Teacher unions are run by Liberal thugs, not teachers

Union curbs rescue a Wisconsin school district

“” This is a disaster," said Mark Miller, the Wisconsin Senate Democratic leader, in February after Republican Gov. Scott Walker proposed a budget bill that would curtail the collective bargaining powers of some public employees. Miller predicted catastrophe if the bill were to become law -- a charge repeated thousands of times by his fellow Democrats, union officials, and protesters in the streets.

“ The Kaukauna School District, in the Fox River Valley of Wisconsin near Appleton, has about 4,200 students and about 400 employees. It has struggled in recent times and this year faced a deficit of $400,000. But after the law went into effect, at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday, school officials put in place new policies they estimate will turn that $400,000 deficit into a $1.5 million surplus. And it's all because of the very provisions that union leaders predicted would be disastrous. [...] "The monetary part of it is not the entire issue," says Arnoldussen, a political independent who won a spot on the board in a nonpartisan election. Indeed, some of the most important improvements in Kaukauna's outlook are because of the new limits on collective bargaining. In the past, Kaukauna's agreement with the teachers union required the school district to purchase health insurance coverage from something called WEA Trust -- a company created by the Wisconsin teachers union. [Golly, I can't imagaine what happened next] “ California public schools see paradox of lower funding, higher test scores It's a trend that would seem to defy conventional wisdom: As public school spending has declined in California in recent years, student achievement test scores have gone up. [...] n El Dorado County, spending fell 9 percent from 2008 to 2010. But test scores rose dramatically. The proportion of students in grades two through seven testing proficient or above in English rose from 63 percent to 68 percent; those at or above proficient in math shot from 65 percent to 72 percent. Read more: So, are educators finding ways to teach?