Support Staff Strike, Unhinged Pringle Rant
Top NEA Convention Highlights

The annual far-left love fest also known as the National Education Association (NEA) Representative Assembly (RA), was marred from the start this year by a strike involving the union’s “staff organization.” Known as the NEASO, its approximately 350 staff members have been at odds with NEA management since April, according to the left-leaning nonprofit news organization Truthout.

Citing unfair labor practices, staff workers set up a picket line on July 5 outside the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia, where the 2024 NEA RA was taking place. According to Education Week, striking staff workers are being locked out of their jobs and won’t be paid “until the union and NEA management reach an agreement.”

Interfaith Statewide Coalition Gives California Parents a Voice

Headed by 25-year veteran schoolteacher Brenda Lebsack, California’s Interfaith Statewide Coalition is another shining example of a pro-parent organization fighting for traditional education in the nation’s public schools. The Coalition promotes education “free from indoctrination and ideologies that attack religious faith, and family and religious values,” and encompasses people of all faiths. Its purpose is “to unite as concerned parents, clergy, and community leaders of many faiths, races, and language groups in order to increase parents’ rights in our state.”

Readers of Education Reporter met Lebsack last month when her work was mentioned in an article about sexualized ‘suicide prevention’ programs that may actually endanger rather than help troubled youth. Recently, we spoke with her directly to learn more about her group’s success in removing one of these programs, The Trevor Project Crisis Hotlines, from all K-12 schools, as well as from counselors’ business cards, in the Santa Ana, CA Unified School District (SAUSD).

Are Attacks on Homeschooling Ramping Up?

A recent observation by a casual observer that homeschooling may be coming under increasing attacks by opponents could turn out to have some basis in fact. With the number of homeschooled students now approaching 4 million, it is no surprise that losing control of this many children has the education establishment worried.

Homeschooled students have outperformed their brick-and-mortar peers for decades, and Education Reporter has long chronicled the phenomenon. But because it’s so hard to argue with proven academic success, particularly when the National Assessment for Education Progress (NAEP) scores have sunk to ever more discouraging lows, opponents of homeschooling continue to raise the specter of “abuse and neglect” as reasons to exert more state control over homeschooling.

What Books Should Kids be Reading?

(Sixth in our series of recommended reading lists for children of all ages. We will continue this feature in Education Reporter until all our lists have been republished. — Ed.)

Classic children’s books are scarcely to be found in school classrooms and libraries today, so parents must ensure that their kids are reading books that educate, absorb, and entertain in a manner that stimulates curiosity and increases the child’s eagerness to learn about the world.