It appears that the fight is on all over the country between union supporters and opponents. President Obama has packed the National Labor Relations Board with union sympathizers, but opponents are fighting back.
Unions have won their latest skirmish in Ohio, but Indiana has just passed legislation to make Indiana the 23rd Right-to-Work state. Most significantly, Indiana is in the middle of the Rust Belt, a region that has been the most solidly pro-union in the country. Indiana could be the first of many to come. Take notice, Ohio.
In Wisconsin, the effort to recall Governor Scott Walker, Union Enemy Number 1, appears to be failing. Interestingly, there have been two important developments during the campaign. One is that national unions have gone all out to oust the governor; the millions they have spent in Wisconsin will not be available to support the election of Democrats elsewhere.
Second, teachers who have been freed to investigate health insurance options have discovered that they were being royally ripped off by union-controlled insurance, with obscene profits funneled off to the unions for political activities that have nothing to do with education.
Elsewhere, the AFT and the NEA, the nation's big teachers unions, are being challenged for their dedication to keeping ineffective teachers on the job.
In New York, the AFT is resisting teacher evaluation systems that would hold bad teachers accountable.
In Massachusetts, the NEA is fighting a ballot initiative to make teachers' performance, rather than years of service, the primary factor in deciding who should be laid off.
Missouri is proposing a constitutional amendment prohibiting tenure and requiring local performance standards in employment decisions.
Bobby Jindal of Louisiana is promoting an expansion of school vouchers and a change in how tenure is applied and in how teachers get pay increases. Compare this to the head of the NEA who recently told an interviewer that efforts to pay better teachers more money is "naive and shortsighted."
And in New Jersey we all know how Governor Chris Christie is battling teachers unions who stand up for bad teachers by making sure they don't have to undergo any scrutiny whatsoever.
Meanwhile, the Department of Education spends $200 million a year on research intended to improve educational practice. According to the American Enterprise Institute, no evidence exists that these expenditures have done any significant good. On the contrary, nobody talks about No Child Left Behind anymore, because the program has been an abject failure.
The money would be better spent assisting states who have seen the light.
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