Last week we highlighted how the California Teachers Association and its largest local affiliate, United Teachers Los Angeles, wield a disproportionate amount of power over the policies of their parent union, the National Education Association. UTLA is also affiliated with the smaller of the two national teacher unions, the American Federation of Teachers. AFT just...

The National Education Association held its annual Representative Assembly in Minneapolis last week. Six thousand delegates, representing teachers and education support workers in every state, met to debate and vote on the national union’s budget and agenda for the 2018-19 school year. Each year the delegates amend NEA’s constitution and by-laws, federal legislative program, resolutions,...

Mike Antonucci’s Union Report appears weekly at LA School Report. Every member of the California Teachers Association contributes $36 annually to the union’s ballot initiative fund. Unspent money rolls over and today the fund holds in excess of $23 million. This month CTA’s State Council, comprised of almost 800 union representatives from across California, approved...

As graduation season comes to a close, school leaders across the country have the opportunity to reflect on the way our schools are helping students from all walks of life prepare for their future, including students who are homeless, living in foster care, or experiencing challenges that prevent them from thriving in traditional school settings....

Graduation season has almost concluded, and students and teachers are anxiously readying to begin summer break. Undoubtedly, many of us have spent the past few weeks taking part in the pomp and circumstance and pageantry that accompany the milestone of matriculation in a student’s educational career. Whether it’s the culmination ceremony of a child going...

Mike Antonucci’s Union Report appears weekly at LA School Report. More than 900,000 current and former public school teachers are covered by the California State Teachers’ Retirement System (CalSTRS). The pension system has $210 billion in net assets. It will need all of it and more, since it holds only 63.7 percent of the funds necessary to...

Mike Antonucci’s Union Report appears weekly at LA School Report. The California Teachers Association has voted to slash its 2018-19 budget by more than $20 million because it expects to lose 23,000 members with an unfavorable U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Janus v. AFSCME, a case that challenges the right of government unions to charge non-members for...

Mike Antonucci’s Union Report appears weekly at LA School Report. United Teachers Los Angeles held a large rally in Grand Park last week in support of the union’s demands for a new contract. UTLA is very eager to piggyback on the phenomenon of teacher walkouts in West Virginia, Oklahoma, and Arizona. California’s teachers have a much tougher...

Mike Antonucci’s Union Report appears weekly at LA School Report. The end of the school year is near, but public school employee unions won’t be stopping for summer vacation. They are making final preparations for California’s June 5 primary and the November general election. School unions have already committed millions to various campaigns and committees. For the...

Sacramento politicians have turned their backs on children in California’s lowest-performing schools. In representing the state Board of Education and Superintendent Tom Torlakson in an official response released last week to a lawsuit filed against them in December 2017, California’s attorney general asserted that parents and taxpayers should not be able to complain if only...