Northeast Florida if you wanted to destroy education, knee cap the middle class and do harm to the state you have come up aces. Embrace what you have done; own it, because if we get much more of Wise, Thrasher and Scott that will be about all you do own, it’s definitely all your children will.
Congratulations Northeast Florida, you are the epicenter for the destruction of the state’s public schools. Your recent dogged insistence to vote against you and your children’s interests and for politicians that couldn’t care less about the both of you have signaled education’s death knell. When you voted for Steven Wise, John Thrasher and Rick Scott you may as well as put a stake through education’s heart and forks in our children, because they too like our schools are done.
Steven Wise is no friend of public education and this has been made more evident by his senate bill 736 or what he laughably calls the teacher quality bill. In his bill teachers become at will employees and can be fired regardless of performance. Speak up? You’re gone. The principal doesn’t like you? You’re gone. The principal’s neighbor has a nephew who thinks he might like to try teaching because it would be cool to have summers off? You’re gone. This not increased quality, is what senate bill 736 will allow to happen. It also gets rid of pay increases for advanced degrees. I hope this irony is not lost on you. In every profession we say the more education you get the better off you will be, every profession except education that is, and it also gets rid of seniority and due process, two of the long established tenants of education.
The bill is also another unfunded mandate. School districts will be required to come up with ways to finance the various teacher salary scales and all the increased testing that the bill calls for. Kids will be taught more to the test than ever because now a teacher’s job is on the line more than ever. These tests are not just going to magically appear. They will be developed and scored by educational testing companies who will drain much needed money away from schools coffers and reap millions in profits. Then there will also be teacher evaluation systems that has Michelle Rhee and others salivating. Oh you didn’t know Michelle Rhee has a teacher evaluation system. Why she does, it’s called IMPACT and it has widely been panned in Washington D.C. which means it is probably on the fast track to Florida; after all she is the darling of Rick Scott and Wise.
Steven Wise has cloaked the bill in simplistic easy to please statements like merit pay and reward our best teachers. He doesn’t mention that teachers, who may know better what’s best for them than he does are overwhelmingly against it. His bill is like giving doctors who didn’t ask for it a clump or dirt and saying it’s a cutting edge scalpel and they must use it. Wise also doesn’t mention that there is no study that says merit pay works. Not one! In fact all the studies say it is the equivalent of the luck of the draw. Teacher’s student’s success on standardized tests varies wildly as students enter and leave their classes.
Wise says he wants to improve education, my question is how? Is it by making teachers want to leave and replacements harder to attract because that is what his bill is really doing; hey Jacksonville great job in voting for him.
Then there is John Thrasher who makes no apologies for his distain, no make that hatred for teachers and their unions and he comes from St. Johns County which is the top school district in the state, thank goodness he didn’t come from a county lower on the list. Wake up St. Johns, his way of thinking is going to hurt the schools and kids in your county as well but I guess some of you didn’t think about that while shooting nine at the country club. Would Deborah Giannoulis really have been such a bad alternative? She ran on a platform of doing what’s best for our kids, Thrasher has a history of doing what’s not.
He wants to end collective bargaining and destroy workers rights. He wants to do this by ending payroll deductions for unions but at the same time continue to allow payroll deductions for the United Way and other organizations and by decertifying unions that have a membership of less than fifty percent plus one. Why should multi-million or billion dollar corporations, his friends and supporters be the only one with a voice in government? In the end all his bill amounts to is rewarding his friends and silencing his enemies. Even if you don’t like unions, is this the America you want to live in? Do you want to live in a country where our corporate over loads tell us what to think and feel and limit the earning power of millions of everyday citizens; if so communist Russia would have been the place for you. This is not just a teacher battle here, this is a battle for the future of the middle class and if we are going to have one or not. Way to go St. Johns, you have just destroyed the teaching profession and public education but potentially the middle class as well, talk about a trifecta.
Thrasher and Wise are so concerned about education that instead of demanding Scott rescind his draconian budget, they develop bills that will handicap and set back the profession. No thanks guys and don’t worry about me I’ll try and get somebody to pull the knife out of my and the thousands of teachers back you just put it in.
Then there is Rick Scott, he of the 1.7 billion dollar fine for fraud who won the election with less than fifty percent of the vote, which was more of a referendum against Obama than for him. You have to hand it to him though, while spending eighty million dollars of his own personal fortune he made the election about Washington D.C. not about Florida. I get it that you don’t like Obammacare but how do you feel about gutting social services for the sick, disabled and children. How do you feel about him curtailing protections for the environment and our rivers and how do you feel about him cutting billions from our already resource starved education system? Friends we were already fiftieth in the nation. He and this is adjusted for inflation, wants to send us back to 1976 levels of school spending, you know before all the unfunded mandates and changes to education that siphoned millions away to corporate charter schools, vouchers and education testing companies.
North East Florida voted for this transplant and while hoping to create additional tax breaks for corporations and wealthy individuals in addition to the billions we already give, he seeks to balance the budget on the backs of the working poor and the middle class. Cut your own throat much North East Florida.
He won by saying he would create jobs, well the tens of thousands of teachers and government workers who are about to find themselves unemployed aren’t so optimistic about his plan. And friends we are already a low tax, pro business state without an income tax. If companies aren’t rushing here now do you really thing they are going to do so after we destroy public education, curtail government services and harm the environment?
Northeast Florida once again, if you wanted to destroy education, knee cap the middle class and do harm to the state you have come up aces. Embrace what you have done; own it, because if we get much more of Wise, Thrasher and Scott that will be about all you do, it’s definitely all your children will.
Showing posts with label collective bargaining rights. Show all posts
Showing posts with label collective bargaining rights. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Monday, February 21, 2011
Tunisia, Egypt, Wisconsin, Florida
From the St. Petersburg Times
by Ron Matus
Opposition is heating up statewide as the Florida Legislature closes in on monumental changes to the teaching profession.
On popular blogs, some teachers are even pushing for Florida to follow Wisconsin, where tens of thousands of protesters have descended on the state Capitol.
If some of the current legislative proposals don't change, "Do I believe public employees will descend on Tallahassee? Yes," said Kim Black, president of the Pinellas teachers union. "It could be a hurricane, we just don't know what category yet. People are organizing."
The Pinellas teachers union has scheduled a "save our public schools rally" in Pinellas on March 4, the Friday before the legislative session begins on March 8, while other local teachers unions are planning similar events. Rallies to support teachers, firefighters and police officers are being organized around the state for March 8.
"Our students don't understand the constant bullying of their teachers and quite frankly, neither do we," says a flier for the rally in Pinellas, which is slated for the same intersections that hundreds of teachers flocked to last year to protest Senate Bill 6.
SB 6 — passed by the Legislature and vetoed by former Gov. Charlie Crist — would have dramatically changed how teachers are hired, fired, paid and evaluated. Gov. Rick Scott has said he would have signed it, and a new version is moving fast through legislative committees.
Lawmakers will also consider requiring teachers, police officers and other state and county workers to chip in up to 5 percent of their pay towards their pensions.
Florida teachers are closely watching events in Wisconsin. Many Wisconsin schools have closed because teachers are attending the rallies. Schools in Madison closed last week after 1,000 teachers called in sick.
So far, legislation to curb collective bargaining rights has not surfaced in Florida. But in a 20-page list of proposals, Scott's education transition team recommended that teacher evaluations be removed from the bargaining process, and that bargaining be limited to salaries and benefits.
The Florida Constitution recognizes the right of employees to bargain collectively.
Ron Matus can be reached at matus@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8873.
http://www.tampabay.com/news/education/k12/with-eye-on-wisconsin-florida-teachers-gear-up-for-rallies/1152921
by Ron Matus
Opposition is heating up statewide as the Florida Legislature closes in on monumental changes to the teaching profession.
On popular blogs, some teachers are even pushing for Florida to follow Wisconsin, where tens of thousands of protesters have descended on the state Capitol.
If some of the current legislative proposals don't change, "Do I believe public employees will descend on Tallahassee? Yes," said Kim Black, president of the Pinellas teachers union. "It could be a hurricane, we just don't know what category yet. People are organizing."
The Pinellas teachers union has scheduled a "save our public schools rally" in Pinellas on March 4, the Friday before the legislative session begins on March 8, while other local teachers unions are planning similar events. Rallies to support teachers, firefighters and police officers are being organized around the state for March 8.
"Our students don't understand the constant bullying of their teachers and quite frankly, neither do we," says a flier for the rally in Pinellas, which is slated for the same intersections that hundreds of teachers flocked to last year to protest Senate Bill 6.
SB 6 — passed by the Legislature and vetoed by former Gov. Charlie Crist — would have dramatically changed how teachers are hired, fired, paid and evaluated. Gov. Rick Scott has said he would have signed it, and a new version is moving fast through legislative committees.
Lawmakers will also consider requiring teachers, police officers and other state and county workers to chip in up to 5 percent of their pay towards their pensions.
Florida teachers are closely watching events in Wisconsin. Many Wisconsin schools have closed because teachers are attending the rallies. Schools in Madison closed last week after 1,000 teachers called in sick.
So far, legislation to curb collective bargaining rights has not surfaced in Florida. But in a 20-page list of proposals, Scott's education transition team recommended that teacher evaluations be removed from the bargaining process, and that bargaining be limited to salaries and benefits.
The Florida Constitution recognizes the right of employees to bargain collectively.
Ron Matus can be reached at matus@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8873.
http://www.tampabay.com/news/education/k12/with-eye-on-wisconsin-florida-teachers-gear-up-for-rallies/1152921
In Wisconsin, the future of public education is at stake
From CommonDreams.org
by Sara Jerving
Momentum continues a week into the protests in Wisconsin, as the capital city’s public schools were closed for the fourth day and protestors prepare for the reconvening of the State's Assembly.
Demonstrations against governor Scott Walker’s proposed bill to eliminate collective bargaining for public employees reached a peak level of some 80,000 Saturday, and included a counter Tea Party rally with a few thousand people. The night before, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, Jr. addressed a crowd of several thousand, telling them that they were living a ‘Martin Luther King moment’.
Protesters outside the capitol building in Madison, Wisconsin over the weekend. What has become clear to the protestors over the last week is that beyond an assault on unions; Walker's bill is part of a wider attack on working families and public education. According to a statement released Sunday by the Teachers Assistants Association TAA, one of the primary organizers of the protests on the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s campus, “The Assembly is expected to pass the union-busting budget repair bill, even as tens of thousands of people demonstrate against the anti-worker provisions in the bill. “
The State Democratic Senators who left the state last week in boycott of Republican attempts to hurriedly push through the bill, still remain in Illinois. The Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald indicated that the Senate will meet Tuesday to pass non-fiscal measures, which can be done without the Senate Democrats, putting additional pressure on the Democrats to return to Wisconsin.
What has become clear to the protestors over the last week is that beyond an assault on unions; Walker's bill is part of a wider attack on working families and public education.
"The second reason that this fight matters is the future of public education,” The Nation’s Chris Hayes said. “What's driving it is the ultimate aim of permanently scrapping the model of public education that has sustained this country for years. Teachers unions are the stewards of preserving public education, which is the core element of our civil life.”
Walker’s track record illustrates his lack of support for public education. Before he was governor, he was the executive of Milwaukee County where the nation’s first mass-scale private school voucher experiment was implemented. He then campaigned for governor on expanding these vouchers, Hayes said.
Under the widely disputed bill, local police, fire and state patrol would retain their collective bargaining rights, unions that generally supported Walker during his campaign. Teachers unions, who sided with Democrats in last fall’s election, and other public workers would lose that process.
The proposed bill, according to Walker, is intended to balance the state’s budget and avoid layoffs. But despite an offer by public workers to give financial concessions instead of dropping collective bargaining, the governor refuses to drop the plan.
Democratic State Senator Jon Erpenbach said in a statement this weekend that the offer made by public workers was "a legitimate and serious offer on the table from local, state and school public employees that balances Gov. Walker's budget."
The denial of this offer shows that "Gov. Walker's only target is the destruction of collective bargaining rights and not solving the state's budget," Erpenbach said.
Teaching assistants have planned a ‘teach-out’ for Tuesday to permit their students to join them at the Capitol building to protest the Assembly’s meeting. They also helped organize ‘teach-ins’ over the weekend at the campus’s main library to further explain to students how this bill will affect them.
Graduate student assistants teach 85 percent of discussion sections and nearly 20 percent of the lectures on the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s campus. The proposed bill targets both their benefits and their ability to bargain over tuition remission. This is no small matter: A statement released by the TAA Saturday said that tuition remission is the university’s strongest recruitment tool for graduate students and ending collective bargaining in this area would impact the quality of the teaching and research brought into the university.
Over the last week, groups of students migrated from other state campuses to participate in the protests in Madison. Rachel Matteson, a member of Students for a Democratic Society at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, came down Sunday to rally at the Capitol building.
“Attacking teachers assistants and teachers directly affects the quality of our education. Students realize this. Many of us will be graduating soon and entering the public sector, so this is also an attack on our own rights,” Matteson told The Nation.
Some 260 faculty members at UW-Madison signed a letter opposing the bill, "We recognize that the state faces a severe budget shortfall. We have already taken wage and benefit cuts to help address that problem and expect to make more sacrifices in the future. But eliminating collective bargaining will not address this shortfall. We urge you not to allow this crisis to undermine our state's strong traditions of democracy and human rights."
Public school teachers from around the state have been protesting at the Capitol building for the last week. On Sunday, after a four-hour debate on how to balance maintaining their opposition to the bill with their responsibilities to teach, Madison public school teachers decided to return to work on Tuesday.
Not only are public school teacher’s collective bargaining rights threatened, but public education is also expected to be reduced by nearly $500 annually per student.
Simultaneously, and also causing a stir, is a proposal expected to be included in Walkers budget that involves splitting the University of Wisconsin-Madison from the rest of the state’s university system. Some officials worry this could cause tuition to skyrocket.
For more, check out John Nichols' coverage from Madison, Wisconsin.
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/02/21-4
by Sara Jerving
Momentum continues a week into the protests in Wisconsin, as the capital city’s public schools were closed for the fourth day and protestors prepare for the reconvening of the State's Assembly.
Demonstrations against governor Scott Walker’s proposed bill to eliminate collective bargaining for public employees reached a peak level of some 80,000 Saturday, and included a counter Tea Party rally with a few thousand people. The night before, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, Jr. addressed a crowd of several thousand, telling them that they were living a ‘Martin Luther King moment’.
Protesters outside the capitol building in Madison, Wisconsin over the weekend. What has become clear to the protestors over the last week is that beyond an assault on unions; Walker's bill is part of a wider attack on working families and public education. According to a statement released Sunday by the Teachers Assistants Association TAA, one of the primary organizers of the protests on the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s campus, “The Assembly is expected to pass the union-busting budget repair bill, even as tens of thousands of people demonstrate against the anti-worker provisions in the bill. “
The State Democratic Senators who left the state last week in boycott of Republican attempts to hurriedly push through the bill, still remain in Illinois. The Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald indicated that the Senate will meet Tuesday to pass non-fiscal measures, which can be done without the Senate Democrats, putting additional pressure on the Democrats to return to Wisconsin.
What has become clear to the protestors over the last week is that beyond an assault on unions; Walker's bill is part of a wider attack on working families and public education.
"The second reason that this fight matters is the future of public education,” The Nation’s Chris Hayes said. “What's driving it is the ultimate aim of permanently scrapping the model of public education that has sustained this country for years. Teachers unions are the stewards of preserving public education, which is the core element of our civil life.”
Walker’s track record illustrates his lack of support for public education. Before he was governor, he was the executive of Milwaukee County where the nation’s first mass-scale private school voucher experiment was implemented. He then campaigned for governor on expanding these vouchers, Hayes said.
Under the widely disputed bill, local police, fire and state patrol would retain their collective bargaining rights, unions that generally supported Walker during his campaign. Teachers unions, who sided with Democrats in last fall’s election, and other public workers would lose that process.
The proposed bill, according to Walker, is intended to balance the state’s budget and avoid layoffs. But despite an offer by public workers to give financial concessions instead of dropping collective bargaining, the governor refuses to drop the plan.
Democratic State Senator Jon Erpenbach said in a statement this weekend that the offer made by public workers was "a legitimate and serious offer on the table from local, state and school public employees that balances Gov. Walker's budget."
The denial of this offer shows that "Gov. Walker's only target is the destruction of collective bargaining rights and not solving the state's budget," Erpenbach said.
Teaching assistants have planned a ‘teach-out’ for Tuesday to permit their students to join them at the Capitol building to protest the Assembly’s meeting. They also helped organize ‘teach-ins’ over the weekend at the campus’s main library to further explain to students how this bill will affect them.
Graduate student assistants teach 85 percent of discussion sections and nearly 20 percent of the lectures on the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s campus. The proposed bill targets both their benefits and their ability to bargain over tuition remission. This is no small matter: A statement released by the TAA Saturday said that tuition remission is the university’s strongest recruitment tool for graduate students and ending collective bargaining in this area would impact the quality of the teaching and research brought into the university.
Over the last week, groups of students migrated from other state campuses to participate in the protests in Madison. Rachel Matteson, a member of Students for a Democratic Society at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, came down Sunday to rally at the Capitol building.
“Attacking teachers assistants and teachers directly affects the quality of our education. Students realize this. Many of us will be graduating soon and entering the public sector, so this is also an attack on our own rights,” Matteson told The Nation.
Some 260 faculty members at UW-Madison signed a letter opposing the bill, "We recognize that the state faces a severe budget shortfall. We have already taken wage and benefit cuts to help address that problem and expect to make more sacrifices in the future. But eliminating collective bargaining will not address this shortfall. We urge you not to allow this crisis to undermine our state's strong traditions of democracy and human rights."
Public school teachers from around the state have been protesting at the Capitol building for the last week. On Sunday, after a four-hour debate on how to balance maintaining their opposition to the bill with their responsibilities to teach, Madison public school teachers decided to return to work on Tuesday.
Not only are public school teacher’s collective bargaining rights threatened, but public education is also expected to be reduced by nearly $500 annually per student.
Simultaneously, and also causing a stir, is a proposal expected to be included in Walkers budget that involves splitting the University of Wisconsin-Madison from the rest of the state’s university system. Some officials worry this could cause tuition to skyrocket.
For more, check out John Nichols' coverage from Madison, Wisconsin.
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/02/21-4
Is Obamma hurting or helping education
From the Washington Posts Answer Sheet
By Valerie Strauss
For two years, President Obama has been pushing school reform that has demonized public school teachers. Now he has injected himself on the side of teachers into the confrontation in Wisconsin, where the new Republican governor is trying to pass emergency legislation that would drastically cut collective bargaining rights.
Obama’s support is ironic, given that teachers’ collective bargaining rights have already been undermined by his education reform policies.
Obama, a few days ago, threw his political machine onto the side of teachers who are helping to lead a protest movement in Wisconsin over Gov. Scott Walker’s plan to cut benefits and take away collective bargaining rights from labor. Madison public schools have been closed for several days because teachers called in sick, and the state Capitol building has been filled with protesters.
The public rationale for the assault on collective bargaining rights -- which is moving to other states as well -- is based on the premise that unions are at least partly responsible for the fiscal problems states find themselves in. My Post colleague Ezra Klein shows how untrue this is in this post: “Blame the banks. Blame global capital flows. Blame lax regulation of Wall Street. Blame home buyers, or home sellers. But don’t blame the unions. Not for this recession.”
The thing is that it has become all too easy to blame public school teachers. They and their unions have become the chief villain in the “what went wrong with public education” narrative under the Obama administration. It matters not that the problems in public education found in union states are identical to the problems found in non-union states (which you can read about here in a post that looks in depth at this).
In a number of ways, Obama’s education policies have gone a long way toward undermining the position of public school teachers and, separately, their unions. The two largest teachers unions in fact did not invite Obama or Education Secretary Arne Duncan to their 2010 conventions because they have been so upset at what they see as the administration's anti-union, anti-teacher policies.
The Obama administration, through its Race to the Top competition, dangled federal money to encourage the expansion of charter schools, which are largely non-union. It has provided verbal and cash support for teacher training programs that have as their distinguishing feature not the fact that they are anti-union (which they are) but that they believe a young person with little training is “highly qualified” to teach the neediest students.
And it has made standardized tests the main measurement of students, schools and, now, teachers. This obsession has bastardized the entire learning process, narrowing curriculum, fostering cheating scandals, harming real student achievement and putting teachers in a position of being blamed for things for which they are not responsible.
The administration has squeezed unions into accepting assessment schemes that link student standardized test scores to a varying but significant percentage of a teacher’s pay -- even though research shows that outside influences play at least as much a role in how a student does on a test as a teacher. Also ignored: Research showing the unreliability of systems that use scores to evaluate how much “value” a teacher has brought to a student.
What Obama’s policies have not done to any serious degree is provide support so that teachers are properly trained and developed, and so that teacher assessments fairly evaluate whether a teacher belongs in a classroom.
The popular perception of unions is that they have flat-out fought the administration at every turn. Not true. Local unions have in fact worked with management around the country to experiment with such “value-added” systems in an effort to cooperate with management and to avoid being seen as opposing modern reform.
Such cooperation was praised by Education Secretary Arne Duncan at a conference he convened in Denver to showcase cooperation between teachers unions and management in districts around the country.
Why anyone thinks it is a positive for local unions to cooperate on an assessment model shown to have serious flaws is a mystery to me.
If Obama can help teachers unions keep their collective bargaining rights from disappearing under Republican assault, good for him and them. That doesn’t eliminate the harm his policies have done already to teachers and their profession.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/race-to-the-top/the-irony-of-obamas-help-for-w.html?wprss=answer-sheet
By Valerie Strauss
For two years, President Obama has been pushing school reform that has demonized public school teachers. Now he has injected himself on the side of teachers into the confrontation in Wisconsin, where the new Republican governor is trying to pass emergency legislation that would drastically cut collective bargaining rights.
Obama’s support is ironic, given that teachers’ collective bargaining rights have already been undermined by his education reform policies.
Obama, a few days ago, threw his political machine onto the side of teachers who are helping to lead a protest movement in Wisconsin over Gov. Scott Walker’s plan to cut benefits and take away collective bargaining rights from labor. Madison public schools have been closed for several days because teachers called in sick, and the state Capitol building has been filled with protesters.
The public rationale for the assault on collective bargaining rights -- which is moving to other states as well -- is based on the premise that unions are at least partly responsible for the fiscal problems states find themselves in. My Post colleague Ezra Klein shows how untrue this is in this post: “Blame the banks. Blame global capital flows. Blame lax regulation of Wall Street. Blame home buyers, or home sellers. But don’t blame the unions. Not for this recession.”
The thing is that it has become all too easy to blame public school teachers. They and their unions have become the chief villain in the “what went wrong with public education” narrative under the Obama administration. It matters not that the problems in public education found in union states are identical to the problems found in non-union states (which you can read about here in a post that looks in depth at this).
In a number of ways, Obama’s education policies have gone a long way toward undermining the position of public school teachers and, separately, their unions. The two largest teachers unions in fact did not invite Obama or Education Secretary Arne Duncan to their 2010 conventions because they have been so upset at what they see as the administration's anti-union, anti-teacher policies.
The Obama administration, through its Race to the Top competition, dangled federal money to encourage the expansion of charter schools, which are largely non-union. It has provided verbal and cash support for teacher training programs that have as their distinguishing feature not the fact that they are anti-union (which they are) but that they believe a young person with little training is “highly qualified” to teach the neediest students.
And it has made standardized tests the main measurement of students, schools and, now, teachers. This obsession has bastardized the entire learning process, narrowing curriculum, fostering cheating scandals, harming real student achievement and putting teachers in a position of being blamed for things for which they are not responsible.
The administration has squeezed unions into accepting assessment schemes that link student standardized test scores to a varying but significant percentage of a teacher’s pay -- even though research shows that outside influences play at least as much a role in how a student does on a test as a teacher. Also ignored: Research showing the unreliability of systems that use scores to evaluate how much “value” a teacher has brought to a student.
What Obama’s policies have not done to any serious degree is provide support so that teachers are properly trained and developed, and so that teacher assessments fairly evaluate whether a teacher belongs in a classroom.
The popular perception of unions is that they have flat-out fought the administration at every turn. Not true. Local unions have in fact worked with management around the country to experiment with such “value-added” systems in an effort to cooperate with management and to avoid being seen as opposing modern reform.
Such cooperation was praised by Education Secretary Arne Duncan at a conference he convened in Denver to showcase cooperation between teachers unions and management in districts around the country.
Why anyone thinks it is a positive for local unions to cooperate on an assessment model shown to have serious flaws is a mystery to me.
If Obama can help teachers unions keep their collective bargaining rights from disappearing under Republican assault, good for him and them. That doesn’t eliminate the harm his policies have done already to teachers and their profession.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/race-to-the-top/the-irony-of-obamas-help-for-w.html?wprss=answer-sheet
Sunday, February 20, 2011
The Attacks on Teachers and Unions Should Concern Everyone
From Lilly's blackboard
by Lilly
Fifty years ago saying you were a “poor teacher” was redundant. Teachers were mostly women who wanted to teach, not to get rich, but because they loved kids.
However, 50 years ago, teachers and education support staff such as school secretaries and lunch ladies were expected to be polite and obedient and accept what they were given. They had no power to come together and bargain a better salary with administrators, who were, coincidently, mostly men. They were constantly exploited and underpaid.
Wisconsin, 50 years ago, became the first state in the country to do something about that.
They gave public employees, like teachers, the right to come together and negotiate for something better. When you negotiate, you have to work within a budget; you don’t get everything you want, but it stopped the exploitation of individuals. It meant that teachers and school support staff could move into the middle class and be treated with respect. Wisconsin should be proud of that.
And Wisconsin should be ashamed of a governor who threatens to reverse that proud history.
Governor Scott Walker says it’s all about the budget. But that doesn’t make sense. The teachers and support staff and their unions have already agreed to sit down and work together for what schools need, acknowledging that it will have to fit within an austere budget. They’re not at impasse. No unreasonable demands have been made.
This is about politics and payback. This is about punishing people who didn’t support his election, and it’s shameful.
Teachers today are still mostly women. They are still modestly paid. They still become teachers because they love kids. But because they have had a voice in education issues, they have become a powerful force in making Wisconsin public schools some of the best in the country.
What possible good can come from silencing that voice?
And all of us, whether in a union or not, should care about what’s happening here. In fact, maybe it’s more important for those who don’t have a union. The ability of modestly paid people to collectively bargain something better has helped build the great middle class of our great country, even among non-union members.
Because of the collective action of unions over the past 50 years, all of us enjoy a 40 hour work week, overtime, a weekend! We have a minimum wage. We have health and safety protections in our work places and protections against discrimination because of our age, our gender, our religion or our race. Who will provide the balance – the check – to the power of politicians if our unions are silenced?
Many with corporate and political power supported Governor Walker. Many of these powerful supporters don’t like unions. They don’t like the check and balance unions provide for the middle class on their power.
They believe they have found a pretext to destroy it by gutting unions that have been the most powerful voice standing up for the middle class. Laugh when these politicians tell you it’s about the budget. Wisconsin has balanced tight budgets before without destroying the rights of ordinary people to come together. This is a partisan attack. This is about punishing certain unions for having the temerity to speak truth to power.
In Wisconsin, the good people who work for public schools will never give up their responsibility to challenge the powerful when they are wrong. We will never give up our responsibility to fight for a better life for our children and our communities’ children.
We may seem an easy target to powerful politicians. We are mostly women. We work with children. We are not wealthy. But we have a treasure worth fighting for. We have each other. We will never give up our collective voice to speak the truth.
http://lilysblackboard.org/2011/02/wisconsin-teachers-union-struggle/
by Lilly
Fifty years ago saying you were a “poor teacher” was redundant. Teachers were mostly women who wanted to teach, not to get rich, but because they loved kids.
However, 50 years ago, teachers and education support staff such as school secretaries and lunch ladies were expected to be polite and obedient and accept what they were given. They had no power to come together and bargain a better salary with administrators, who were, coincidently, mostly men. They were constantly exploited and underpaid.
Wisconsin, 50 years ago, became the first state in the country to do something about that.
They gave public employees, like teachers, the right to come together and negotiate for something better. When you negotiate, you have to work within a budget; you don’t get everything you want, but it stopped the exploitation of individuals. It meant that teachers and school support staff could move into the middle class and be treated with respect. Wisconsin should be proud of that.
And Wisconsin should be ashamed of a governor who threatens to reverse that proud history.
Governor Scott Walker says it’s all about the budget. But that doesn’t make sense. The teachers and support staff and their unions have already agreed to sit down and work together for what schools need, acknowledging that it will have to fit within an austere budget. They’re not at impasse. No unreasonable demands have been made.
This is about politics and payback. This is about punishing people who didn’t support his election, and it’s shameful.
Teachers today are still mostly women. They are still modestly paid. They still become teachers because they love kids. But because they have had a voice in education issues, they have become a powerful force in making Wisconsin public schools some of the best in the country.
What possible good can come from silencing that voice?
And all of us, whether in a union or not, should care about what’s happening here. In fact, maybe it’s more important for those who don’t have a union. The ability of modestly paid people to collectively bargain something better has helped build the great middle class of our great country, even among non-union members.
Because of the collective action of unions over the past 50 years, all of us enjoy a 40 hour work week, overtime, a weekend! We have a minimum wage. We have health and safety protections in our work places and protections against discrimination because of our age, our gender, our religion or our race. Who will provide the balance – the check – to the power of politicians if our unions are silenced?
Many with corporate and political power supported Governor Walker. Many of these powerful supporters don’t like unions. They don’t like the check and balance unions provide for the middle class on their power.
They believe they have found a pretext to destroy it by gutting unions that have been the most powerful voice standing up for the middle class. Laugh when these politicians tell you it’s about the budget. Wisconsin has balanced tight budgets before without destroying the rights of ordinary people to come together. This is a partisan attack. This is about punishing certain unions for having the temerity to speak truth to power.
In Wisconsin, the good people who work for public schools will never give up their responsibility to challenge the powerful when they are wrong. We will never give up our responsibility to fight for a better life for our children and our communities’ children.
We may seem an easy target to powerful politicians. We are mostly women. We work with children. We are not wealthy. But we have a treasure worth fighting for. We have each other. We will never give up our collective voice to speak the truth.
http://lilysblackboard.org/2011/02/wisconsin-teachers-union-struggle/
What is really happening in Wisconsin
From Mother Jones
by Andy Kroll
Wisconsin Republican Governor Scott Walker, whose bill to kill collective bargaining rights for public-sector unions has caused an uproar among state employees, might not be where he is today without the Koch brothers. Charles and David Koch are conservative titans of industry who have infamously used their vast wealth to undermine President Obama and fight legislation they detest, such as the cap-and-trade climate bill, the health care reform act, and the economic stimulus package. For years, the billionaires have made extensive political donations to Republican candidates across the country and have provided millions of dollars to astroturf right-wing organizations. Koch Industries' political action committee has doled out more than $2.6 million to candidates. And one prominent beneficiary of the Koch brothers' largess is Scott Walker.
According to Wisconsin campaign finance filings, Walker's gubernatorial campaign received $43,000 from the Koch Industries PAC during the 2010 election. That donation was his campaign's second-highest, behind $43,125 in contributions from housing and realtor groups in Wisconsin. The Koch's PAC also helped Walker via a familiar and much-used politicial maneuver designed to allow donors to skirt campaign finance limits. The PAC gave $1 million to the Republican Governors Association, which in turn spent $65,000 on independent expenditures to support Walker. The RGA also spent a whopping $3.4 million on TV ads and mailers attacking Walker's opponent, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett. Walker ended up beating Barrett by 5 points. The Koch money, no doubt, helped greatly.
The Kochs also assisted Walker's current GOP allies in the fight against the public-sector unions. Last year, Republicans took control of the both houses of the Wisconsin state legislature, which has made Walker's assault on these unions possible. And according to data from the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, the Koch Industries PAC spent $6,500 in support of 16 Wisconsin Republican state legislative candidates, who each won his or her election.
Walker's plan to eviscerate collective bargaining rights for public employees is right out of the Koch brothers' playbook. Koch-backed groups like Americans for Prosperity, the Cato Institute, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and the Reason Foundation have long taken a very antagonistic view toward public-sector unions. Several of these groups have urged the eradication of these unions. The Kochs also invited (PDF) Mark Mix, president of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, an anti-union outfit, to a June 2010 confab in Aspen, Colorado; Mix said in a recent interview that he supports Governor Walker's collective-bargaining bill. In Wisconsin, this conservative, anti-union view is being placed into action by lawmakers in sync with the deep-pocketed donors who helped them obtain power. (Walker also opposes the state's Clean Energy Job Act, which would compel the state to increase its use of alternative energy.) At this moment—even with the Wisconsin uprising unresolved—the Koch brothers' investment in Walker appears to be paying off.
http://motherjones.com/mojo/2011/02/wisconsin-scott-walker-koch-brothers
by Andy Kroll
Wisconsin Republican Governor Scott Walker, whose bill to kill collective bargaining rights for public-sector unions has caused an uproar among state employees, might not be where he is today without the Koch brothers. Charles and David Koch are conservative titans of industry who have infamously used their vast wealth to undermine President Obama and fight legislation they detest, such as the cap-and-trade climate bill, the health care reform act, and the economic stimulus package. For years, the billionaires have made extensive political donations to Republican candidates across the country and have provided millions of dollars to astroturf right-wing organizations. Koch Industries' political action committee has doled out more than $2.6 million to candidates. And one prominent beneficiary of the Koch brothers' largess is Scott Walker.
According to Wisconsin campaign finance filings, Walker's gubernatorial campaign received $43,000 from the Koch Industries PAC during the 2010 election. That donation was his campaign's second-highest, behind $43,125 in contributions from housing and realtor groups in Wisconsin. The Koch's PAC also helped Walker via a familiar and much-used politicial maneuver designed to allow donors to skirt campaign finance limits. The PAC gave $1 million to the Republican Governors Association, which in turn spent $65,000 on independent expenditures to support Walker. The RGA also spent a whopping $3.4 million on TV ads and mailers attacking Walker's opponent, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett. Walker ended up beating Barrett by 5 points. The Koch money, no doubt, helped greatly.
The Kochs also assisted Walker's current GOP allies in the fight against the public-sector unions. Last year, Republicans took control of the both houses of the Wisconsin state legislature, which has made Walker's assault on these unions possible. And according to data from the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, the Koch Industries PAC spent $6,500 in support of 16 Wisconsin Republican state legislative candidates, who each won his or her election.
Walker's plan to eviscerate collective bargaining rights for public employees is right out of the Koch brothers' playbook. Koch-backed groups like Americans for Prosperity, the Cato Institute, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and the Reason Foundation have long taken a very antagonistic view toward public-sector unions. Several of these groups have urged the eradication of these unions. The Kochs also invited (PDF) Mark Mix, president of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, an anti-union outfit, to a June 2010 confab in Aspen, Colorado; Mix said in a recent interview that he supports Governor Walker's collective-bargaining bill. In Wisconsin, this conservative, anti-union view is being placed into action by lawmakers in sync with the deep-pocketed donors who helped them obtain power. (Walker also opposes the state's Clean Energy Job Act, which would compel the state to increase its use of alternative energy.) At this moment—even with the Wisconsin uprising unresolved—the Koch brothers' investment in Walker appears to be paying off.
http://motherjones.com/mojo/2011/02/wisconsin-scott-walker-koch-brothers
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