Why Union Bouquet 6.5? As it turns out, I don't think this is a "full" bouquet...more like half.
Administrators (rolls eyes)....
In the past I highlighted the inanity of New York principal Jolana Rohloff. She's at it again. Why doesn't someone look at all the stuff she's pulling? I mean, besides bloggers, and the media, and everyday people and their moms. What about Klein? Where is he when this crap is going on?
From the "Are you really that stupid?" file: This anonymous administrator asks if it's okay if they can blackmail a teacher into resigning....the answer is no, and the responses are hilarious!
UPDATE: Neoga teachers and board members met with a federal mediator on 11/4. The meeting bore fruit, because the NTA (Neoga Teachers Association) voted to accept a federal mediator-brokered deal on Sunday.
Politics....
Tis the season to seek an endorsement, and Denis Goddard's wife was denied one by the excutive board of the Concord Teacher's Union. Denis seems to be unhappy (as I would be if my wife were denied anything I thought she deserved) and calls the teacher union members who denied his wife's political hug "bureaucrats" despite the fact that there are only 400 members in the association, which means they all gotta be in the classroom. That means they're teachers, Denis-- they teach each and every day, not sit in an office and file grievances. He posts his wife's response to her non-endorsement in a letter to the editor on his blog.
Oh yeah, and may everyone's school funding issues (both local and state) pass by a large margin. Amen.
Storm Clouds on the Horizon....
The rhetorical showdown between AJ Duffy and the new LA Superintendent has gone from what seems to be Defcon 5 to Defcon 2 in the space of about 2 weeks, thanks to the press. EdWonk gives his 2 cents here, while the full article from the Daily News can be found here. I want to type, to say something....but I'm going to wait on this one. I think we'll see a stream of stuff coming out of this train wreck waiting to happen.
Detroit Federation of Teachers in the news again! DFT has refused to sign a waiver allowing a number of teachers to work without contract restrictions in a DPS program managed by a for-contract company, citing past good-faith problems by the district. They want the money that would have gone to said program to be included in teacher raises.
Negotiations...
Teach in the blackboard jungle, and apparently you might get the "blackboard flu". The Superintendent of Colorado's School District 60 (near Pueblo) figured he would warn his parents of a potential outbreak of blackboard flu by spending a paltry $4,334 to take out a full page ad two days in a row to warn parents of the district that their teachers might be staging a sick-out. The rationale? It would have cost twice as much to do a district-wide mailing and might not have gotten to everyone in time. The reason? The district and Pueblo Education Association are at odds over a raise; the district is offering the princely sum of a 1.5% COLA (Cost of Living Adjustment) despite the fact that everyone received, on average, a 2.1% step increase automatically on the salary schedule. Oh, and the sick-out? It never happened.
1.5%. That's all that's keeping Visalia Unified School District and Visalia Unified Teachers Association from reaching a deal. The district is offering a 5% raise, but the VUTA wants 6.5%, making the point that they need to keep talented people in the district. The district as a whole has seen an 8.42% increase in overall revenue. Someone take a picture, quick-- a school district that is actually seeing an increase in their general revenue!
Chaz, ever in a school daze, ponders the outcome of the pending negotiations in NYC and what kind of a job Weingarten and the Unity Party will do.
Technorati Tags:
Teacher Union
Job Action
Contract Negotiation
Strike
School Board
Jolanta Rohloff
Lafayette High School
NYC
UFT
Detroit Public Schools
Detroit Federation of Teachers
DPS
DFT
Strike
Injunction
Contract
Negotiation
Janna Garrison
1 comment:
It's not about the teachers, Doctor... it's about the fact that membership in the Union is mandatory, whether you want the Union representation or not. It's about whether we choose to have a Soviet-style education system where the State has a virtual monopoly on education, or whether we embrace the free market.
Personally, I'm against using threats of violence and coercion to fund *any* program, no matter now necessary it may be. I truly believe that free people acting in a free market will always be better off than those whose economic decisions are made for them by central planners, no matter how well-meaning or enlightened those central planners happen to be.
And by the way -- we really weren't upset about the lack o endorsement. We just wanted to point out that mandatory participation in a Union is a Soviet practice, the kind Irena's mother thought she was leaving behind when she escaped from Communist Czechoslovakia.
Post a Comment