United Teachers Los Angeles supports merit pay “on a cold day in hell
The Detroit Federation of Teachers shut down city schools to stop 15 charter schools from being built for free
The California Teachers Association has compared school vouchers to child prostitution
The Washington Teachers Union has withheld kids’ college recommendations for parents who didn’t oppose school reform
In Illinois (outside of Chicago), two union-protected teachers out of 95,500 are terminated for incompetence annually
In Illinois (outside of Chicago), it costs $219,504.21 to fire a bad union-protected teacher
In New Jersey, five union-protected teachers out of more than 100,000 are terminated for incompetence annually
In New York State, seventeen union-protected teachers are terminated a year
In New York State, it costs $128,941 to fire a bad union-protected teacher
In New York City, only ten out of 55,000 tenured teachers were terminated in 2006-2007
In Los Angeles, only eleven out of 43,000 union-protected teachers are even considered for termination annually
The National Education Association received $50 million for shaky investment advice in 2004 alone
NEA members are suing over the union’s endorsement of “Valuebuilder,” a plan with over $1 billion of members’ money invested
New York State United Teachers received $3 million for shaky investment advice in 2005
Washington Teachers Union embezzlement tab: $5 million
United Teachers of Dade (Miami) embezzlement tab: $2.5 million
Massachusetts Teachers Association embezzlement tab: $800,000
Michigan teachers unions' embezzlement tab from one thief: $218,000 in bad checks
 
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For Parents:
Local School Info

Parents deserve to know as much about their local schools as possible, so they can choose the school best suited to the unique needs of their child. School boards, administrators, and voters also deserve information on schools so they can help them improve and hold them accountable for results. Unfortunately, teachers unions have strongly resisted both accountability and the information it requires.

But in recent years many groups have begun to compile information on local schools, so that parents and other stakeholders can compare schools’ actual success in teaching students. Here are websites that can help parents begin this important process:

GreatSchools.net

GreatSchools.netThis popular website allows parents to research and compare schools across a district and a state. It also lets parents post their own reviews of schools their children attend. It won the 2007 Webby award for “Best Family and Parenting Site.”

SchoolMatters.com

SchoolMatters.comThis site is a service of the famous Wall Street research firm Standard and Poor’s, and it provides state and national government statistics on schools’ reading and math proficiency scores, as well as private research.

SchoolDataDirect.org

SchoolDataDirect.orgThe State Education Data Center which created this site is a service of the Council of Chief State School Officers, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.