Everyone agrees that education for our children is a critical pathway for those children to grow into adults who are ready to earn a living and become responsible members of our society. Unfortunately labor unions including teachers unions have a different focus – to benefit their union bank accounts with your tax dollars more than the quality and success of students in those schools.  Often to balance a school district’s books the union elected Board of Trustees will give raises to District employees and increase class sizes (with layoffs of younger teachers with less seniority).  How does this help children in these schools?  Not at all.  In fact classroom overcrowding and teachers kept due to seniority instead of quality and student progress is detrimental to their education.

Let me pause and say there are many great teachers in the public school system.  It is not their actions that are the problem.  It is their unions who want to hold onto power who are the problem.

Many parents choose to send their children to private schools or choose to homeschool their children to assure that they are doing everything they can to provide a quality education for their child. But there is another route parents can take: public charter schools.  The success of public charter schools is beyond refutation. The fact is that public charter schools, with the freedom to not unionize their staffs and focus on children’s academic progress rather than just seniority in teacher evaluations, have resulted in long waiting lists for children to gain entrance into good public charter schools.  What is the response to this by government employee unions?  To block public charter school applications at every turn.  First via the Board of Trustees at the local level.  Then with a rubber stamp Orange County Board of Education that denied charter school application appeals routinely. That changed two years ago when Linda Lindholm joined Trustees Robert Hammond and Ken Williams to form a pro public charter school majority.  Since then charter schools that formerly were routinely denied appeals have had their appeals granted and more charter schools opened to the benefit of children, parents, teachers who work there and ultimately all of us as these children graduate with a quality education.

This June 7^th voters in Orange County will have an opportunity to re-elect Trustees Hammond and Williams to keep that pro-charter school majority in place.  The teacher unions are running Tustin Councilmember Rebecca Gomez and Irvine School Board member Michael Parham against Hammond and Williams to replace the current majority with a board majority that will bring the OC Board back to the days when charter school application appeals are routinely denied no matter the quality and demand by parents for a viable alternative to sometimes failing public schools their children are enrolled in.

Former State Senator Gloria Romero has an excellent opinion article in the Orange County Register (Teachers unions trying to take back O.C. board). Follow the link to her article where she has set forth how this is a deceptive campaign by the unions to smear Trustee Hammond and Williams to place their handpicked Trustees on the board.

Here is a part of her article:

“The name “Teachers for Local Control” undoubtedly was poll tested and determined to be a resonant mantra with Orange County voters.     What backers probably won’t reveal is that Teachers for Local Control is a chameleon group for the Santa Ana Educators Association, a local affiliate of the powerful Sacramento-based California Teachers Association, which has fought virtually every public education reform and law granting parental school choice in California.

In fact, the legal phone number for Teachers for Local Control provided to the California Secretary of State’s Office is the same number as for the Santa Ana teachers union office.

Whoops.”

Teacher unions what to give parents less choice in the education of their children by opposing public charter schools. Trustees Hammond and Williams want to preserve choice and excellence in education.   Voters will have an important choice regarding education in Orange County on June 7^th.

Re-elect Robert Hammond and Dr. Ken Williams to the Orange County Board of Education.

For more about former Marine Robert Hammond go to: http://www.robertforocbe.com/

For more about Dr. Ken Williams go to: http://www.williamsforocbe.com/

For more about public charter schools in general go to: http://www.ccsaadvocates.org/ and Parents Advocate League.