and wind and biofuels, and energy efficiency, electric batteries,” he said.  “That’s what we need to be investing in.”

Again, we have seen with Solyndra and the other similar companies that go bankrupt, that green energy is nothing but Obama handing out taxpayer money to companies linked to people who give donations to Democrats running for office. The purpose of wasting money on green energy companies isn’t to reduce gas prices for poor people. Wasting money on green energy actually raises gas prices by devaluing our currency through deficit spending and money printing. The purpose of green energy grants is to reward people who fund Obama’s election campaign. If Obama cared at all about families facing high gas prices, he would have approved the Keystone XL pipeline – and he didn’t.

Next:

President Barack Obama has released a new video in which he praises the nation’s largest abortion business, Planned Parenthood, which is a prime endorser of his presidential re-election campaign.

“For you and for most Americans, protecting women’s health is a mission that stands above politics,” President Obama says in a video message for the Planned Parenthood Action Fund. “And yet over the past year we’ve had to stand up to politicians who wanted to deny millions of women the care they rely on and inject themselves into the decisions that are best made between a woman and her doctor.”

“Let’s be clear here, women are not an interest group. They’re mothers, and daughters, and sisters, and wives. They’re half of this country and they’re perfectly capable of making their own choices about their health,” Obama says.

Again, Planned Parenthood gets hundreds of million dollars of taxpayer money to kill babies, then they turn around and hand a bunch of their profits back to Obama with campaign contributions. All of this high sounding rhetoric from Obama is nothing but spending taxpayer money like a drunken sailor that will come back to him in the form of political contributions. That what all this “brother’s keeper” rhetoric amounts to.

More here from Investors Business Daily.

Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal unveils education reform plan

Here are the details on Bobby Jindal’s new education plan, from New Orleans Online Access.

Excerpt:

 Gov. Bobby Jindal on Tuesday outlined a far-reaching set of proposals aimed at improving education in Louisiana, including a state-wide voucher program for low-income students, an expansion of autonomous charter schools and steps to link a teachers’ classroom performance to their job protections and their compensation. The governor has been promising for months now to make education reform the centerpiece of his second-term agenda.

[…]The voucher program may prove the most controversial aspect of the plan. Jindal is proposing to help pay tuition at private and parochial schools for any child of a low-income family who attends a school that receives a letter grade of C, D or F.

More than 70 percent of Louisiana’s public schools would fall into that category, opening up districts across the state to competition for public funding from private institutions. Parents who opt out of those public schools would be able to take the public funding set aside for their child with them to pay for tuition.

Voucher opponents argue that offering private school tuition siphons money away from public education, but the governor is framing the idea as a way to put decision-making in the hands of parents.

Also toward that end, Jindal is proposing to fast-track the approval of new charter schools for proven charter operators. Charters are publicly funded but privately managed and typically overseen by nonprofit boards. They compete with traditional public schools in their area for students.

Jindal is also proposing to end regular annual pay increases for teachers based on years in the classroom, ban the use of seniority in all personnel decisions and weaken the power that local school boards have in hiring and firing decisions in favor of superintendents.

Teachers coming into the classroom for the first time would also see major changes under Jindal’s plan: districts would have greater flexibility to establish their own pay scales for new teachers and tenure would be set aside only for those who earn high ratings on evaluations five years in a row.

I thought it might be helpful to also post this quick introduction to the issue of school choice, from the Cato Institute.

I don’t agree with the Cato Institute on everything, but they’re right on this issue. The Heritage Foundation also has 3 small videos explaining school choice – with cartoons!

There’s an even longer video narrated by John Stossel that you can watch, that really explains the why school reform matters – and why it’s a conservative issue. Like the sex-selection abortion issue that I blogged about here before, this is an issue that conservatives need to seize on. Here, we can really let our compassionate side show by helping the poorest students, especially those in visible minorities, who simply cannot get a quality education in a public school monopoly that is not responsive to the needs of parents, or their children. This is an issue where we can win – the only losers are the educational bureaucrats and the teacher unions. But the kids are more important.

Indiana voucher program offers hope to low-income students

From the Courier Press, news of the latest success for Republicans in their long war against public sector teacher unions.

Excerpt:

Kristy Wentworth of Evansville said she was never dissatisfied with public education, and her three children, who attended schools in the Evansville Vanderburgh School Corp., were making good grades.

But when friends told her about Indiana’s new private school voucher program, she was intrigued.

After some discussion, Wentworth enrolled her children this year at Evansville Lutheran School, which is near her home. It didn’t take the single mother long to decide her choice was correct. Her children — who are in grades 7, 6 and 4 — are thriving at Evansville Lutheran. Wentworth noted the school’s small class sizes, and she marveled at the frequent communication she receives from her teachers.

“They come home from school excited, they leave for school excited. They can’t wait to get there,” Wentworth said. “(The school) encouraged them to sign up for Boy Scouts and volleyball, and on the first night they made the kids feel so welcome.”

Wentworth recently lost her job, and she said she couldn’t have afforded a private school without the voucher program, which proponents say helps overall educational achievement and closes achievement gaps along socioeconomic lines.

And these private schools help children to perform better in testing.

Can greater competition among schools help? That’s what state education officials are banking on. While scars from the lengthy spring debate over vouchers heal, they are encouraging local school districts to embrace the new environment.

Local nonpublic schools have courted voucher students. As of Friday, 114 were awarded to students in the EVSC district — the fourth highest number in the state.

Officials with the EVSC, meanwhile, point to recent academic progress, its network of community partnerships aimed at meeting students’ most fundamental needs and classroom innovations.

Delaware Elementary School, which is in the same neighborhood as Evansville Lutheran, has made strides in several areas in a short period of time, said Heather Ottilie, parent of a Delaware third-grader.

Delaware is in its second year as an EVSC “equity school.” Along with two other schools of similar socioeconomic demographics — McGary Middle School and Evans School — Delaware is free to have longer school days and longer school years and has more leeway in curriculum and rules. The three equity schools all showed gains on the spring ISTEP.

Ottilie said Delaware has placed heavy emphasis on independent reading. Other innovations include the use of netbook computers and iPod Touches in classrooms, world language instruction and new learning programs such as LEGO robotics, which emphasize problem-solving skills.

“I love it,” Ottilie said. “Everything is hands-on … the kids aren’t just doing worksheets.”

What is the conservative plan to help the poor? Is it wealth redistribution? Does that even work? Or is there a way to produce better results for the poor through free market capitalism? Those who advocate big government never bother to ask these questions. For those who take the time to study economics, the answer is clear – what works to reduce costs and raise quality is choice and competition.

Related posts

Must-see videos on education policy

Related posts