Watchdog.org is a non-profit organization that works to expose government waste, fraud and abuse of power. At the start of this year, they posted a list entitled, “Watchdog’s Scariest People of 2015.” Guess who made it all the way up to Number 5? No, it wasn’t Dave Regan. Nice try though. It was the whole Philadelphia Federation of Teachers organization. Here’s why. Every year, there are up to 63 designated “ghost teachers” working within the School District of Philadelphia. They’re called ghost teachers because they are permitted to leave the classrooms to work full-time for the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers. Meanwhile, they still accrue seniority and receive salary, benefits, and pensions (paid for by the state, which means by the taxpayers). 
The allowance of seniority is important here because Pennsylvania has a “last in, first out” policy. This means a teacher who has been actively teaching kids in the classroom for 2 years is more likely to get laid off than a ghost teacher who hasn’t stepped inside of a classroom for 7 years. Does 7 years sound like an exaggeration? It’s not. According to Watchdog, “some Philly ghost teachers have not stepped foot in a classroom in more than 30 years.” Here’s another fun fact: “In 2014, at least 18 ghost teachers made more than $1.7 million working for the union.” A bill to end this practice has been proposed.
