Am I crazy too

Here's how every child can have an excellent teacher--
without firing or laying-off any teachers!

Follow up to the post, "Am I crazy to think that...

by Maura Larkins

San Diego Education Report

By Maura Larkins 
"There’s very good evidence that teacher quality
matters a lot in terms of student performance in
school and success later on in life.

The economist Raj Chetty of Harvard, for example, has found that students randomly placed with more experienced kindergarten teachers not
only perform better on tests but earn more and save more for retirement as adults, are likelier to go to college, and go to better colleges than their peers with less experienced teachers.

Eric Hanushek of Stanford estimates that a good teacher – defined as at the 84th percentile... Provides students with test scores associated withan increase of between $22,000 and $46,000
in lifetime earnings."--Washington Post
Lots of kids get stuck for years with various incompetent teachers, but it doesn't have to be that way. We can fix the problem. And not spend any more money!

HERE'S THE PLAN:

An excellent teacher could come into each classroom for just a few hours a week and make a huge difference--if that teacher had responsibility for student  success and authority to make decisions.

Parents should not need political clout to get a good teacher for their child. Every student should--and could--have a great teacher, without wasting time and energy on the losing battle to fire incompetent teachers.

The truth is that the critical moments in learning don't happen continuously five hours a  day. They add up to at most a couple of hours each day, and probably much less. The rest of the time an ordinary, mediocre teacher can handle the skill practice and lesson reinforcement, omputer activities, art projects, silent reading (how much skill is needed to be in charge of that?) and so on.

GIVING SUPPORT TEACHERS A REAL JOB

At my old school we were paying a top salary--well over $60,000, for a computer teacher who was very nice, but her job was merely to familiarize kids with computer programs. An aide could have done the job. When the principal (Ollie Matos) tried to switch that computer teacher to giving basic reading and math lessons, the teachers went ballistic. The story became a sensation in the San Diego Press, and a group of angry teachers were named the "Castle Park Five" by San Diego Union-Tribune editor Don Sevrens. Basically, what the teachers wanted was 45 minutes a week in which they could send their students to another teacher. But in my plan, classroom teachers would have this kind of help and relief for more than an entire day each week! The nice computer teacher could become a master teacher!

Resource teachers like computer teachers and language and math support teachers could become master teachers. And let's face it: how much good are those resource teachers able to do? They go around and offer suggestions, but they are really doing the equivalent of passing out band-aids. I would never want such a job. It might be relaxing not to have direct responsibility for student learning, but isn't that the point of being a teacher?

NO MORE ABUSIVE TEACHERS

Academics would not be the only thing that master teachers would be responsible for. 
Abusive, immature teachers with a habit of undermining students could be overruled and 
guided by the master teacher.

WE COULD SAVE MONEY!

Why do we pay bad teachers the same amount of money as good teachers? It makes no 
sense!

Excellent teachers should be paid much more than average teachers, and could be responsible for all students in several classrooms.

Each classroom could have a full-time regular teacher who be paid a lower salary, but would be eligible to become a master teacher. The master teacher would also be responsible for helping and guiding the regular teacher.

In California the average teacher salary is roughly $60,000 (with a starting salary of $35,000.) We could allow regular teachers to rise in salary to an average of $50 thousand, and allow master teachers to rise to an average of $100 thousand--for overseeing our classrooms (or, in a time of better budgets, three classrooms.

Money for support teachers and teacher aides would be switched to master teacher positions in the classrooms. (Of course, special education would still require teacher aides.) Some people who are currently teacher aides could become regular teachers.)

Here's the comparison for four classrooms and one extra salary (thousands):

Currently: $60 + $60 + $60 + $60 + $60 = $300

New plan: $100 + $50 + $50 + $50 + $50 = $300

MEANINGFUL EVALUATIONS OF TEACHERS WOULD BE REQUIRED
Of course, meaningful evaluations of teachers would have to be instituted to make this plan work. Current evaluation systems are worse than useless. My plan would call for frequent observations by both master and regular teachers, but they would observe classrooms in other districts to keep school politics out of the process as much as possible. The observations would have a beneficial side effect: they would allow teachers to pick up new ideas.

I believe it would be good to use student test scores when choosing who is to be a master  teacher, but I don't think it's absolutely necessary. The good thing about it is that it would take some of the politics out of teacher evaluation. It should be noted that although student test scores vary widely from year to year for most teachers, some teachers do get 
consistently high scores from their students year after year.

It is Easy to Fire an Educator!

It is Easy to Fire an Educator!

The board minutes simply state“resigned for personal reasons.”

Moreno Valley, CA. Its a shame and ethically undefendable that Assistant Superintendent of HR, Henry Voros does not afford the same standard of proof with a dozen or more employees (all of whom are at the top of the salary scale and suspended without pay and without cause or due process) as Dr. White endeavors toward Board Trustee Mike Rios in her statement. (see Below.) I could not agree more though I don't care for Rios as a person. "Due Process" as Board Trustee Harold "Rick" Sayre mentioned.


Then again, is his sad little way, Voros is as much driven by personality dysfunction as is Rios. Harold “Rick” Sayres is also driving this back door effort to break the employees contract and their collective will to dessent or question administration. Via the conceit of these two self serving individuals they reduce payroll.

Who said it’s hard to fire a teacher? Its easy: conjure up any reason, refuse to follow state education department regulations for disciplining educators, Ignore Education Code and State Labor law, and Government Code, then suspend without pay. Done! Effectively fired at the date of suspension!

Voros has seen the actuarial table that shows the number of educators that will just leave (or quit) far out ways the number who will fight. There by producing an immediate half-million dollar savings to the district's publically inflatted bottom line. Those educators who are willing to fight, sometimes to the appellate level usually win, which costs the district hugely in the short run. However, the district doesn't have to disclose documentation to the press or public regarding these cases because they 
can claim confidentiality of the former employee.

The board minutes simply “resigned for personal reasons.”

CTA seems powerless or unwilling to effectively put a stop this trend. Last year was the implementation year for MVUSD. SO FAR, this tactic appears to be working without substantial resistance. 

A group of laid off teachers brought a petition to the offices of the North Clackamas Education Association in Oregon protesting the union’s decision to accept job cuts over salary freezes – contrary, they claim, to the wishes of the members. 

“We took a poll in the spring and they got our opinion and the majority said wage freeze,” said Monica Whiteley, who was laid off. "If I was her I would. So I would like them to look at the poll or honor it and have us look at the memo of understanding that is out there.”

SORRY I HAVE TO STEP IN HERE: A POLL ABOUT A POSSIBLITY INVOVING THE MOST GENERAL OF CIRCUMSTANCES AND AT A TIME WELL BEFORE THE THE TRUTH HAD  LEAKED TO THE SURFACE? JUST BEFORE THE BOARD WAS SET TO VOTE ON IT? THIS STINKS OF CORUPTION AND IS HAPPENING AT LOCALS ALL OVER THE STATE. THIS IS CTA  LEADERSHIP AT IT'S FINEST. SCREW THE LOWER MEMBERS FOR THE GOOD OF THE DYING (SOON TO RETIRE) ELEPHANTS. THIS WAS ATTEMPED IN MY CTA LOCAL. IT IS NOT A VOTE ON AN ACTION ITEM!!!!!!!!!!!!!

They said they feel the union hasn’t been listening or communicating.  “I have felt like my voice has not been heard. I wasn’t asked was I OK with losing my job,” said Jenny Klassen, another laid off teacher.

Meanwhile, members of the Kent Education Association in Washington state voted overwhelmingly to go on strike. Only one problem with that: Washington courts and the Attorney General’s office have repeatedly ruled that teacher strikes, like any public-employee strike in Washington State, are illegal.The KEA disagrees, however... There lots of ways around that if true!!!!

This is Where Some of our Children Live Here - Maybe More Than We Think

.

The buildings had no running water, illegal wiring, boarded up windows and rodent infestations, officials said.any of these 74 children are presumably of school age, and will be starting one of Oakland's elementary schools next Monday. They are now homeless, living with relatives or in a shelter. When they arrive at school, they will not have a sign explaining their conditions. They will just be among the many thousands of Oakland students struggling to live way below the poverty line. Many of Oakland's schools are attended by students who live in poverty. Some schools are more than 90% economically disadvantaged.

We are often told not to make excuses for the poor performance of our schools, but I have seen firsthand the effect that poverty has on student performance. The children who lived in this apartment complex (until they were made completely homeless this week) are not that unusual. They have no place to study, so it is tough to do homework. There are drug users around the building, so it is noisy at night, making it hard to sleep. There are shootings in the neighborhood, so sometimes they have to dive to take cover from flying bullets. The nearest real grocery store is literally miles away, so food is often purchased at the neighborhood convenience store, and is highly processed and unhealthy. You can see them walking to school in the morning, eating their breakfast of corn chips and soda pop.

And just the stress of being poor takes its toll. If I am a bit short with my bills at the end of the month, I know how stressed that makes me. But those without regular work have a level of stress I have never even known. Unemployment in the Bay Area is over eleven percent, and is at least double that in many of these neighborhoods. That stress spills into family life, making people short-tempered and even violent. Children are often moved from one home to another, depending on who has space and food to take them in. Can you imagine how you would feel as a parent if you could not even afford to pay for a roof over your children's heads?

On Monday, teachers will welcome their students to class. The ones without homes, the ones who are hungry, the ones in foster care -- they will do their best to hide these conditions. Like wounded birds, they do not want to appear weak or flawed. Once they are grown and have achieved success, they may take some pride in their humble origins, but there is no pride in being homeless when it is your reality today.

Good teachers will find out soon who the hungry ones are, and work with the school and the child's parent or guardian to get them signed up for free lunches. They will make space for the children to stay after school and do homework. They will push all their students to do their best regardless of their circumstances. School can be a sanctuary for these students, a place where they are safe, and have a chance to be seen as human beings.

This fall there is less money than ever. Most of the Republicans in the state legislature have signed a pledge not to ever raise taxes, so when state revenues plummeted this year, school funding was cut by more than a thousand dollars per student. While the Bay Area remains an expensive place to live, Oakland's teachers are among the lowest paid in the region. Class sizes will expand, and there will be no money to repair the copy machine or replace broken furniture or lost books. Teachers will dip into their savings accounts to make up the difference for their children, because that is what we do.

But there is a way in which education rhetoric these days seems to deny that poverty has an impact on the ability of students to learn. Sometimes it feels as if the schools and teachers are actually being blamed for the conditions our students are forced to live in. These conditions should not be used to justify a poor quality education. But the schools and teachers that serve these students have special challenges, and need our support.

What is the impact of poverty on your students? How do you respond as an educator? How should we respond as a society?

Posted by Anthony Cody on August 26, 2009 7:49 AM

Yes, The NEA is bloated and useless but...

 The comments NEA submitted to the U.S. Department of Education regarding the Race to the Top fund eligibility criteria. NEA has finally noticed that the Obama administration's proposed education reforms are in direct conflict with the union's agenda.

At Flypaper, Jamie Davies O'Leary calls this the "least surprising news ever" (emphasis in original) and who can argue? But stating it so flatly underplays the unceasing cloud of swamp gas that emanated from NEA headquarters ever since candidate Obama first mentioned performance pay in front of union delegates in 2007.

Obama had more than two years of opportunities to pull a John Kerry and back off from his statements. I, for one, expected him to. But he hasn't, and he continues to repeat exactly what reforms he has in mind. NEA, for its part, emphasized how the union and Obama were essentially in agreement and how such differences were inevitable and unimportant.

The day before the 2008 election, I wrote: "As we have seen with Gray Davis and various other Democratic governors across the country, NEA and AFT may not react well when the time comes for Obama to say 'no,' when they see his primary job as saying 'yes.'"

I kept beating that drum this year.

March 11: "I think President Obama's notion of performance pay falls well short of replacing the traditional salary schedule. But after hearing him speak on the issue several times, I am persuaded he does actually mean performance pay, and he is in fact at odds with NEA on the matter. Despite the union's public statements that they're all on the same page ('He means national certification. No, really!'), either the President or the NEA will be forced to blink on this one."

March 16: "Now we have President Obama, and in his first major education policy speech last week, he once again mentioned performance pay, plus supported lifting charter school caps, decried America's 'educational decline,' demanded accountability, and called for getting 'bad teachers out of the classroom.' NEA issued talking points on the speech the same day, and they emphasize that 'President Obama's plan calls for proposals we've been advocating for quite some time.' This will come as news to former President Bush."

March 23: "Subject matter differential pay has the potential of causing more divisiveness between NEA and the Obama administration than does performance pay. A lot of school districts may talk about performance pay, but most will be happy to continue without the bother of creating a new system. Districts everywhere would like the freedom to pay more to hire teachers in shortage areas, which would require very little change."

July 2: "It's hard not to root for Obama and Duncan, who continue to pitch the 'let's collaborate and come up with something that works' message. The problem, it hardly needs repeating, is that we don't all agree about 'what works.' And some people don't care if it works or not, as long as the checks keep coming.... The real test will come when there aren't enough carrots and NEA files suit against the sticks. Being Democrats buys Obama and Duncan time and the benefit of the doubt. It doesn't buy them invulnerability."

That's an awful lot of restating the obvious, but NEA's only response was to claim the press was distorting the issue. At the very least, the union owes Education Week's Stephen Sawchuk an apology for hammering him after he wrote about NEA's spin...

On this, the NEA finds itself blowing hot air on the right side for its members (much to everyone's surprise) with regard to Obama's thinly veiled extension of the real purpose of NCLB through his project  RTTP. (Race To Topple Progress) for disadvantaged children.


Though the goals espoused by Obama and Duncan are noble and tantamount toward getting the best education possible for all our children per tax dollar spent. Here’s the problem that nullifies the intention. NOBODY has yet to offer a valid, reliable and empirically sound way to use these test scores to measure teacher performance. We are forever complaining about the system, some can even identify what needs to change BUT WHERE are the blue prints to the solution? Not in RTTP. Each year a teacher has an entirely different set of kids with different backgrounds, temperaments, abilities, and disabilities. This Proposal insists that all children are the same and learn the same. Unfortuneatly for Obama, the very nature of a child (for whom public education is supposed to exist) muddies the waters of what all American’s expect: a fast simple solution. 8/30/09 9:30pm   Praetorian

Six Years in the Making - An American Deflation

Saturday, August 29, 2009

An American Deflation

In economics, deflation is a decrease in the general price level of goods and services.^[1] Deflation occurs when the inflation rate falls below zero percent, resulting in an increase in the real value of money – a negative inflation rate. This should not be confused with disinflation, a slow-down in the inflation rate (i.e. when the inflation decreases, but still remains positive).^[2]Inflation reduces the real value of money over time, conversely, deflation increases the real value of money. Money refers to the functional currency (mostly unstable monetary unit of account) in a national or regional economy.

Currently, mainstream economists generally believe that deflation is a problem in a modern economy because of the danger of a deflationary spiral.^[3] Deflation is also linked withrecessions and with the Great Depression. Additionally, deflation also prevents monetary policy from stabilizing the economy because of a mechanism called the liquidity trap. However, historically not all episodes of deflation correspond with periods of poor economic growth,^[4] while there are many examples of how strong rise in CPI immediately precedes or accompanies an economic downturn, such as Great Depression, the 1970-80's, and the 2008 economic crash.

SERIAL CRIMINAL LIVING NEAR BOX SPRINGS ELEMENTARY?

The Most Honest Man in Moreno Valley

AND topix.com,
MvGordies blog

Three teachers robbed at gunpoint at a Moreno Valley elementary school

10:00 PM PDT on Wednesday, August 19, 2009

By JOHN ASBURY
The Press-Enterprise

Education officials plan to re-evaluate security procedures after a gunman stormed a teacher's lounge at a Moreno Valley elementary school early Wednesday morning and robbed three teachers.

Officials want to enhance security procedures, including adding security patrols and closing certain access points to schools, said Superintendent Rowena Lagrosa, of the Moreno Valley Unified School District.

Box Springs Elementary School Principal Sam Stager said the man entered the open-access campus at 6:50 a.m., before students arrived. The man got into the teacher's lounge from a side or rear entrance where he robbed the teachers at gunpoint, demanding their purses, Stager said.

The women gave him their purses and he ran off the campus carrying a small handgun.

No one was injured and no arrests had been made as of Wednesday evening.

Police are not sure if he ran through the neighborhood or to a waiting car on Athens Drive, which runs past the school and homes, Stager said.

Moreno Valley police officers arrived within minutes after a school custodian called them but the suspect had already fled.

The three teachers were sent home for the day; substitutes took their places. The school district's crisis management counseling team was also called to the campus, Lagrosa said.

Parents were notified of the incident through an automated call system, Lagrosa said. Students were not told of the robbery and continued their normal school day.

"It's terrifying. We're a very close-knit community and school," Lagrosa said. "We're just in disbelief that this could happen. We want this to be a safe haven for our students and staff."

The Moreno Valley Educators Association was unavailable for comment.

Moreno Valley's elementary schools have a private security firm that patrols the area after hours until 6:30 a.m. One school resource officer patrols each of the district's middle schools and each high school has a full-time Moreno Valley police officer on campus.

Reach John Asbury at 951-763-3451 or jasbury@PE.com

Following editorial content by I Praetorian


Ladies and Gentlemen. If you heard the crack of bone, numbness and the eventual smell of Gangrene fills the air, would you wait for more information (in a lesser format) to motivate you to seek out a doctor? Folks the stench has been progressing for years. How much more will it take? The tide has turned. Thousands of jobs lost every week. The millions of unemployed are a mask for the millions more that have fallen off the meager unemployment subsidies and thereby left out of the count and left out in the cold.


READ THIS - YOU ARE GOING TO LOOSE YOUR JOB. Our professional association... I mean union... No I was told we're not that... If not this year (2-3 more rounds of cuts this year.) Then within the next two years. By the time the California Deficit is fixed in reality not just on paper, the still out of control national economic recession, (how many times did Bush say "there is no recession"?) will have spiraled down down to depression. Or worse yet, fostered by years of artificially maintained ultra low interest rates, a cycle of prolonged deflation. Ask a real economist. One without a personal political bend or trying to sell a product and you will see that this is not just possible. Probable? More economic variables than I know or care to list have come together in existential harmony to make a shambles of the American Dream and Our middle class. Do you know that the American Middle Class has been steadily decreasing since the Johnson administration. With the exception of a couple of years during Clinton's? Do you know we are dependent on a bloody debauched dictatorship for our national economic future? The Saudi's. Saudi Arabia has by virtue of it's huge oil reserves (read power and dependence related access to our military) keeps OPEC from raising prices or switching payment for that oil from the US dollar to the Euro. Either would bring us to our knees. Either would greatly increase the wealth of the other OPEC nations. Most of which have a burning axe to grind for the U.S.


As for the Saudi's every spare bit of capitol not spent on devaluing US assets to try and maintain some value of their previous investments, is spent paying for US military protection and keeping their own people from over throwing the Saudi family. And for some vary good reasons. According to the organization "Human Rights Watch," the Saudi family which is estimated at over a hundred individuals, still require women to obtain permission from male guardians (usually husband or father) to conduct their most basic affairs, like traveling or receiving medical care, even speaking in the presense of another man. A Juvenile death penalty. Currently, judges evaluate a suspect's signs of puberty... to determine whether to try him or her as an adult. No examination of a child's mental capacity takes place. There is NO minimum age. They import 1.5 million Asian workers each with promises of decent wages to take back home but most are treated and live worse than they did in their native countries. The wages turn out to be grossly substandard and each takes away job that Saudi workers desperately need. Poverty is rampant in SA. Because of the ultra secretive and inaccessible inner circle of the government let alone the Saudi family, it can not be confirmed but some human rights investigators believe that within the Saudi inner circles, men still buy female slaves kidnapped from brothels and off the streets of foreign countries.


NOW, WHAT DOES THAT HAVE TO DO WITH THE CTA/NEA? Please read the story linked to the title at the top. I am not a Democrat or Republican but I find myself wading through the propaganda of both to assemble bits and pieces of the truth.

Teach for America: Elite corps or costing older teachers jobs?

USA TODAY
By Greg Toppo,

BALTIMORE — In 2007, fresh out of the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, Chris Turk snagged a coveted spot with the elite Teach For America program, landing here at Cherry Hill Elementary/Middle School in a blue-collar neighborhood at the city's southern tip. For the past two years, he has taught middle-school social studies.

One recent afternoon, during a five-week "life skills" summer-school course, Turk tells his five students that their final project, a movie about what they've learned, has a blockbuster budget: $70.

"We can go big here," he says. "We can go grand."

He might as well be talking about the high-profile program that brought him here. Despite a lingering recession, state budget crises and widespread teacher hiring slowdowns, Teach For America (TFA) has grown steadily, delighting supporters and giving critics a bad case of heartburn as it expands to new cities and builds a formidable alumni base of young people willing to teach for two years in some of the USA's toughest public schools.

Baltimore Superintendent Andres Alonso — who says he has seen "fewer retirements, fewer resignations and just greater stability in terms of our teaching ranks," much of it because of a reluctance to leave a secure job in a recession — has doubled the number of TFA teachers, known as "corps members," in city schools over the past two years.

Next week, more than 160 new TFAers arrive in Baltimore, up from 80 in 2007. They'll make up about one in four new hires.

Nationwide, about 7,300 young people are expected to teach under TFA's banner, up from 6,200 last year. TFA is expanding from 29 regions to 35, including Dallas, Boston and Minneapolis-St. Paul.

But critics say the growth in many cities is coming at the expense of experienced teachers who are losing their jobs — in some cases, they say, to make room for TFA, which brings in teachers at beginners' salary levels and underwrites training.

FULL COVERAGE: Latest news, in-depth reports at schools.usatoday.com

TWITTER: Follow reporter Greg Toppo @gtoppo

In Boston, TFA corps members replaced 20 pink-slipped teachers, says Boston Teachers Union President Richard Stutman. "These are people who have been trained, who are experienced and who have good evaluations, and are being replaced by brand-new employees."

This month, he met with about 18 other local union presidents, all of whom said they'd seen teachers laid off to make room for TFA members.

"I don't think you'll find a city that isn't laying off people to accommodate Teach For America," he says...

FIND MORE STORIES IN: Massachusetts | Baltimore | Princeton University | National Education Association | Amherst | University of California, Los Angeles | Cherry Hill | Teach for America | John Wilson | Michelle Rhee | Wendy Kopp | KIPP: the Knowledge Is Power Program

"Coming to your town soon thanks to the all consuming impotence of the NEA"

Public Education Research, Analysis and Investigations

July 27, 2009

Indiana AFT Affiliate to End No-Raid Agreement with ISTA. Sources within both teachers' unions inform EIA that the Indiana Federation of Teachers (IFT is a branch of the AFT American Federation of Teachers) will opt out of the no-raid agreement it currently has with the NEA-affiliated Indiana State Teachers Association. The decision removes impediments to persuading current ISTA members and locals to switch unions and join IFT. ISTA has a host of financial problems and is under an NEA trusteeship. (read all state monies go to the national's coffers) IFT is only about one-tenth the size of ISTA, but could make a significant dent in the wake of the larger union's $40 dues increase coupled with staff layoffs and consolidation of regional offices. (CTA is about to do the same to us) Under normal circumstances, any battle would be strictly a Hoosier State affair. NEA and AFT have a national no-raid agreement, preventing either from lending assistance to the combatants. However, with an NEA trustee handling all of ISTA's finances, it's hard to see how the national unions can avoid knocking heads over the issue. A further complicating factor is the presence of the long-established Indiana Professional Educators, a non-union teachers' association. Outside of the NEA board of directors rubber-stamping the trusteeship during its meeting in San Diego prior to the opening of the representative assembly, the Indiana situation was not discussed on the convention floor, nor was it discussed in the state caucuses, if the delegates I spoke to are any indication. In the coming year, they may wish they had been let in on the secret. NEA and Private School Educators. At the 2008 NEA Representative Assembly, delegates approved New Business Item 79, which directed the union to "study the potential impact of opening Active membership to private school educators." A special committee examined the issue and presented its findings to the 2009 RA delegates.The report deals mostly with internal issues and contains no recommendations for a policy change, but it does have a couple of interesting paragraphs worth passing along: * "Although the size of the K-12 private school employee workforce is at the present time relatively small, that may not be the case in the future. Because of advances in technology, alternative financing arrangements, and other innovations, the way in which the nation's children are being educated is changing, and the line between the public sector and the private sector is becoming increasingly blurred. The emergence of 'virtual' elementary/secondary schools in some states, and the nationwide push for more charter schools (which the United State Department of Labor has asserted – incorrectly, we believe – are private sector entities for purposes of the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act), are illustrative. Allowing K-12 private school employees to become NEA Active members would provide the flexibility necessary for NEA to deal with the foregoing situations and other situations that cannot now be fully anticipated." * "A desire to avoid LMRDA coverage is at least one of the reasons why some forty state affiliates do not at the present time seek to organize and represent any private sector education employees – even those who currently are eligible for NEA Active membership." * A Dose of Reality. Chances are you won't be seeing a list like this in the future.

Labor exec in Portland to address union dispute

by Bill Graves, The Oregonian

Monday July 20, 2009, 6:23 PM

Randi Weingarten, one of the nation's top labor leaders as head of the 1.4 million-strong American Federation of Teachers, was in Portland on Monday to help settle a conflict with one of the union's Oregon affiliates.

The AFT on July 7 removed three senior officers and the 17-member local executive board of the Oregon Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals Local 5017 and seized the local's finances through a "protective order."

The AFT has charged that local leaders violated union bylaws by meeting in July and improperly using dues money to promote a move to sever from the teachers union. The action marks the fourth time in AFT's 93-year history that it has placed a local union under a temporary administratorship.

A three-member committee composed of three of AFT's 36 national vice presidents will conduct a hearing in about a week to decide whether the temporary takeover is warranted and to determine how local leadership should be restored. Weingarten appointed Mark Richard, a Florida labor lawyer, as trustee of the local.

AFT locals have the right to break away, but they must follow proper procedures in doing so, said Weingarten in an interview with The Oregonian.

"The goal here is to make sure members have a right to make a decision," said Weingarten, who just completed her first year as AFT president. "It is not about the leaders. It is about the members' democratic rights and their economic rights."

Kathy Geroux, who was removed as president of Local 5017, declined to comment. But she and union leaders released a statement defending their actions, saying the bylaws allow special meetings.

"We believe that everyone on the executive board will be vindicated of all the charges made," Geroux wrote.

The local represents about 3,000 registered nurses and health care workers at Kaiser Permanente in Oregon and Washington and another 125 at Providence Milwaukie Hospital. Weingarten says she wants to swiftly settle the internal union dispute so the local can focus on upcoming labor negotiations with hospitals in 2010.

Most of AFT's members are public school teachers. The union also represents some university professors, and it has an AFT Healthcare division that represents 70,000 workers nationwide.

The national union has become heavily involved in health care reform efforts underway in Congress, Weingarten said, noting that she and other labor leaders met with President Obama last week. AFT members also lobbied 50 congressional offices representing 25 states last week, she said.

The union is pushing for a health reform plan that includes a public health insurance option, a controversial proposal opposed by health insurers and many members of Congress. The AFT also knows "the hidden costs of cost cutting" in health care can mean overworked nurses, Weingarten said.

"We push very hard for safe staffing levels and push against mandatory overtime," she said, "because we know what that does in terms of deleterious effects on patient care."

The important fact not mentioned in this particular article was the Oregon local's Executive Board was acting against the expressed wishes of it's constituents. Further, I have to believe this could happen in California. Maybe to a near by district. CFT has a better reputation amongst the people I've talked to and after finding out that Sanchez came to our board meeting and did little more than beg his position (see below.) I am embarrassed by that. He made no aggressive speeches didn't talk about confrontational out comes. He came, was politely ignored and the DO and board will do what they want they no there will be no repercussions. The CTA exists in support of itself for the its own benefit at the expense of the locals and the members. No wonder the AFT feels the need to break their "no raiding" agreements.

I would lead that parade!

Maybe some good news

Great news! Finally after a year, the MVEA has agreed to furlough days instead of pink slips. Still, Basically a loss in pay: in exchange for saving jobs. I applaud you all. I am a bit confused, though, by some statements in the Press,the MVEA web site and in the Board minutes (still unfinished):

1 Why was David Sanchez, President of CTA down here at the Friday meeting before this unscheduled Monday Meeting 7/13/09? Out of the hugh number of CTA districts through out Southern California? Has something seriously changed in negotiations that would require his attention? Or did Ann just charm him?

2 My understanding was Sanchez made a plea for the DO to use of the districts remaining stimulus moneys? Of course the state will be financially sound by next year so we won't need them.?! I don't recall hearing of sudden support of furlough days from CTA.

3 Who ever brought up and pushed through the furlough idea (my hat's off to you) Especially when it's been shot down so many times. A lot of People got pinked because of that. Who ever you are - Job well done! MVEA said there was a previous agreement with the MVEA, the CSEA and the DO but it was nixed by the board. Why?

4 The Press indicated there was an agreement with teachers? The same article said there was a vote. Was this based on a previous vote?

5 Are all three bodies in agreement now? If so, why is there no mention anywhere? May be everyone is waiting on the official Board vote. Under the best of circumstances, which rarely occur in education, how long before this becomes a reality?Monday's agenda still shows the district readying for almost one hundred lay-offs. see attached.

Moreno Valley teachers agree to furlough days

Moreno Valley teachers

agree to furlough days!

5:26 PM PDTon Tuesday, July 14, 2009

By SONJA BJELLAN
The Press-Enterprise

A tentative agreement reached Monday means 87 Moreno Valley teachers may return to their classrooms next month.

In a packed board meeting, the Moreno Valley Board of Education announced that the district's approximately 1,850 teachers had agreed to each take two furlough days to save jobs threatened by layoffs. Further budget cuts caused the district to consider the layoffs again, officials said.

The agreement reached Monday morning calls for teachers to take two unpaid days off when students are not in school. The association also will work with the district to find money for 9.5 nonteaching positions that otherwise may still be cut this summer.

"This is a first," Moreno Valley Educators Association President Janet MacMillan said of the furlough days.

The school board made $23 million in cuts before approving the district's $284 million budget on June 30. District officials still needed to trim another $20 million because of state budget woes.

The agreement reached Monday came after a teachers rally Friday and letters to school board members.

Sixth-grade teacher Laurie Warner wore a pink shirt Monday as a reminder of the pink slips. "I think in the end, what came through was they cared about their employees," she said.

"Tuesday, July 14th: School District’s Future at Risk"

Board will consider motion to hand over new schools to outside groups

On Tuesday, July 14, the Los Angeles School Board will be considering a motion sponsored by School Board member Yolie Flores Aguilar, Richard Vladovic, and Monica Garcia creating a process, funded and managed by outsiders, which basically gives away new schools to non-LAUSD groups under the guise of improved education. An outside "leader" will also "develop a template and process" for plans to operate new schools, including instructional practices.

See motion text (Item #33) from School Board agenda as of 11 am, 7/13/09 (4 pages)

Instead of passing off their duties to outside entities, the LAUSD Board should accept accountability for what the motion calls the "chronic academic underperformance of public schools" and take responsibility to establish and run quality schools for the community.

It is imperative that many of our members attend the Tuesday, July 14, School Board meeting to protest and block the "giveaway" of our schools. If passed, this motion will start the process of privatization of public education.

LAUSD School Board Meeting
at LAUSD Headquarters
333 So. Beaudry, Los Angeles
Board of Education Meeting Room

The motion is expected to be heard around 5:00 pm.

.

Bad News Even the Center Cannot Hold

Mike Antonucci

www.eiaonline.com/intercepts/

Mickey Kaus points us to the latest report from the Citizens’ Commission on Civil Rights, titled “National Teachers’ Unions and the Struggle Over School Reform.”

I thought about excerpting the stinging barbs from CCCR’s absolute flaying of NEA and AFT, but it’s really worth your time to read the entire 36-page report, then head over to this page for a list of the organization’s commissioners. Not a conservative right-wing bastard in the bunch.

The public perception battle is over, and the teachers’ unions have lost. But will it have any effect on Congress and state legislatures? The NRA, tobacco companies, PETA, the ACLU and Big Oil all have negative public images they can’t shed, yet they are still effective in getting their way. What if NEA and AFT stop caring what other people think?

Moreno Valley teachers laid off, then rehired, in danger of losing jobs again

10:00 PM PDT on Friday, July 10, 2009

By MELISSA EISELEIN
The Press-Enterprise

Some Moreno Valley Unified School District teachers and counselors will have to wait until Monday to learn if their new contract for the 2009-10 school year will continue to be in effect. Their jobs were cut by the district at the end of the 2008-09 school year. On June 25, they received a call asking them to come back and sign a new contract for the 2009-10 school year. Then, on July 2, they got another call saying the district may renege on the agreement.

"It's been a roller coaster," said Janet MacMillan, president of the Moreno Valley Educators Association.

Trustees were scheduled to vote on cuts affecting the equivalent of 97.5 full-time positions Friday during a special board meeting. After a long closed-session meeting, the vote was postponed until Monday."We're still trying to work out some alternative options," Superintendent Rowena Lagrosa said.

About 150 teachers, counselors, friends and family members held a protest against the cuts Friday. Lizeth Piskulich, a third-grade teacher at Towngate Elementary School, turned down an offer at a Temecula charter school when she learned the Moreno Valley district was hiring her back. Now, that Temecula position is no longer open and she may lose her Moreno Valley job.Piskulich signed a contract and is legally bound to start work Aug. 10, even though the district could let her go effective Aug. 14, she said."I don't know how they can get away with this," Piskulich said.

California Teachers Association President David Sanchez was at Friday's meeting. He urged trustees to use one-time federal stimulus money to save jobs. Sanchez said districts throughout the state are making midsummer cuts, he said. But this is the first time in his 15 years with the teachers union that he's seen districts take advantage of an education code that allows them to do it, he said.

Reach Melissa Eiselein at 951-763-3462 or meiselein@PE.com

AFT Stages Coup (or Counter-Coup?) in Oregon

AFT Stages Coup in Oregon
(What most Unions Are but ARE NOT SUPPOSED to be. This is a perfect example or what the MVEA - per instruction of the mostly useless CTA, did to us in the last negotiations. Remember CTA president said during the bloody pink campaign a few months back? "A
union is not a democracy." Our own president, when cornered on the issue said, "it is past practice." referring the key premise of negotiations, 300 plus lost jobs, was never even presented to the members for consideration. No information, no guidance just past practice.)

Today’s lesson comes courtesy of Bernadette Marso, president of the Leominster Education Association in Massachusetts. Her members just voted down, by a 305-47 margin, a five-year, $856,000 grant from the Advanced Placement Training and Award Program. The program, among other things, pays teachers of Advanced Placement courses bonus money “if they successfully recruit more students to take AP courses and if the students perform well on the end-of-the-year AP exam.”

Some district officials and parents complained about the union decision because the bonuses were just one part of the program, which includes professional development and a subsidy to offset the AP exam fee for the students. But the union stood firmly opposed.

“We understand that some people will not understand the vote, but we confronted this from a union perspective,” Marso said. “We have a fair and equitable contract with the district, and to have a third party come in and start paying certain teachers more money than other hard-working teachers goes against what a union is all about.

Sacramento City Teachers Association President Shares CTA'S Concerns with Assembly Member

from Disenfranchised by Every tenured Educator yet to be riffed by our union's apathy and ineptitude.

"Sweet Creeping Jesus Batman.That Assemblyman looks like he's never heard CTA's half-assed rhetoric before!"

Sacramento City Teachers Association (CTA) President Linda Tuttle shares with Assembly Member Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco) information about how proposed cuts will devastate public schools in his district. (My god! Who would have guessed a politician would respond like this? )The Assembly Member denounced the cuts as terrible and pledged his continuing support for public education.
Sacramento City Teachers Association (CTA) President Linda Tuttle shares with Assembly Member Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco) information about how proposed cuts will devastate public schools in his district. (My god! Who would have guessed a politician would respond like this? )The Assembly Member denounced the cuts as terrible and pledged his continuing support for public education.

The visit to the Capitol on June 18 by SCTA Pres. Tuttle to lawmakers’ offices was (the bigger) part of ongoing efforts by CTA and its Education Coalition partners (Larry, Curly and Moe) to persuade legislators to reject Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s proposed education slashes.

The legislative budget adjustment package proposed by a joint house conference committee and endorsed by Senate President Pro Tempore Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) and Assembly Speaker Karen Bass (D-Los Angeles) rejects $700 million of the governor’s education cuts and ensures schools some $9.3 billion in paybacks to Proposition 98 in coming years. The legislative adjustment package would also suspend the requirement that students pass the California High School Exit Examination in order to graduate. Assembly Speaker Bass told reporters at a Wednesday news conference that it is unconscionable to demand that students meet that requirement without the funding necessary to help schools prepare them for the test.

This many members and the best we can get from the CTA is a "spend and wait." attitude for the 2nd year in a row!

340,000 dues paying members (305,000) since last years one time bailout. And the best CTA seems willing to offer is to 'DONATE $$$ THEN WAIT AND SEE WHAT HAPPENS' Everone, lie FACE DOWN,put your hand behind your head... Meanwhile, the popular press has joined the right wing whackos in perpetuating lies and misconceptions about taxes, over-paid union workers, the bullying tactics and their unfair power. These people and the "thirty second attack ad voters" are disemboweling California public schools? THE nea AND cta have destroyed their reputations long ago. They are only this year realizing that they have to be a Union not a professional association. The weren't effective as an association anyway. The CTA has no clue or refuses to use action, organize for the use of said action, or how to get into the communities to win parent community support. WE HAVE TO ACT NOW!! LOUD AND WITH FORCE!! For example: WE NEED INFORMATIONAL PICKETS EVERY DAY during the first week of August. How about the 45 minutes before the contract start of the first two or three days of school!! We should already be walking and papering the respective boundaries of our district. Sick out if that's ALL the law allows for but IF WE'RE A UNION THEN WE BETTER ACT LIKE ONE! The operant term is "ACT" In similar financial times, under the AFL-CIO, we had to strike every three years when our contract came up. We didn't loose an employee and we increased our position in regards to the contract each time. But it wasn't easy and it wasn't done by simply complaining.

I've been in three strike actions in my years and not a single one was pleasant but one week of screaming substitute baby sitters in the most kids will be going ape, maybe hurting themselves (heaven forbid) a perpetuating free for all and parents will eat this Governor alive - Like a cheap horror film.

WE have the stick prepare to use it. PREPARE TO STRIKE! Even though the CTA is over two years late in admitting what we all saw coming, THE OPERANT TERM is "prepare" now! (OOPS, Screwed again! Our local has allowed a no strike/ no lockout clause into our washed down version of a mutually agreeable contract. Our board can now pick us part at their leisure.) NO Mr. Sanchez, you can't raise our dues. UPDATE: YES THEY DID RAISE OUR DUES! In a site rep. only secret ballot.You've squandered $$$ enough to fund the budget of many school districts entirely. IT'S YOUR FAULT WE HAVE NO STRIKE AND DEFENSE FUND. The board members must have been laughing it's collective ass off. 'They really bought it... LOL'


Exactly One year later... But it doesn't matter for us. They thought they were positioning themselves for better vantage gaining a lasting camaraderie. What they got was the view from under our board's dysfunctional "Jack Boot."
CTA is the state's largest representative of education employees, serving more than 340,000 employees of California’s schools, colleges and universities. It supposedly exists to protect and advance the professional and economic interests of its members. CTA should work tirelessly for better working conditions, higher salaries, improved health benefits, progressive personnel policies and an affordable and dignified retirement. Instead we have the labor equivalent to the W Bush administration. It's leader an unqualified, morally challenged. A do nothing who in Bush's case bankrupted three corporations and then an entire country. The Saudi family had to bail bush out on the third endeavor. Is that what the new secret dues increase of approximately $20 per head is supposed to do for Sanchez. I personally can't wait for the AFT to start raiding California (like they did in one district in Oregon)- Mo Val first.

We have two more title waves to deal with so we demand better from OUR leaders. Privatization of education is almost on us and complete computerization is not far behind. (SEE WWW.CALVIA.COM)