Dr. Homeslice at the NEA RA #7

Gabcast! Dr. Homeslice at the NEA RA #7

Dr. Homeslice at the NEA RA #6

Gabcast! Dr. Homeslice at the NEA RA #6

One last post before I shove off...

Remember my blog post about what professional dress is (or isn't) for teachers? The Metro-Nashville School District (home of the MN Education Association) voted to reopen negotiations with the union to establish professional dress guidelines. I've blogged about the BOE before, courtesy of a former school board member who was homeschooling her kids. They're currently not in negotiations; this shows how important it is to the BOE. I'll keep you posted.

I'll be leaving for Philly tomorrow, and the PFT got a new Prez! Congrats, Prez!

That's it, I'm out!

Jolanta Rohloff?

I've been getting a lot of search hits with the term "Jolanta Rohloff" in them lately, which was surprising to me. Rohloff was the principal of Lafayette HS in NY, NY and I did a blog piece about her here a while back, changing grades. That was it (or so I thought) and I moved on. Surprisingly she has popped back up, in the NY Post of all places-- and not in a good way. I think I beat NYC Educator on something, and I'm not even in the state! Go me!

Senate Kills Employee Free Choice Act

The headlines tell it all, 60 votes were needed for cloture (that is, to end debate and move to a vote); the vote tally was 51-48, a party vote with the exception of Arlen Specter.

You can read the disturbing news about it at CNN or here.

If you'd like to wonder what could have been, you can read my post from a few weeks back in support of the EFCA.

Damn Republicans.

Ugly bags of mostly (liberal) water...

If you're a Star Trek Next Generation fan, you'll understand the origin of this line. Thank to Ms. Cornelius over at A Shrewdness of Apes for this link...though she got it from Mamacita over at Scheiss Weekly...ahhh.

Your Political Profile:

Overall: 45% Conservative, 55% Liberal Social Issues: 25% Conservative, 75% Liberal Personal Responsibility: 25% Conservative, 75% Liberal Fiscal Issues: 50% Conservative, 50% Liberal Ethics: 25% Conservative, 75% Liberal Defense and Crime: 100% Conservative, 0% Liberal

How Liberal Or Conservative Are You?

One more thing...

I will be at the NEA RA starting this Saturday and will be reporting from the floor. Heh. I will be using Gabcast's voice blogging technology to put in a few posts here and there to let everyone know what's going on. That means I won't be typing up my stuff, but will be putting up voice posts.

Also, I don't know how much time I'll have in the next few days to type-blog, so if it's sporadic or non existent until the voice posts, don't say I didn't warn you!

Blogosphere BBQ...

Bits and pieces from the blogosphere...

Whitney Tilson blames the union forcing an Albany Charter School to close...(among other things) He also reports on ST. Louis's BOE (which was taken over by the state and the system lost its accreditation) decision to drop Teach For America (where's Eduwonk on this one) plus spending $25k on a no-bid contract to discredit charters. Predictably he is crying foul, but I think that's a great decision on that part of the BOE. After all, the privatization movement is basing their argument on supply and demand; it's okay for charters to advertise say their proponents, to increase their market share, but it's not okay for public schools to use public money to do so. Boo to you!

The Teamsters coming in to take over the Clark County Education Association? Throwing out the current union? New guy who had bodyguards with mob connections? Ugh. Mike Antonucci is gonna have a field day with this one.

Sherman Dorn's other blog gives a short primer on union history....

An old article, but it explains why unions are death for charters...which I disagree with, of course.

Bong hits...

Well, the "Bong Hits For Jesus" case decision is out, and the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the School District. Long story short, Joseph Frederick, a student in Alaska was let out by the school (to be supervised by teachers) crossed the street as the Olympic torch passed and unfurled a big 'ol banner that said "Bong Hits For Jesus" which was immortalized by the news media. The school suspended him, saying that he was promoting drug abuse, Frederick argued his first Amendment free speech rights were violated and the court battle ensued. Four years later, the school district prevailed. It was a 6-3 decision, and Justice Stevens wrote the dissent, in part which read:

"In my judgment, the First Amendment protects student speech if the message itself neither violates a permissible rule nor expressly advocates conduct that is illegal and harmful to students. This nonsense banner does neither, and the Court does serious violence to the First Amendment in upholding--indeed, lauding--a school's decision to punish Frederick for expressing a view with which it disagreed." (Read the whole decision here)

Interesting. I will tell you, a Supreme Court decision that has something to do with "Bong Hits" in the title does get your students' attention. I remember referring to the title in my classes this past year and having the students' attention. I told them that the decision would more than likely come out this summer and to watch for it. I'm interested to see if my students next year (I am looping, spending two years with the little angels) will mention the case.

On a side note, I think that this case is as important as Tinker and will have a serious ripple effect on students' free speech rights.

Union Dues Exemptions Broadened

Thanks to a faithful reader, I am able to bring you this article about union dues exemptions. In this case, it's about a teacher in Ohio who was pro-life, refused to pay dues to NEA b/c of their pro-choice stand and won relief in the courts. I can't believe I beat Antonucci to this.

Only a few days 'till the NEA RA....

I'm looking forward to it. Are you going? If so, drop me a line!

Big Brother Is Watching

In Cook County, a teacher was fired due to action(s) caught on a hidden camera that was placed in the teacher's lounge. What is happening to this profession?

What's in your school budget?

Quick question: Is your school budget controlled at the building level or are you merely puppets of the downtown administration? Apparently Cincinnati might be going from site based to centralized fiscal management, apparently the schools were going on drunken spending binges. Well, they weren't drunk, but they were spending too much.

What do you do?

Picture this: You're at home, the phone rings and you pick it up. A voice on the other line says "Don't hang up or I'll kill you". What do you do?

If you're this teacher, you call the cops, have 'em trace the call back to some high school students of yours but then the police don't press charges. The school district doesn't do anything, either so you file a grievance.

Letter To Eduwonk

Dear Eduwonk:

Thanks for the traffic increase to my site due to your recent link. I wasn't mindlessly repeating anything.

Sincerely,

Dr. Homeslice

New Mexico Grade Influence Peddling: Case Closed

You may remember I posted about the Albuquerque, NM case where a senior's grade was changed, allowing them to graduate. Completely unrelated to the grade change was the fact that the student's father was a former school board member and their mother is the county commissioner.

Anyhow, the State Education Secretary said the failure of the student was justified. No surprise there. To pull a bit from the story:

Forte (the teacher) said it felt good to have an investigation exonerate the school's decision not to change the student's grade. She said other students in her class didn't get a passing grade either.

"I didn't fail them; they failed themselves," she said.

PREA Prez Gives Eduwonk a spanking!

Long story short, Fred Klonksy, the (unpaid, see volunteer) President of the Park Ridge Education Association in Illinois disagreed with this report that Andy Rotherham wrote about NCLB, competitiveness and the globalization of the economy.

Fred said in their piece "they say that the goals of NCLB are contradictory. They complain that the stated, although problematic, goal of equity is in conflict with the goal of making American schools competitive in the global arena."

And thusly the smacketh down begins. Fred included the above snippet in his reply post to the article.

Andy Rotherham sent Fred a pained email, which Fred posted for all to see (which of course Fred responded to as well).

This prompted Edwonk to post this short entry on his site.

Fred replied to aforementioned short entry on his blog. He then posted one more for the gipper.

Why am I so interested in this exchange? It's the beauty of the Internet, everyone has an opinion, everyone has the opportunity to read them or learn them and no one is marginalized because of the political leanings of local media.

I also have to say I will have the privilege of meeting up with Fred at the NEA RA in Philly in just about a week. Are you going? If so, I'd like to meet you as well. Please email me and we'll set something up.

Chief Negotiator Leaves Bargaining Union for Millwaukee Teachers' Association

Leaving in the middle of bargaining?

Sure, it's slow, says Tom Morgan.

But leaving in the middle of bargaining?

That's kind of like the US electing a new President in the middle of a war.

Youtube, Ron Paul, Frank Rich, Paris Hilton

What is the unifying theme of this post?

The fact that everything mentioned in the title has absolutely zero to do with the body of the post. I was browsing on Technorati, saw that they were the top searches listed as of right now (10 AM in the morning) and figured it would be interesting to run a little experiment to see what kind of traffic it would generate for me. Heh.

Blogging for everyone has been pretty sparse lately; even the AFT blog is out for summer. Remember folks, I am going to the NEA RA in Philly in a few weeks, I'd like to meet up with some of you out there; shoot me an email (drhomeslice at hotmail.com ). I think I'm going to sneak up on AJ Duffy wearing a Steve Barr mask, see what he does. Heh. Does Duffy have security? Does Weingarten? For some reason it seems like they would...don't know.

Happy Fathers' Day to all, and if you've never seen Post Secret, you've gotta see their Father's Day edition...it changes every Sunday!

EFCA on track for a vote next week...sometime.

I blogged earlier about the Employee Free Choice Act which sailed out of the House and into the Senate. It's been put down for a vote sometime next week, though I can't find exactly what day it's going to be voted on. Here's more at DailyKos about it.

How long is too long to go without a contract?

Let's see...the year is 2007. The following local teacher unions in Michigan have been without contracts for:

One year:

Bridgeport teachers; contract expired August 31, 2006

Goodrich teachers contract expired July 31, 2006

West Branch/Rose City teachers; contract expired June 30, 2006

Two years:

Camden-Frontier teachers; contract expired June 30, 2005

Willow Run teachers; contract expired August 2005

Houghton Lake teachers; contract expired June 30, 2005

Three years:

Willow Run office personnel; no new contract since July 30, 2004

Willow Run paraprofessionals; no new contract since July 30, 2004

One Year Blog-O-Versary!

Well, it was about this time last year that this blog got started. I remember starting to read a lot of the ed blogs out there towards the end of last school year and wanting to blog about something ed-related, but not knowing exactly what to talk about. I typed in "teacher union blog" and for some reason Mike Antonucci's EIA came up, clicked on the link and wholeheartedly disagreed with what I saw. I remember reading a few other blogs and thinking I could do better than they did, so I logged onto Blogger, started my account, and here I am.

I would like to give a shout out to a few notable blogs and people that have given me inspiration or provoked thought over the past 365 days to help me keep writing: Edwonk, The Education Wonks, EIA (I read this feed first on my RSS aggregator whenever there's something new), I Thought A Think, NYC Educator, Pissed Off Teacher, Sherman Dorn, Ed at AFT, Educator on The Edge, Ms. Cornelius & Mamacita.

If I forgot you, my apologies, it's late and I would like to go to bed. Goodnight!

Thinking, blogging administrators...

Yes, there is such a thing.

I've become enamored with two blogs, LeaderTalk and DangerouslyIrrelevant. I think they're written by the same person, but they (he) is an administrator. I haven't seen any mention of the word "union" in his writings, but both blogs are worth a good look and perhaps adding their feed to your RSS reader. It's interesting to see things from an administrative perspective.

And for something completely unrelated...

Ambridge Teachers...the IRS was on my site from the keyword with "Ambridge Teacher Salaries". Be careful! :)

Quincy is still out on strike?

According to this article dated yesterday, they are. They've been ordered back by the state labor board and the strike has been declared illegal, but they're not budging.

Update: Mike over at EIA is all over it. The union has posted the return to work order on its website, but were out today too.

Locke High School and the Employee Free Choice Act

The recent events at Locke High School in Los Angeles that involve Green Dot has prompted EIA’s Mike Antonucci to blog further about his perception of a dichotomy between teacher union support of House Bill 800 (Employee Free Choice Act) and recent UTLA actions at Locke.

For the unititated, the Employee Free Choice Act started out in the House of Representatives as an amendment to the National Labor Relations Act, originally passed in the 1930’s. Originally put in the hopper in February of this year, it was sponsored by California Representative George Miller and co-sponsored by over 200 other Representatives. The legislation survived its referral to the House Committee on Education and Labor with an amendment or two thrown in. It was put to a vote in the House, and passed—241 to 185. It was a vote largely divided along party lines, with 13 Republicans voting yes, and two Democrats voting no. It is currently placed on the Senate’s Legislative Calendar, with no major action since said placement at the beginning of March.

At the heart of legislation and the ensuing debate both on and off Capitol Hill is the provision in the Act that would replace secret ballot elections for union representation with a signed petition. Currently, employers don’t have to recognize unions as the sole bargaining unit for employees if they go through the card-check process. Employers can instead call for a secret election that is overseen by the National Labor Relations Board. The time between the call for the election and the actual election usually gives employers time to engage in anti-union techniques to try and persuade employees that it’s in their best interest not to unionize their workplace. Once the secret ballot is held and the union is certified as the bargaining representative of the employees, only then is the employer required to “deal” with the union.

The Employee Free Choice Act would allow employees to do a “card check” (petition), and provided that after an investigation by the NLRB the majority of the employees in a bargaining unit signed the petition, it immediately would certify the union as the sole representative of aforementioned employees, skipping the secret ballot altogether. Unions, labor advocacy groups and pro-labor individuals promote the legislation as strengthening the ability of US workers to form unions with a minimum of employer interference. They cite statistics that mention that union membership has been dropping over the past several decades; and further state that the usurpations and injustices suffered by workers in the United States has changed the labor landscape in this country necessitating legislative measures like the EFCA.

Anti-Union groups who are opposed to this legislation have been crying foul since its introduction into the House of Representatives. The National Right to Work Foundation, for example, strongly emphasizes that all employees have a right to NOT sign a card, and cautions employees as to their rights under the card check process—virtually instructing them not to participate in the card check process. Their website states “it is vitally important for employees to know that signing a union authorization card will likely mean that they will never get to cast a secret ballot for or against the union”.


Anti-labor groups are running scared from the EFCA, for it accelerates the union certification process, removing the secret ballot as the true litmus test for whether or not a workplace becomes unionized. Secret ballots do afford anonymity to workers who wish to unionize; their employers will know they voted but will only know the outcome of their vote, not the individual votes.

With the card-check process contained within this legislation, the veil of secrecy is removed and employers will be fully aware of who wishes to be unionized and who doesn’t. It is surprising that this information is not of interest to employers, as they know who will take what side. In some limited situations, it may make unionization of certain businesses more difficult—it’s easy to vote for something that will benefit yourself when your boss doesn’t know how you voted. Ultimately, the EFCA is a boon to workers throughout the United States who wish to improve their working conditions.

Now that the basics of the EFCA has been discussed, the question remains “How does this apply to the situation at Locke High School in the Los Angeles Unified School District and the Education Intelligence Agency’s recent posts?

Mike Antonucci has used the recent events at Locke to highlight the dichotomy of teacher union support of card check when it comes to unionization of charter schools and union representation at currently “organized” schools. In fact, he writes “the teachers' unions support this type of deliberation and debate when it comes to charter conversion, but oppose it when it comes to union representation elections, is a question they don't want you to ask.” Alright, I’ll ask the question, as I’m in a union, I’ve taken something of a leadership role in person and on the internet and I pay dues to my local, state and national affiliate. That means I am best qualified to ask the question.

“Why do unions support card check when it comes to charter conversions but oppose it when it comes to currently “organized” schools and districts?”

The answer?

Unions exist to serve the best interests of their members; in order to do so, they must bank on their continued existence. The possibility of charter conversion through card check allows unions to spread their influence to a largely untapped resource, but at the same time it presents a potential liability (however minor) to their currently organized schools and districts.

Card check for current union members who wish to reorganize is, quite simply, one more tool that unions can use to determine whether or not they are meeting the needs of their members. It is the definitive referendum, one more tool that can be used by union members who feel as if their local, state or national affiliate is not getting accomplished things that are vital to their membership’s collective well-being.

Unions (of any service sector) who serve the vast majority of their members well should not see the EFCA as a liability. Unions who are unresponsive to their members’ needs should fear the EFCA.

I leave you with some of the sentiment (but none of the words) of James Madison and Alexander Hamilton first put forth in Federalist #51:

“If employers were angels, no unions would be necessary.”

Bits and pieces....the weekend edition.

The Laconia Education Association is thinking about working to the rule. Isn't it a bit late to do that now?

Quincy teachers win the "latest strike in the school year" award for their one-day ditty earlier this week.

Cuyahoga Falls Education Association has authorized a strike; their contract expires August 26th. The reason for the early vote? They wanted to take the vote before everyone went on break.

The Alberquerque Public School District is still tap dancing in the mine field that was sown by the grade change from earlier this spring.

More on the anti-teacher strike bill in the Penn legislature here and here.

Very interesting piece in the LA Times by Bruce W. Smith, a self-described "leader of the teacher revolt" at Locke High Schools. Turns out most of my theory was crap. That's why it was a theory. :)

Dribs and Drabs: Pennsylvania is where it's at!

Everything Penn in this post!

Lake Lehman EA is back to work from a 5 day strike.

Northwest Area Teachers Association filed a strike notice on Friday. Those crazy Pennsylvanians!

Republican Freshman State Rep. Todd Rock of Pennysylvania unveiled his "Strike-Free Education Act House Bill 1369" this morning. You might find no surprise in the fact that while he is a former teacher, he didn't join a union.

Locke liberated from "The Dot": An inside job?

In a thoroughly interesting article in the LA Times on Saturday, (reg required but worth it) it was reported that 17 of the 41 teachers who signed the Greed Dot (sorry, typo there) I mean Green Dot petition unsigned their names. This would bring the number of signatures to less than half of the total of 73 tenured teachers. There have been meetings since then with union and district people; it would be interesting to hear from people who teach there to explain what's really going on at Locke.

I'm sure that in these meetings there was some serious "soul-searching" going on when it came to the teachers that had signed it. District folks offered more autonomy, reforms and an apple per day for the rest of their life. (Okay, that last one was made up by me.) I guarantee you this situation did allow UTLA and the LAUSD to work hand in hand on something. There were also some comments made in the article about how the district folks reminded the teachers that they weren't guaranteed a job with Green Dot, that they'd have to reapply for their jobs with GD, and they weren't as well-benefitted as the UTLA jobs. I'm sure this scared the bejeezus outta those teachers. Some teachers said they just signed it to get the attention of the district (Locke is really in quite bad shape) and said they never wanted to be part of Green Dot.

This brings me to my completely off the wall theory, the "gunman on the grassy green dot knoll". What if the signature gathering petition was an inside job by the teachers to bring attention to their school? It's a school that is in sore need of help-- the dropout rate is staggering and their test scores are low. So, to get attention they allow an administrator to "lead" or initiate the petition gathering and make sure that he becomes the patsy and take the fall from the district for the secession movement (he is currently removed from his position, sure to be fired at some point). Then a portion of the same teachers who signed the petition rescind their signatures (only a handful, enough to bring it below half of the tenured teachers) to make it seem as if a sizeable number of educators are still fence-sitting. This recenscion only happens after the district comes to them, hat in hand offering autonomy and reforms...and they mean it this time.

Oh well, it's only a theory.

Strike ending, NEA Blog, Mike Antonnuci could be right

More about Lake-Lehman, the striking district...that will be back in school on Monday.

Did you know NEA has a blog? I sure didn't...until now-- maybe that was the Edwonk post I decided to skip. I perused the topics, but no one's commenting on the blog. It kind of raises the question, if a blog has no comments, is it really a blog? (Akin to the "If a tree falls in the forest and there's no one there to hear it, does it make a noise?)

In several posts over the course of several weeks, Mike Antonucci over at Intercepts has remarked about the drop in edu-blogging lately. Besides the end of school which does tend to eliminate the student hijinks which some of us blog about, some of the large blogs (School Me!, The Chalkboard) have gone the way of the dodo. Perhaps we have hit "peak edublog" not too dissimilar to "peak oil" (which I hope we haven't hit yet). Dunno, only time will tell.