Aaah, LABOR day weekend.

Howdy folks, thus brings to a close my first week of school. There will be no posts on LABOR day. (Go figure.)

Harlem teachers have ratified the latest TA, looks like they got what they wanted in regards to salary. Another article here. A great article about the contract talks here (best read of the bunch). Here's a brief TV channel article about the ratification.

This is crazy. I can't sum it up.

Tomorrow morning there will be more talks in the Bethel school strike. That's where the above picture is from, also there is more about the strike here.

Seneca Valley Education Association authorized a strike (though no date has been set) and refused to participate in a board-sponsored forum (read: pandering to the public) and the board has issued the ultimatum that if the teachers go on strike, each day they are on strike the board will reduce their offer of a 4% raise. Ugh.

Cahokia Federation of Teachers of Illinois have voted to strike on September 17th. They also represent secretaries and service workers.

This district in Michigan imposed a one-year contract on its teachers-- it's also running a deficit.

Okay, let me get this straight. Superintendent fires administrators, saves $.5 million, uses it to fund reading program that parents love, ties his salary to the performance of the students in his district? Huh? What planet am I on? (On a side note, if anyone calls someone else a "change agent" or an "agent of change" in print I will vomit, quite liberally.)

More about the potential Springfield Education Association strike.

The Barnesville strike is still on for this Tuesday.

Shoreline Education Association has voted for a strike authorization, and has set the date as September 5th.

Locke to fly flag with a Green Dot?

In a 5-2 vote, the LAUSD's BOE voted to allow Locke to bring it's charter petition in front of the board. It's not a Green Dot outpost, but soon could be. Interestingly enough, the LA BOE uses ward type representation, rather than at-large which is what I think is better.

Lotsa contract stuff.

Denver Public Schools teachers are still without a contract.

Bethel Education Association in Spanway, WA are on strike. Strikewatch has been updated. more here.

Harlem Federation of Teachers FIRST took a vote of no confidence in their superintendent THEN rejected the tentative agreement and are NOW back on the line.

Whitney Tilson fends off a self-described "blog attack".

Teacher unions good? Well, kinda, according to this guy.

AFT President Ed McElroy on the NCLB draft!

President Ed McElroy of the AFT just sent me this email:

"This draft encourages a serious discussion of reauthorization and indicates a willingness to address many of the concerns raised about NCLB. With so much at stake for our nation’s students, it is unfortunate that some are seeking to short-circuit the discussion by characterizing this draft’s new flexibility as a step toward weakening the current law’s provisions to hold schools accountable. On the contrary, the draft is an opportunity to spark candid discussions about how to improve the law’s accountability provisions and offer more help for the students who need it most.

The No Child Left Behind Act is a complex law. Our initial review of draft language suggests that its reauthorization will be just as complex. This process demands careful and deliberative consideration of not just what is written but what its effect will be in our classrooms. Our students and teachers deserve nothing less. "

Okay, well perhaps he himself didn't send it, and it was one of his communications folks, but he still said it.

Hot hot hot here.

Harlem teachers went back to school and voted last night on the tentative agreement. The federal mediator is to thank, says this story. Get rid of teacher strikes, says this PA editorial.

The drama is going at Locke still.....

The teachers of Burrville Education Association in RI are on strike!

New York stuff.

Tomorrow the little kids come.

The Baltimore Sun comes out against Baltimore teachers' work to the rule action. "Caring teachers who prize professionalism should be less interested in "work to rule" than in resolving an issue to the benefit of students" says the sentence ending the article. My response? If those caring teachers were treated as professionals, work to the rule would not be necessary. The sticking point is over planning time, of all things. Matt of Going to the Mat Blog has his views on working to the rule, and while it's a good read, I think he's wrong.

Substitute teachers for catholic threaten strike? Only in Canada, eh.

In PA, gov. Ed Rendell says "Teachers should have a statewide health plan". PSEA (the NEA state affilliate) says "tell me more". This is probably in direct result to the disproportionate number of teacher strikes that occur in that state.

DPS teachers have a great tactic for their negotiations: they passed out "their side of the story" leaflets within a two-block radius of their school board members' homes. Kim Ursetta is president of that local-- I met her over the summer at NEA and she's good people.

Harlem's still on strike, but their parent-teacher talks seemed to go well.

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels were not the only ones to put out a manifesto; apparently the NEA did it too. At least according to this guy. One of those posts for me that I would really like to reply to, but would spend about 8 angry hours doing so. Anyone else game?

The Barnesville BOE is prepping scabs for the impending 9/5 teacher strike. (Hat tip to Union News.)

MEA Staff Union trying not to strike.

From the newswire-- I guess Mike Antonucci shouldn't have taken the week off.

MEA unionized employees bargain to avert a strike.

Bargaining continues round-the-clock this week for the unionized employees of the Michigan Education Association (MEA), the Michigan Education Special Services (MESSA), and the Michigan Education Association Financial Services (MEA-FS) to avert a possible strike. The United Staff Organization (USO) represents all six employee unions. The contracts for the employees expire Aug. 31, 2007.

“In the event there is a strike called by one or all of the employee unions, it will not be based on any employee proposals. Any action would be recommended and taken as a response to MEA President Iris Salters’ proposed retirement plan rollbacks,” said Tom Greene, USO president.

MEA management has proposed devastating rollbacks in the staff retirement plan such as a Graded Premium Subsidy for retiree health benefits, the elimination of COLA increases and a reduction in the multiplier used to calculate monthly retirement amounts.

The impact of these proposals goes beyond MEA employees, however. Staff has been continually helping MEA members fight these same proposals from the Legislature.

Greene said, “We find it completely unacceptable that MEA President Salters would propose rollbacks that would gut staff’s current retirement plan. We find it even more unacceptable that she would put her members’ plans in jeopardy too. Our bleak future becomes their bleak future.”

MEA is the largest school employee union in the state. Such a strike by approximately 600 employees would affect services to the more than 160,000 members statewide.

Stuff after a faculty meeting....

NYC schools hit hard by teacher turnover? Nah. Besides, those teachers that left were just unhappy, they'd be unhappy wherever they went. Good thing the DOE doesn't have to do anything to fix it. (Hat tip to Zeltzer).

An interesting article about teacher pay scales in North-Eastern PA, the strike-happiest state in the union.

Harlem teachers (currently on strike) are meeting with parents to clear things up. This article also has a reprint of the union's flier giving their side of the story on the strike.

Faculty meetings are NOT fun.

Dear fellow educators:

Please don't come late to your faculty meetings, bury your head in some kind of work-related paperwork when you should be paying attention, miss something important and then ask about something we already went over when you weren't in the meeting 'cause you were LATE.

Thank you kindly.

/rant

Stuff on a Sunday eve...

If you got a bonus from the state, would you return it? These teachers might.

Yet another local gives a strike notice-- this one with the optimistic date of October 9th.

First-year teacher AJ doesn't quite see the benefits of joining her local union....yet. I do agree with (her?) that the rep could have done a better job selling the union's importance.

Things looking better in Chicago Teachers' Union negotiations?

Well, off to school tomorrow for meetings, meetings and more meetings. Ugh. My updates may slow down a bit.

A new way to track your stats...

Go check out Google Analytics.

Seriously.

You've gotta have a gmail account or something.

It looks like it'll cost you money, but it doesn't.

UPDATE: Okay, I lavished the praise on Google Analytics. I've got to say something about the hardworking folks at sitemeter-- I don't know how they did it, but they found me. Jenni emailed me about the above post, and asked me what they could do to make sitemeter better! Can you believe that? I think it's great-- I'm a nobody (really) and they're asking me what they can do? Make sure you have sitemeter on your blog!

Charter Schools, Merit Pay, Green Dot and other stuff.

Teacher Ken of DailyKos and the NEA and merit pay.

Charter schools in the Recovery School District in New Orleans. (Hat tip to Steve Zeltzer.)

Insurance premiums a bargaining chip in the Harlem teacher strike. "Come back to work," says the district, "or we won't pay any more of your premiums."

Santee High School in Los Angeles could be the next Locke High School, says Green Dot.

Organizing higher education....read about it here.

Toast, coffee and links.

PREA Prez notes that Chi Town teachers are still at the table.

Reactions to the Harlem, IL strike. Union News has a piece, too. Interesting opinion piece by a sportswriter.

Mike Klonsky lets us know Catalyst has a transcript of the Barr/ Stewart symposium from 8/15 online now.

Baltimore Teachers' Union will be working to the rule when classes start; negotiations are not going well and the central issue is planning time.

It's been two years since Katrina hit New Orleans, and here is one view of the city's schools. Here's another view of "good people moving to be part of something good", which they are, just make sure you join UTNO!

Rockford Education Association in Rockford IL, just authorized their negotiations team to strike if need be. For some reason I figured when the new school year started I wouldn't have to do much StrikeWatch updating. Guess I was wrong.... More about it here. Video clip here.

Stuff...contract!

Harlem Federation of Teachers in Illinois are on strike...on the first day of school, even! This is the first entry in Strikewatch for the 07-08 school year! More here.

Barnesville Education Association in Barnesville, Ohio have given notice to begin a strike on September 5th.

The Greenwich Education Association of Conneticut is fighting their district's attempt to inteject a merit pay plan that would be piloted at a few schools to non-tenured teachers only. Al Shanker would have a few things to say about that.

I found a charter school union blog...not much there, but it does exist.

If you ever wonder why teachers need tenure, you must read this story from Ontario.


Chi-town is heating up, Arne Duncan (CEO) and Mayor Daley say they aren't worried, but it'll be interesting to see what happens.

Yep.

Strike in Harlem? (No, not that Harlem.)

This editorial in the Pittsburg Tribune Review, comes out against teacher strikes whilst comparing teachers to children who need discipline.

Chicago Teachers' Union meets to consider a strike? That's what this news channel posits.

Dear EduWonk:

Andy:

I noticed you sit on the Cesar Chavez Public Charter Schools for Public Policy, which made me wonder something.

Are any of the three CCPCS schools' teachers represented by organized labor?

If they're not and they organized, what would your reaction be?

Just wondering.

Sincerely,

Dr. Homeslice

PS: I'll be in DC next year for the NEA RA. Perhaps you and I can wonk it out (sounds bad, doesn't it?) over a microbrew.

Statcounter Carnac...questions answered.

Back in the day, the late Johnny Carson used to play a character known as Carnac the Magnificent.

For those who are unititiated, Carnac would hold a "hermeticially sealed" envelope to his head, announce the answer to a question and proceed to open the envelope and then read the question. One italicized example follows:

Carnac holds the sealed envelope up to his turban)
CARNAC: Dippity Do.
ED McMAHON: Dippity Do?
(Carnac rips the envelope open and removes the card)
CARNAC (reading): What forms on your dippity early in the morning..

So, every once in a while I look over the keyword stats in my Statcounter account, that is, the words that wonderful folks who wouldn't normally come here type into their lil' search bars that then directs them here. They tell me a lot about the traffic I'm getting, but sometimes they're kind of funny. So I shall now share them with you and attempt to do something Carnac-y. If it bombs, well it's my blog so I don't care. Keep in mind, these are the actual kewords and phrases-- this should only be attempted by a professional snarky individual like myself.

Instructions: The answer is readable. In order for you to find out the question, you've got to highlight the text with your mouse, as I've colored it the same as the background. Best I could do late at night, folks.

Phrase #1
A: More than I'll ever make in sixty minutes.
Q: how much does it cost to hire ron clark to speak

Phrase #2
A: Go ask Steve Barr and AJ Duffy.
Q: how bad is locke high school (Note: This query actually came from Sony Picture Studio, so expect the movie to be out any time soon)

Phrase #3
A: the 2005 contract.
Q:(why do) a lot of NYC teachers seem psychotic

It's raining here...

...but here's some stuff to read while listening to the raindrops.

KIPP-- wow, they couldn't have paid for a better piece in the newspaper; though I didn't run across the word "union".

Doin' your union homework over summer. Seneca Valley Teachers in PA authorized a strike; at issue are pay raises and health care premiums.

This op ed piece in the Denver Post cries "Change teacher and principal working conditions, expectations and wages. Pay them more. Get rid of teacher tenure. Pay for expertise, performance and student results, not years served. Recruit the best and brightest. The best school leaders attract and retain the best teachers. Give schools the support and tools to manage their own budgets and the power to hire and fire staff. Make all staff retirement plans portable and flexible." Uhh...

Rumbles about UTLA's plans to turn around LAUSD.

Words about NYC's union-run charters.

Turning a failing public school into a charter approved by the district administration AND the teacher union to improve test scores AND increase funding WITH the support of the actual staff assigned to that building? Interesting.

Teaching boot camp? Yep, that's what they call it, though it's not mandatory and they don't shave your head. Teachers in Worchester, MA go to the camp (unpaid) but they do receive credits from a local college. Sounds like a good idea, and makes the worst faculty meeting ever sound like...nothing.

Students on strike.

Roughly 48 hours away from the computer...

...and here is what I have to bring you.

Glad I'm not a member of the Long Beach teachers' union. (Ugly!)

I rarely link to Mike Antonucci, but behold his dry wit. Also interesting is his Wikipedia edit history introspective when it comes to the national affiliates.

On a side note, only Nixon could go to China. However, if an Academy of Chinese Language (a charter school, by the way) fails to hire even ONE native chinese speaker-- can you call it an Academy of Chinese Language? And when a tree falls in the forest....

What would you do if your superintendent moved your planning time (and all of your colleagues' planning time) before or after the school day without so much as a "by your leave"? You'd do what the good uniony folk in Dayton, Ohio did-- file a grievance!!

Interesting article on cyber-charters in PA. (I personally am against them unless they are subject to the same oversight as a regular district [i.e. run by a district and using unionized teachers]).

Did you know that people who oppose vouchers AUTOMATICALLY favor same-sex unions? Neither did I, but if you're living in Utah, you just might get a phone call....

This completely unbiased piece shows that the NEA tail truly wags the Democratic Party Dog. (Now if that's the case, why does Hillary still support charter schools?)

Once again, students and teachers are harmed and their academic prowess temporarily derailed by a lack of administrative presence.

In Chicago, PeopleSoft is a lot soft on the human condition.

Maine is regionalizing; that is, consolidating school districts from 290 down to 80 and it must be done by the start of the 2009-2009 school year. Oddly enough, I was just at a progressive think-tanky meeting this weekend where I somewhat advocated for the same thing in my state.

Alexander, over at the District 299 Blog (Chi-town) predicts no strike from CPS teachers, but not much difference in the new contract, either. For me, the jury's still out.

(Best Bill Lundberg voice from Office Space) "Uh yeah...about that raise....we're going to give you one cent on the dollar and we'll need to come in this weekend and run TPS reports."

Mike of the brothers Klonsky recounts the Barr/ Green Dot/ Union suare in Chi-town.

AFT. Walmart. Newswire. Need I type more?

28 minute strike? Yep.

On a side note, I am continuing to read the Shanker book. Good.

Carmen Mayorga...

...is to me as Steve Barr is to PREA Prez: driving up traffic. I hope she's doing well and will continue her crusades. I came across this article about the incident that can be described as somewhat milquetoast.

(Above) Jo Anderson, Marilyn Stewart and Steve Barr at the Charter/ Union forum sponsored by the brothers Klonsky. Read more about it here.

Marilyn Stewart (CTU Prez) talks about organizing windy city charter schools.

Interesting perspective from a TFA'er (Teach For America) in New Orleans.

Also, I just got my copy of the Columbia Press Al Shanker book "Tough Liberal". I'll be posting a review shortly.

One link, many opinions.

UTNO (United Teachers New Orleans) continue the struggle...

I'm tired of Chris Cerf blogging at Eduwonk. It'll be nice to have someone more union-y come in and fill his shoes, but don't tell NYC Educator I said that. :) I was wondering, does he have supersized business cards for his title?

The brothers Klonksy (Mike and Fred for the unititated) hosted Steve Barr of Green Dot and the Chicago Union Chief, Marilyn Stewart in a forum Wednesday night. Oh, to be a fly on that wall. I'll be looking for blogosphere (Fred refuses to use that term) postings about that event.

Breaking News in Texas!

From John at AFT:

What are they afraid the teachers will hear?

Aldine ISD hauls union leader off to jail in handcuffs for trying to talk with teachers, hand out literature

Aldine ISD police officers arrested a local teachers union president Tuesday on public property after she tried to make sure teachers in the district received union membership information. Officers charged Aldine AFT President Carmen Mayorga with “failure to identify,” handcuffed her, impounded her car and incarcerated her for 14 hours before her release early Wednesday morning.

“I’ll go to jail anytime to be able to talk to teachers,” Mayorga said shortly after her release. “I don’t understand why the Aldine school district is so intent on squelching the rights of teachers to join an organization with a mission to improve the quality of education in Aldine.”

Aldine AFT Local 6345 has more than 800 union members, all employees of Aldine ISD. The union is the local affiliate of the statewide Texas AFT, and the national American Federation of Teachers. The organizations are considering legal action against the district after Tuesday’s incident.

“Surely the Aldine school district's police force has better things to do,” said Texas AFT President Linda Bridges. “The superintendent is using these officers to intimidate and coerce employees and their representatives and impede their exercise of constitutional rights of free speech and freedom of association. What is Superintendent Wanda Bamberg so afraid of that she feels the need to handcuff and rough up a 115-pound mother of three just for coming near a school?”

The trouble began Monday when school district officials informed Aldine AFT staff that they could not hand out membership information on school property at Aldine High School, where the district held its new teacher orientation. The next day, the Aldine superintendent circled the high school with police officers. Aldine AFT staff and member volunteers patiently waited for teachers to finish the event, and when they emerged one teacher directly asked for some literature. When an Aldine AFT staff member stepped on to school property to hand her a brochure, district officers swarmed around her and threatened her with a citation.

-- more --

Mayorga drove up to the scene on public property and asked an officer what was happening. The officer asked for her identification, and when she questioned why he needed it, he manhandled her, cuffed her and arrested her.

“Most school districts are receptive to our talking with teachers about the benefits—both to the teachers and the district overall—of membership, and they invite us to set up booths at new teacher orientations,” said Linda Bridges, Texas AFT president. “Aldine is the exception, and this sounds like something out of the old union-busting days in the 1920s, or even worse, past attempts to stifle free speech on public school campuses.”

Gayle Fallon—president of the Houston Federation of Teachers, the AFT affiliate for Houston ISD-- was alarmed at Aldine ISD’s action. “All of labor in Harris County ought to march on Aldine ISD for this unwarranted and aggressive behavior, and the district should be ashamed of itself,” she said.

Mayorga was still shaken up from the ordeal Wednesday morning. “The only thing I’m guilty of is trying to talk to teachers,” she said

“Carmen Mayorga may have come away from this encounter bruised and battered,” Bridges said. “But it's Aldine ISD and Superintendent Bamberg that come away from it with a black eye. The question now is: When will the Aldine school board call Superintendent Bamberg on the carpet for this abuse of power, and when will Aldine ISD show some respect for its employees and let them decide for themselves who they can talk to about professional representation?”

Aldine AFT represents more than 800 employees of Aldine ISD and is the local affiliate of Texas AFT and the American Federation of Teachers.

Texas AFT (formerly the Texas Federation of Teachers) represents more than 57,000 teachers, paraprofessionals, support personnel, and higher-education employees across the state. Texas AFT is affiliated with the 1.3-million-member American Federation of Teachers.

Negotiate in public? No thanks.

Board says "Let's negotiate in public."

Union says "No thanks."

I say: well spoken.

Chicago Organizating Charter School Teachers...

Old but interesting article.

Getting the jump on the school year.

Seneca Valley Education Association just voted to authorize a strike if need be. Go PA!

Do you remember the Hayward Strike? Thank goodness it's over, but I just stumbled upon their Wikipedia Strike Page. Whew, could they be any more innovative?

Lowering the wall separating church and state?

A Jewish charter school in Hollywood, Florida is poised to open. They're going to teach Jewish culture, Hebrew and Jewish history, but will not be teaching religion. Faculty will not be able to pray, but they will serve kosher meals to students.

"....with charter schools like Ben Gamla, we are opening the door for public money to be used to support all sorts of religious ideologies across America," Tuffs warned. "What will we say to the imam down the street who says he wants to teach Arabic within an Islamic cultural setting? Or the fundamentalist Christian group that wants to start a school to teach Christian culture?"

Interesting. You're probably expecting me to say something snarky here, but I ain't touchin' this one with a 10 foot pole.

Hat tip to Edspresso for this article.

Teacher Burnout

"I’m not saying that any person who makes a child clean up her own vomit is entirely stable or that a teacher who throws desks at students doesn’t need serious therapy, I am saying that teaching is not what it once was."

Heh. Read more here.

Teachers required to work during a hurricane?

That's the substance of the ULP (unfair labor practice) filed by USEP, the United School Employees of Pasco County, Florida. State law mandates school boards open their schools as emergency shelters in the event of a hurricane or other natural disaster; the BOE is also required to staff them.

In the past few years, this has been done successfully using volunteers (who also get paid at their step schedule hourly rate) but the Superintendent wanted to send out a memo reminding all employees of the school system before summer break of their obligation to work at the shelters under state law and to get their emergency contact information should they be needed.

The union balked at this, saying that to do such a thing required negotiations and was not an automatic management right, and asked the Superintendent not to send out the memo. The use of volunteers (which has been thus far satisfactory) was established past practice. To call other teachers in to work would require a negotiated addition to the contract, which was not impossible, but the message was clear-- negotiations would have to happen first. The Supe sent the memo out anyway, irritated the union and now they've filed an ULP. This one should be interesting.

Stuff on a Friday....

Could you work KIPP hours?

The President of the Chicago Teachers' Union says they have a long way to go on contract negotiations. When it comes to Chi-town, I'll always read the comments on the District 299 blog.

I was looking at my stats earlier and they really spiked yesterday, and I realized why: TNT was running the Ron Clark Story again. So, in honor of that terrible movie, here is the link to my review of aforementioned terrible movie.

No teachers, but you should see our stadium!

This district had teacher layoffs and support staff cut, but their brand new stadium came in $2.5 million above budget.

Just 'cause you have choice doesn't mean you'll make good ones...

A school has been in the lowest possible academic rating category for the past seven years, is over a quarter-million dollars in debt and has just fired and then reinstated two of its administrators, while weathering an announcement that the school may not open in a few weeks for the next school year. Parents must be running pell-mell and tumble-bumble to withdraw their students from this waste of public funds, right?

Nope, not if it's a charter school.

Read more here.

On a side note, if you read way down the article, you'll notice the Leona Group, a for-profit charter management group out of Michigan was going to make a presentation to take over the school. You may remember the name from Mike Klonsky's posts about their severe allergies to unionization and their hijacking of the name of Cesar Chavez for some of their schools.

Random....

Jonathan Tasini of the Huffington Post predicts the AFT will endorse Senator Clinton.

Jay Matthews at WaPo gushes about the KIPP summit.

Charter Schools are under attack, says the LA Daily News. Aww, shucks.

From the ol' newswire...

The BOE in Harrison Hills, PA is already preparing for a potential teacher strike.

This article describes the problems that rising health care costs are causing in negotiations for Northeast Ohio School Districts. A number of locals are close to striking in that area of the state.

Misplaced priorities.

In Rockland county (wherever the heck that is) two of five school districts are having a hard time sealing the deal on their contract. The reason?

"There are about seven people at the table, so you have to get seven schedules that will match," Hughes said. "Since people are in and out over the summer, it was difficult, unfortunately."

In East Ramapo, Board of Education President Nathan Rothschild said he was disappointed there had been just two meetings between the district and its teachers union this summer.

"This is their time off," Rothschild said of district teachers, "and they have a right to be off, so I can't fault them for not being more available. ... but I wish they were."

You're not in the teachers' union when it feels like it. You stay over the summer and get the contract negotiated, and if you have to stay home from a family vacation so be it-- you're on the bargaining team for a reason.

For the first time ever....

...I am taking a job outside of my district (in addition to teaching) to make ends meet. Not because I want to work, because I have to. Trust me, if you could see my budget, you would see that it is not extravagant in any way-- I only have one credit card, and my payment is only like $30 a month. Am I complaining? No, I'm doing what I have to to help my family. I just hope the fact that I have to get a $9 an hour job in addition to the teaching job I already have will show that teachers need to get paid more.

Union publications (your local).

I'm interested in putting together a guide to local union publications that's availible to the general public, stuff on the web, blogs and things of that nature. If you would like to let me know of your local's stuff, drop me an email.

A few things.

Pissed off mom (no relation to Pissed Off Teacher) understands what happens to your child's education at a charter school.

Teachers are on strike...in Fiji.

School (individual and system) ratings in Texas are in, and I think it says it all when I give you this snippet "Charter schools, which are given more freedom in how they operate, were four times as likely as traditional campuses to receive the lowest rating. While nearly 5 percent of the state's 332 charter schools received exemplary ratings, about 17 percent were unacceptable." Of course don't take my word for it, read the article.

Something for nothing...

Edwize highlights this NY Times story about a high school principal that mandated teachers give students an automatic 45% if they only show up for ONE day of class, regardless of their true academic effort.