Thank you for taking a stand for children.

Please join me in the fight for kids by sending me an email and telling me why you want to get involved .

I support but am not affiliated with the Luis Sanchez SB5 campaign.

5/8/2011 - Stop the UTLA take-over of the school district on May 17th, 2011. Please email stoputla@gmail.com to volunteer on May 17th. Resources: LAUSD salaries and pensions LAUSD salary worksheet CALSTR actuarial evaluation Fix Pensions / Presentation Fix Pensions / Chapter 1 Official LAUSD Benefit Calculations LAUSD teacher evaluation LA Weekly Dance of the Lemons Article AJ Duffy saying how the District could save $3 million Slanderous UTLA mailers against Sanchez To Do List Titanic Room Service Pink Slip Teacher Union politics and power asymmetry "Special Interest" by Dr. Terry Moe 3/28/2011 - The UTLA set to crush students of LAUSD on School Board Run-off, May 17th, 2011. By engineering an endorsement switch but keeping "For the Kids" Fernandez on the ballot, the UTLA was able to split the hispanic vote, denying Luis Sanchez an absolute majority in District 5. Now they will marshal their full resources, including $4 million in unspent reserves, to vault their new candidate, Bennet Kayser, over the top. The 4-3 pro-reform majority is at stake here and things are not looking good for children. The same awful math gets worse in a run-off election where turn-out is even worse (among non-unionists). Please check out my blog post on this school board election: the UTLA wants to steal it because they expect fewer than 10% to vote and most of those voters will be their own! 8 out of 10 school boards are elected by teacher unions this way and it takes just one union board every few years to roll back reform progress and destroy the lives of real reformers! It's important and the teacher unions hope you won't vote. Here's what the UTLA tells its members: School Board races must be the top priority: Your rights, health care, and future are up for grabs. By Joshua Pechthalt UTLA/AFT Vice President Looking at the numbers Typically less than 10 percent of eligible voters go to the polls in School Board elections, and that is likely to be the case this time. The results from the 2007 School Board elections give some indication of the votes needed to win this time: District 1: 27,000+ votes cast and LaMotte won with 18,000 votes District 5: 21,000 votes cast and Flores Aguilar won with almost 14,000 votes District 7: 17,000 votes cast and Vladovic won with 9,300 votes A key part of UTLA’s campaign will be turning out our members and other union members to vote. UTLA alone has approximately 3,000 members living in each District. Assuming the same turnout in this coming election, UTLA members represent approximately 25 percent to 33 percent of the required number of votes to win. When we add CFT and CTA members who work for other school districts but live in these areas, our candidates potentially have a solid base of support. Next Steps In the coming weeks, UTLA is planning to convene a citywide chapter chair meeting to discuss the urgency of these races and the need to mobilize our members. Chapters should follow that up with meetings to discuss the issues at stake and to recruit member to make a commitment of at least three hours to one of the races. Chapter chairs may want to enlist a point person at the school who can focus on recruiting and coordinating activities, including inviting a UTLA officer, Board of Directors member, or union staff person to discuss the importance of the campaign. Over the next three months we will have to engage tens of thousands of our members, parents, and community members in the importance of these races and the issues that are at stake. With patience, persistence, key talking points, and an army of volunteers, we can change the direction of our School Board and reshape the debate around public education in our district. 11/8/2010 Post election note. The UTLA won across the board with help from folks who should know better. This is the political reality that frames an education system controlled by elected officials. The teacher unions, especially in highly Democratic states like California, are tragically unbeatable over a multi-year time horizon. In 2010, they swept completely. Who represented the children at elections this year? Ironically, Republicans who the unions convinced voters not to elect. Where is Democratic leadership? What is contradictory about liberal beliefs and putting the interests of children above those of a maniacal union??? 10/31/2010 General Election If you're wondering which candidates are going to help California the most in the upcoming election, check out who the UTLA is endorsing and choose the OTHER CANDIDATE. Seriously. It's that simple. The system is broken and while the teacher unions profess to dislike school boards and school administrators, they will accept no substitute. Government run schools are sufficiently mismanaged that teachers want their unions for protection, but at the same time, nobody, for any reason, ever misses a paycheck. It is the evil they know. Time and time again we have had to learn that major reforms are only possible when school boards are replaced by mayoral control and true transformation is only possible when schools are privatized: politicians no longer control resource allocation. In short, results are better when there is less democracy. This really does make sense. What do elections have to do with running schools anyway? It turns out quite a lot if what you're trying to do is to protect union power at the expense of children.

Over time, the teacher unions just cannot be beaten in a political game. Because of their large and consistent revenue stream, willingness to be civilly disobedient, political skill and backup from state and national unions, teacher unions consistently and successfully get their friends elected. Reform stops in its tracts and contract concessions are rolled back. Reformers have emerged from time to time but no collection of elected officials over the past 50 years have been able to hold on long enough to permanently roll back teacher union power in a large school system. Schools are constantly "reforming" but never actually transformed. Unless the power asymmetry is equalized or schools are "wall-to-wall" chartered (privatized), true systemic reform is a practical impossibility.

Until recently, becoming a book-worm was the only way to see through all of the union smoke-screens. This year, some movies were produced which shed sunlight into this shadowy world. Of course, the unions are saying that these movies are untrue. Learn as much as you can and then decide for yourself. When you are ready, please send me an email and sign up at http://www.donewaiting.org. Waiting for Superman, by Davis Guggenheim The Cartel, by Bob Bowden The Lottery, by Madeleine Sackler Teached, by Kelly Amis A Right Denied, by Whitney Tilson Here are some blogs: Whitney Tilson Mike Antonucci Anthony Krinsky (me) and this is an outstanding new magazine for professors who would rather write about facts than the establishment nostrums. Education Next

Here are some good books: