Tomorrow - interesting reading

My Favorite Links:

• U.S. Department of Justice
• Fedeal Bureau Of Investigation
• CNN Crime
• National Sex Offender Public Website
• Association for the Recovery of Children
• National Center for Missing and Exploited Chidren
• Talk it Over
• Huffington Post
• Art Harris.com
• I Can Has Cheeseburger
• My BedHead
• Voice 123.com
• MVGordie.wordpress.com
• Dial 211 - United Way
• Food Stamps and Emergency financial Assistan
  

Americans with Disabilities Act

 (office of civil rights - Education)

Tomorrow - interesting reading

My Favorite Links:

• U.S. Department of Justice
• Fedeal Bureau Of Investigation
• CNN Crime
• National Sex Offender Public Website
• Association for the Recovery of Children
• National Center for Missing and Exploited Chidren
• Talk it Over
• Huffington Post
• Art Harris.com
• I Can Has Cheeseburger
• My BedHead
• Voice 123.com
• MVGordie.wordpress.com
• Dial 211 - United Way
• Food Stamps and Emergency financial Assistan
  

Americans with Disabilities Act

 (office of civil rights - Education)

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)

Moreno Valley schools budget approved; services to take 'some hits'

10:00 PM PDT on Thursday, July 2, 2009
By DAN LEE
The Press-Enterprise

"Sorry Moms, Dads, Families, Kid's - but It's Going to Get Worse!" Much Worse Than This.

Moreno Valley children will have fewer teachers, larger classes, less supervision for suspended (Read: ALL) students and fewer sports teams when they return to school this fall. The Moreno Valley Board of Education this week approved a $284 million budget for the 2009-10 school year, closing a $23 million gap between projected revenue and spending. "There's definitely going to be some hits," board President Tracey Vackar said by phone. The district issued layoff notices to 254 teachers (and counselors) in May and eliminated nearly 30 administrative or supportive positions; increased elementary classes sizes; reduced bus driver hours and school maintenance services; and delayed buying new textbooks to help close the shortfall. Does any one else read the missing text? Bob Krank is giving away the question. Most importantly will we pit careers against salary schedule? (see my answers at tbe end of this peace.)

Parents and students will have to get used to slower ( Read: almost no ) services, because the district has fewer employees, Vackar said.
In addition, the board reduced the amount of money budgeted for student activities and athletics, eliminating freshman sports teams. "The good news is that a lot of freshman kids will be eligible to compete with the junior varsity," Vackar said. The board did decide to keep three school resource officers at middle schools, because members felt that health and safety are priorities, she said. But district officials know that they will likely have to trim another $20 million because of state funding cuts that are expected because of California's budget crisis. The district could use federal stimulus funds to help close that additional shortfall, but those monies are only available once and are usually not used for recurring expenses. The board does not want to use all of the stimulus money at once, Vackar said. "You would pass off your problem for another year," she said.

Instead, the district will use some of that money and make up the rest of the expected shortfall with further cuts, Assistant Superintendent Bob Crank said. Those cuts could include increased class sizes, furloughs or pay cuts, he said by phone. Further layoffs are a possibility, Superintendent Rowena Lagrosa said. Eighty-four percent of the district's budget pays for personnel, she said. "You can't help but touch upon personnel," Lagrosa said by phone. Some of the cuts might come during the middle of the fall semester or be implemented for the spring semester, Vackar said. The district may be (read: will barely be) able to afford to provide only a core curriculum, she said. After the district addresses this (years) $20 million shortfall, it will have cut (over) $62 million... since January 2008 because of reduced state funding, the recession and declining enrollment. Extracurricular programs like those aimed at helping students prepare and apply for college may face cuts, Vackar said. "It makes me sick," she said. "Those to me aren't fluff programs. Those are programs that help kids become successful."

Now for my answer. Let me quote the prophetic Pro Football Coach and philosopher Bear Bryant: "SEEMS LIKE DEJA VUE ALL OVER AGAIN."

Al Frankin WINS!

Tuesday afternoon, after a grueling recount process, former Sen. Norm Coleman finally conceded defeat and congratulated Al Franken on his Senate victory in Minnesota. Franken is a longtime union member and supporter of workers' rights. Sen. Franken is expected to take a seat on the powerful Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, where he will play a key role in health care reform.

Please don't look at the difference ... Please!

I can't believe the difference between the approaches and preparation of the CTA; yep ours-the biggest single state union, and the smaller but action minded community oriented state teachers union the the CFT. Just look at the difference in content and involvement on their web site as compared with the New Yorker... oops, I mean the CTA's web site. Go ahead I dare you. I bet you still sit on your ass and tell yourself ' it won't reach me I've made it through tough times for schools before.' Let someone else worry about it. Early this year when I told anyone who would listen that this was coming. One teacher told me that's too bad but, " someones going to pay me for all my years of experience and education." So far, 254 educators have with their jobs, homes, and hope. A lot more will before May. It's always someone elses problem. Thanks for the much needed reinforcing of the ranks of the lowest common denominator. Will you ever get up off all fours? Oh by the way, the aforementioned teacher took an early retirement when he found out what was coming - for him next year. And the union's lack luster efforts were explained away by our locals president as "past practice."

1 in 3 teens are abused in their relationships