[VIDEO] Obamacare Costs One Indiana School District $6 Million

Obamacare is costing one Indiana school district $6 million, WTHI reports:

"In the past, we've told you about the new federal healthcare law and how small business and local governments have been hit," said the anchor. "The next area affected by the law could be education."

The reporter adds, "The affordable care act has had its proponents as much as it's had its opponents. In the last few months we've heard different stories from private and government employers on the cuts, they've had to make. However, in Vigo county some of those cuts will come at the cost of education."

"So what we had to do the other evening at the board meeting was to cut worker's hours to below 30 because we cannot afford to offer health care to every employee," says the superintendent

It would cost $6 million a year to provide health care to every employee who works more than 30 hours, says the superintendent. 

Via: Weekly Standard

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Labor Stains

A new American Federation of Teachers financial report shows that the union has not modified its anti-child and anti-conservative stance.

Courtesy of education writer RiShawn Biddle, we get to peek at the latest edition of the American Federation of Teachers LM-2, a yearly financial report detailing union income and spending.

No surprises. Just the same old same old blatant hypocrisy, anti-education reform agenda and leftist political bent.

We’ll start with AFT president Rhonda (please call me Randi) Weingarten who pulled in a cool $543,150 in total compensation over the last year, all the while railing against the rich because she claims they don’t pay their fair share of taxes. Of course this is the same Randi Weingarten who moved out of New York City in 2012 so that she could escape paying an additional $30,000 in city income taxes.

Now don’t get me wrong. I don’t begrudge anyone using any legal tactics to avoid paying abusive taxes, but when a person who regularly whines that the rich “should pay their fair share” does it, the hypocrisy meter goes well into the red zone. It’s also hypocritical because her one-percenter salary is paid by teachers who are forced to join her union in just about every school district that AFT represents. Throughout ancient times, this kind of coerced fealty was required by powerful states and empires. “Tribute” was forced on people around the world, who had to pay up as a way of submitting – or showing allegiance – to the government. Tribute was picked up in essence in the last century by the Mafia as a means of establishing and maintaining turf. The teachers unions are just the latest bunch to adapt this repulsive practice as a way to line the pockets of the dons – I mean union leaders.

When it comes to political spending, AFT doesn’t skimp. Their anti-education reform spending and other political outlay is reported to be about $32 million. I say “reported to be” because unions have been known to – how you say – lie about their spending. For example, according to teacher union watchdog Mike Antonucci, in the 2008 election cycle, the National Education Association

dropped $260,000 on one of the many front groups operated by Craig Varoga and George Rakis, two men Fox News identifies as “Democratic Party strategists.”  

Readers of this blog will not find such news surprising, but if you delve through the pertinent EIA list of NEA donations to advocacy groups, you won’t find this money. That’s because the expenditures are listed in NEA’s financial disclosure report as expenses for “media,” going to Independent Strategies, one of Rakis and Varoga’s groups, for “generalized message, program expenses,” or “membership communication development,” or “legislative policy development.” Without further information, it was difficult to justify classifying Independent Strategies as an advocacy group. This news, however, suggests NEA’s advocacy spending extends well beyond the easily identifiable groups.

Via: California Political Review

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Common Core and more -- why don't parents get to have a say in their kids' education?

The unforgettable moment of parental bonding in the delivery room deceives many parents. After all, in today’s society, mothers and fathers are encouraged to be there for their children from first breath, cutting the umbilical cord, cheering at soccer matches, and helping in the doctor’s office, where many a queasy parent is asked to assist with something that can make a grown man go weak in the knees.

Most parents diligently work to raise up a generation of strong, confident, intelligent people, who know how to use the potty.

Which leaves many of us incredulous when it comes to the 1950s flashback – like expectant fathers in a hospital waiting room from an episode of “Mad Men” – that occurs when we start to engage in our children’s education, as “experts” in our modern day school system block us at the door to keep our parental cooties outside.

Why is it that when we start to engage in our children’s education, “experts” in our modern day school system block us at the door to keep our parental cooties outside?

Suddenly, parents should be seen and not heard, while we keep the checks coming.

My four children attend public schools in one of US News & World Reports top 50 tiers, after living in the Washington, D.C. area with some of the best of private and public school in the nation.  We’ve been exposed to what is said to be the best in the land in terms of schools.

Via: Fox News

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The Educators' War on the Working Class

They say that capitalism is the deadliest threat to poor Americans.  But that's not true -- it's actually Big Education.

We are constantly told that educators are "dedicated" to improving the lives of students and that a good education opens the door to a good career and financial success.   But while this rhetoric may have been true at one time, in the last ten years the economic reality of property taxes and student loan debt are starting to overcome the positives.  Educators may now be the greatest source of financial hardship faced by middle-class and poor working Americans. 

The public education system of America is a vast, efficiently organized network reaching from the largest cities to the smallest rural areas.  The bonds that hold this network together include membership in the two largest education unions -- the American Federal of Teachers and the National Education association -- and the bonds they have to the National Democratic Party.  The bonds to the DNC are made of money.

The size of these unions is impressive: the American Federation of Teachers has 1.5 million members in over 3,000 local affiliates nationwide.  The Center for Responsive Politics records that they give campaign money primarily, and almost exclusively, to Democrats.   They give zero percent to Republicans.  The National Education Association is twice as large and is the number-four all-time contributor to national campaigns.   It gives only four percent of its campaign money to support Republicans.  It has nearly three million members in more than 14,000 school districts nationwide.

So it's fair to say that American educators overwhelmingly support the Democratic Party.  In return, Democrats in all major states pass extremely lucrative salary and pension plans for educators. 

Via: American Thinker

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Obama's War on Black Education

Notorious for being violent, under-performing laggards, D.C. public schools have among the highest dropout and lowest graduation rates in the country. In 2007, D.C.'s 4^th and 8^th grade students scored lower than children from all 50 states on the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP). Fewer than half of children in D.C, public schools rated "proficient"!

So President G.W. Bush signed the D.C. School Choice Incentive Act, creating a program to provide scholarships to students from low-income families to attend a private school of their choice. This program targeted 2,000 children from low-income families in Washington D.C. In 2008 the program funded attendance at 54 D.C.-area private schools.

In one of his first acts as President in March of 2009, Barack Obama signed the $410 billion omnibus spending bill in to law. Buried in that bill was an appeasement to the teacher's unions that helped put him into the White House; an amendment that killed the District of Columbia's school voucher program, then known as the "D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program."  Over 94% of the participating families in the D.C. voucher program were black families. The immensely successful program allowed parents of children in failing, inner-city schools to send their children elsewhere.

Not only did the amendment kill the program, but the language was included to prohibit any new students from receiving scholarships too. The president rescinded the scholarships set to go to 214 families in the 2010 school year. Of those 214 families, 214 were black households. 

Via: American Thinker

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