A friend of mine who teaches in the Virginia public schools noted that the only profession where government officials think it's okay to not pay the workers is in the schools. I didn't believe her, no one would do that, or so I thought. From OregonLive:

Leaders of Oregon's teachers union did not outright reject the governor's suggestion of unpaid teaching days but said each district would have to figure out a balance between using reserves and other cost-saving measures.

"If we ask school folks to work for free, it means we are going to affect the economy even more greatly," said Gail Rasmussen, vice president of the Oregon Education Association. "These folks, too, are part of the fabric of their communities."

Kulongoski's comments came one day after legislative budget leaders went public with a list of proposed cuts, including a reduction to public schools that would force many districts to close early by an average of five days.

There was also the North Providence School District in Rhode Island:

NORTH PROVIDENCE — The School Committee has garnered $664,000 in concessions from teachers, the equivalent of six unpaid work days, in an effort to erase about $3 million from a projected $13-million deficit for the budget year that ends June 30.

And some of the comments on the thread about teachers working UNPAID are just demoralizing. It's like we don't value teachers as a society but in reading the comments, it seems as if we're really saying that we don't value working with kids. I'm not sure which we value less as a society, teachers or children, perhaps it's both.

But there is something you can do. Well, at least if you live in the DC area. You can join the Washington Teachers Union (WTU) in the District for community mobilization. This Saturday, DC Teachers and supporters of teachers are taking to the streets with the teacher's local, and you can join in:

Where
United House of Prayer Charlotte Mission; 1721 7th Street, NW

When
Apr 25 9:30 am - 12:00 pm

As part of the United For DC Kids campaign, the Washington Teachers Union (WTU), labor and community allies are canvassing local neighborhoods to support teachers and improve the quality of education for children in DC public schools. “When we stand in support of the teachers who work in our public schools, we’re helping our children succeed,” says the WTU. “Please join us for a neighborhood walk and show your support for DC teachers by canvassing our community.” Lunch will be provided; email jeasley@aft.org to RSVP or click here to download an event flyer.

You can sign up for updates on the WTU site.

Teachers always get a bad rap. My daughter wants to go to college to become a teacher. She has an affinity for languages and wants to teach Arabic and Japanese, two languages she currently studies in high school. And here I am, wanting to discourage her from doing this because of reports I've just sited. Teachers are so undervalued in this society, but then again, I really think this is more of an issue of not valuing our children and wanting them to have the best possible education. In the end, the arguments against teachers are always that same...I don't want my taxes to go up. Wow, simply wow. Someday, I hope we can value our kids more than the change in our pockets.

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And she's found her prey, DC Public School teachers that she thinks are "ineffective"

Among the measures Rhee plans to impose are a new teacher evaluation system based primarily on student test scores and other achievement benchmarks. She also promised more aggressive implementation of legal provisions already in place, including the ability to eliminate teacher jobs -- because of declining enrollment or school closures -- using seniority as only one of several factors taken into consideration.

Rhee said she intended to more intensively use the so-called "90-day plan" that allows administrators to give teachers three months' notice to improve or face dismissal.

The Post seems to think, as does Rhee, that poor performance means bad teaching. I could remind you all about my daughter's experiences in DCPS, or how there's a teacher shortage in the District with hundreds of jobs STILL unfilled after 5 weeks , or that Rhee continues to provide no information about WHAT will be used to measure performance, or that this isn't just completely arbitrary, but, that's just me. I'm just one voice against the Anti-union steam roller that is Fenty-Rhee.

The issue here for teachers and students isn't teacher performance, it's student performance. And until Fenty gets his act together and makes sure that all the other services that parents need are there, we're going to be empowering Rhee to hunt teachers at our kids expense.

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I was on vacation, sorry I missed this. From the Washington Teacher Blog:

The WTU and AFT encourages you to Reject Proposed Changes to Sections 1601.7(d) and 1601.9 of Professional Education Requirements Campaign ends September 8th ! (Sponsored by WTU/AFT)

Link:
http://www.unionvoice.org/campaign/certification/w8uuxke4p75xjm6?

The Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE) has recently proposed new regulations that would require DC Public School (DCPS) teachers to demonstrate effectiveness as a condition for teacher licensure renewal. Unfortunately there is not a lot of time to provide your feedback on the proposed regulations. It is the WTU's position that this proposed regulation would not benefit DCPS teachers, as a teacher's true effectiveness should not be linked to a teacher’s right to renew his or her license. What's at stake: Teachers evaluations are the responsibility of DCPS. In every state in the country licensing is the responsibility of the state and evaluation of teachers job performance is the responsibility of the local education agency. Allowing OSSE to issue regulations unilaterally that measure teacher performance may adversely impact your evaluation process and job security.


The WTU President, Mr. Parker and other WTU staff have provided testimony in strong opposition to these proposed new requirements. It will be important for WTU members to weigh in on these new proposed regulations. Please view the WTU "Get Active" message on changes to DCPS teacher licensure- Sections 1601.7(d) and 1601.9.

The public comment period ends this Monday, September 8th after which time the State Superintendent of Education will decide whether or not to move forward with these proposed regulations, so if you agree- PLEASE ACT NOW by clicking on the link above or responding to the email which has been forwarded to your email account by the WTU.

What makes this important is that this is one more way to alter performance and what performance means. If you do your job day in day out and get no assistance from the families who are even more responsible for the children in your classroom, if those same parents abuse their children or neglect them or are in the awful place of having to work two jobs and the kids are without the supervision they need, well, holding teachers responsible for the progress of these children is not responsible. It's like we're still washing our hands of the real problem here, one of a community. Hillary Clinton was absolutely right, it takes a village and Obama's right too, I am my brothers keeper. What both of these people are saying is that we are in this together, but by changing these regulations, we're basically hanging all teachers out to dry and making it that much harder to turn things around. If you continually attack your teachers, how effective are they going to be in the classroom if they have to constantly worry and think about this kind of shit?

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So, Ed Week is even reporting on the RIDICULOUS event Fenty and Rhee attended in Denver:

It was a cheap shot,” Weingarten told me today, after a joint AFT-National Education Association luncheon honoring woman governors wrapped up. She added that union members weren’t even invited to join the conversation. By contrast, she pointed out that two rising Democratic stars—Govs. Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas and Janet Napolitano of Arizona—used their speeches at today’s luncheon to talk about the importance of partnerships between policymakers and teachers and their unions.

“This was a couple of mayors, and I very much appreciate their efforts. But they’re tearing down the people who they need to lift up,” Weingarten said.

I wish she could mention this in her speech, but I'm also hoping she doesn't. I'd rather simply replace Fenty when he decides to run for re-election.

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I’ve been over on the Washington City Paper discussing union issues. Sometimes, you have to bring the discussion to where the anti-union folks are.

In Loose Lips latest installment of the saga that is the Fenty administrations’ snubbing of all things union, we have this little ditty about a panel Fenty and Rhee participated:

Rhee told the crowd that she expects to have negotiations on the reform contract concluded within two weeks and ready for a vote by the Washington Teachers’ Union membership, LL has been told.

Her comments came during a panel discussion on education reform here in Denver with Michael Bennet, superintendent of Denver’s public schools, and other public education reform leaders. On a separate panel, Mayor Adrian M. Fenty spoke about his takeover of DCPS with New York City schools chief Joel I. Klein, Newark Mayor Cory Booker, former Colorado Gov. Roy Romer, and others. The event was sponsored by a coalition of more than three dozen education reform and charter school organizations.

So in reading this little snippet, did you notice anything missing?

I did. Teachers and their unions.

So, me being the meek, mild mannered, and quiet unionist that I am asked Loose Lips if there were any unions there, here’s his response:

Mike DeBonis Says:
August 25th, 2008 at 3:23 pm
Nope, no union folks on the panel, and didn’t seem to be any union folks there at all, from what I was told. BTW, the AFT is a “platinum-level” sponsor of the convention and prez Randi Weingarten will be addressing the floor this evening.

Well, that sort of says a lot about this panel, doesn’t it?

To me, it says that Fenty doesn’t much care about workers, which includes teachers, or the voice of those workers represented by their unions. Oh, yeah, and I said as much in my follow up comment:

Thanks for the update Mike. All workers need a voice, no matter what field. Unions aren’t just for laborers (LiUNA), Electricians (IBEW), writers (WGA) or casino workers (UAW), it’s also for teachers (NEA, AFT, etc…) nurses (SEIU, CNA), Engineers (BLE, IUOE), county child support workers (Teamsters, AFSCME), even actors (SAG). To have an education forum and to not have any unions on the panel ESPECIALLY the very EDUCATION REFORM minded Randi Weingarten is a travesty. But to be an elected Democratic official to sit on such a panel is tantamount to being in your face anti-union. Something Rhee and Fenty seem to be courting as a mantra of theirs.

Perhaps if you're really really good, Fenty will bring his anti-union self to your town, too!!

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So, not too many folks showed up yesterday to rally in front of the WTU. In fact, there were 8, according to the Wire. Didn’t hear about the Demonstration? The Post reported on it:

The rift is playing out in a blizzard of cellphone messages and e-mails, Facebook entries and posts on teacher blogs such as D.C. Teacher Chic and Dee Does the District.

Some of the teachers who want "green tier" salaries plan to demonstrate this morning at teacher union offices on L'Enfant Plaza.

Older teachers aren’t necessarily bad teachers. But Like I’ve said before, blaming teachers for why students perform badly on tests or administrators for why kids aren’t showing up, well, it’s like claiming that no one else matters in this equation, and that’s not true.

A few days ago, I talked about what it’s like being a parent with a child in DCPS. I wrote about other parents who often treated school more like a babysitter than a school. I talked about how, until we can make school the center of community again, firing administrators and teachers, well, it’s like blaming the nails for why the house fell down and not the builder constructing it. Without parents and community, we’re all screwed.

But, I digress. This post is about WTU and communication and for that matter, lack of communication.

So, let’s look at the DC 8 again. Sure, not many showed up, but like all unions, the WTU should be responsive to its membership. So, when the 8 showed up, WTU didn’t turn them away, Parker met with them.

All of 8 public school teachers, interested in the sizeable salary increases placed on the table by Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee, turned out at Washington Teachers Union headquarters on L'Enfant Plaza. They met for about 90 minutes with union president George Parker and emerged satisfied that they eventually would get a chance to vote on the pay package, which offers $100,000-plus salaries for tenured teachers willing to risk dismissal by going on probation for a year. Teachers unwilling to relinquish tenure would still get significant raises under the proposal.

"All my questions were answered," said Heather Migdon, a fifth-grade teacher at Nalle Elementary in Southeast. "I feel better about things." Migdon said that she wasn't concerned about the sparse turnout, and that it was to be expected with teachers still scattered on vacation and the last-minute notice (the gathering was called yesterday afternoon).

Instead of getting mad, signing on to nebulous groups like “strong schools,” why not actually approach the union in a more constructive way? They represent teachers. They are the voice of teachers in all negotiations. So, why not be more active and proactive with the union?

I’ve been thinking about this because of comments left on a previous post of mine. What struck me about Peter Poer’s comments wasn’t his support of Strong Schools (he’s a member and listed on their website) or that he’s an alumnus of Teach for America, it was that he noted this:

First, you write that Teacher have a voice in the negotiations -- their union. As a member in good standing with the WTU, I have not once been asked my opinion about the new contract. There have been no surveys, phone polls, emails, or any other means of communication between the WTU and me in which my opinion was asked for. How can the WTU claim to represent me if they don't know my opinion? The teachers who are working for Strong Schools DC are all teachers in DCPS, and therefore their voices are just as important as the voices coming from the unions.

To which I replied:

If "good standing" means that you pay your dues, then your voice isn't being heard because you aren't speaking up.

This holds true for all unions, but it holds doubly true for those of you out there who hate paying dues because you’re anti-union or don’t feel the union represents you, individually. If you feel this way, do something about it, again, from Peter’s comments:

I would also point out that teachers in DC must be represented by the WTU, whether they want to be or not.

Snip

Fundamentally, my problem is that the WTU leadership frequently makes decisions that I disagree with, and I have no other option but to deal with those decisions. If the union operated as an unbiased body that truly reflected the opinions of all of its members, then this would be fine.

Here’s the issue, Peter and perhaps 8 other DCPS teachers feel as if the union is not representing them. If there are more DC teachers out there happy or sad about the way the negotiations are going, they don’t seem to be communicating those feelings to the general public, so I’m assuming (and you know what they say about assumptions) that they are making their concerns and feelings known to the WTU, privately. This includes my forwarding of the exchanges with Peter over to WTU leadership (all of them) currently listed on the staff page. And in an effort to improve communications, if I get a response, I’ll post it here. If I receive no response, then I have to find that Peter’s other comments:

Feeling like I should put more effort into communicating with the union, I went to the website (www.wtulocal6.org). I should mention that, although I have never attended a union meeting, I've also never been asked to attend a union meeting. I have attended the meetings at my school, but these are infrequent and don't tend to discuss much actual union business. Anyway, looking at the website, there is no place to find information about when/where meetings take place. I have never received an email or letter telling me when meetings are.

I’d like to think this is an issue isolated to DC, however, another reader who is also in a teacher’s union in another state said this:

I love your site, especially reading about the DC teachers, Michelle Rhee and DC Voice, and could stay on it all day.

Though I am definitely pro-union, and have been a union member most of my life, I find that my union is unresponsive and undemocratic -- even unethical in certain areas. My main goal is to get the union to institute a list serve or an online bulletin board so that members can communicate with each other. Of course, I have larger goals for unions and our country, in general. But this goal is so basic and so ignored by most people in labor that I want to focus on that. If you have any suggestions and I can get this one little (but huge) thing done, then I will have psychic and other energies freed up to do the bigger stuff.

Is this an issue with AFT or is this a local’s issue? The fact that it’s teachers e-mailing me and leaving comments about this has me thinking that this is isolated to teachers and at this point, the new leadership at AFT has really got its work cut out for it.

To Peter and my other readers, I know it can be frustrating and you can feel like you aren’t being heard, but you are. It might just take more time to move your organizations toward the kind of communications you want to see and have and on that note, let me know how I can help. And WTU, send me a note and I’ll post it. Communication is a two way street and if your site isn’t getting the job done, then drop me a line and we’ll help.

In Solidarity- bendygirl

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Negotiating as a group isn’t easy. As individuals we often can want things that are in our own bet interest but not necessarily in the interest of the entire union. Case in point are the current negotiations underway with the Washington Teacher’s Union (an AFT member union) and Michelle Rhee.

Rhee is offering some interesting proposals. Currently, teachers are “tenured” after 2 years of service. Tenure means specific grievance rights, priority in new assignments (transferring or staying in specific schools), new assignments or sometimes after school programs (this depends on the school district and I’m not positive this is part of DC’s tenuring), etc..: Basically, what we’re talking about here is that you can’t just be fired if you don’t get along with the principal or if the kids in your class have behavior issues, don’t show up or fail (and there are combinations of these factors). So, here’s what is being reported in the Post about Rhee’s offer:

Under the "red" option offered by Rhee, teachers could retain tenure rights in exchange for a 28 percent raise over five years.

Under the "green" option, the annual salary and bonuses for a teacher with five years of experience could go from $46,500 to as much as $101,000 by 2010. Pay for a teacher with 10 years of service could jump from $56,200 to as much as $122,500.

Okay, that doesn’t really seem all that bad. It’s an interesting approach, however the Post goes on to note this:

But in exchange for a pay schedule that would make D.C. teachers among the best-paid public school instructors in the country, they would have to spend a year on probation, exposing them to the possibility of being fired.

Probation. What she’s looking to do here is removed teachers who are not performing but what does that mean?

- Does it mean that the kids aren’t coming to class?
- That they’re in the school but not in class?
- Does this mean that kids are not meeting their “yearly progress” for No Child Left Behind?
- Does it mean that the teacher who has 30 kids who have good study habits is competing with teachers who have 18 kids with terrible habits? How will kids be assigned to these classes?
-Will they be putting high performing kids in one class while sticking the “under performing” teacher with the under performing students?
-Will classes be co-mingled with excellent students and poor students?

I suppose I have a lot of questions, huh?

I think this really is the crux of the problem, there is no formula.

As a teacher, you don’t have the ability to cherry pick your students. After years of service, in other districts, kids are often tracked to have high performing kids singled out and teachers with more tenure are able to request those classes. If you do not get on with the principal at your school, you may also be saddled with students who come from difficult backgrounds where education is not cared about and where school is treated like a kids dumping ground.

I’m talking from experience here. Not as a teacher but as a parent of a child that grew up in DC public, Cleveland public and Richfield public schools.

I’ve had the very great experience of being a part of my kid's education. A partner with the teachers and administrators in the Cleveland and Minnesota schools, but in DCPS, it felt as if the teachers didn’t get the support they needed, the administrators didn’t get the resources they needed and where children roamed the halls all day, disrespecting the teachers, staff and administrators not to mention all the parents that happened by the school.

Cleveland is an urban district that happened to be in State receivership the year my daughter attended. There were 35 kindergarteners in my daughter’s class. When she went to Green Elementary, she was 1 of 18 students in her 2nd grade class. And yet, her kindergarten class had parent volunteers and an assistant teacher. For a winter program during the day, we filled the auditorium despite the broken seats. At Green in DC, for open house and conference days, I was usually 1 of 2 parents to show up despite night time events as well as day time.

In Minnesota, every parent showed up to the open house and we were reminded that there were a lot of volunteers signed up to be room parents and that maybe we should think of another way to participate in school, they simply had too many to accommodate all of us.

At Green, my daughter was spit on, threatened, kicked, pushed, pulled, hair pulled and all around bullied. She’d tell the teachers and playground monitors, but there were so many of these instances that her best solution was to simply stay near the teachers. She began volunteering for lunch duty so that she wouldn’t have to go outside.

I was forced to pull my child from DCPS and send her over to a charter school when her principal was beaten by 2 fourth graders. They broke an arm and at least one rib of this man in his 50’s. Even when she went back to DCPS for 8th grade (our charter school had no science education and the DCPS school did), I had to fight tooth and nail to get her into Algebra and advanced English courses. At Jefferson, they told me that they didn’t divide kids based on their abilities, however, she was in a class of kids who taunted her, where several had criminal records and would walk out on class in the middle of a lecture. Her history teacher and science teacher strongly suggested that I get her into a different class grouping because she needed to be with better students who were advanced. I was able to only get one of the classes changed, English, and I made arrangements with the teachers to allow her to come in for lunch time tutoring to keep her on grade level.

All of the issues that I’ve experienced at DCPS haven’t been issues related to teaching. Every one of the teachers my daughter had were good, dedicated people. What I ran into were parents who treated the school system like a babysitter, playground or dumping ground. Parents who didn’t come to the school except to register the kids. Until Rhee can come up with a plan to re-invest parents in their kids, I’m not sure how you’re going to be able to make a difference in the lives of these kids. As if stands now, tenure seems like the only thing available to make it worth being a teacher at DCPS and giving it up, just doesn’t seem to be worth the overall cost of losing it.

"The tenure issue is what provides due process, and that's what makes it so important to our members," Parker said.

On this point, I totally agree with Parker.

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“NCLB has outlived whatever usefulness it ever had. Conceived by accountants, drafted by lawyers, and distorted by ideologues, it is too badly broken to be fixed.”

I couldn’t agree more with Randi Weingarten in her remarks delivered in Chicago.

Randi Weingarten, the new president of the American Federation of Teachers, declared war on the No Child Left Behind Act in her speech to delegates today, saying it has become, for many members, “a four-letter word.”

Wow, did you catch that? The New president of the American Federation of Teachers at her conference speech.

Did you notice? No?

Randi Weingarten is, well, SHE’S A WOMAN.

It’s TRUE and she’s not the only one, either!!

The top 3 posts at AFT are now held by women, and I love it!! Take the short mini-bio-paragraphs in the Chicago Tribune:

Lorretta Johnson was reading to her kids and others in the library of a mostly black Baltimore elementary school when she decided to ask for a job helping teachers. That was over 40 years ago.

About the same time, Antonia Cortese wasn't sure if she wanted school work. But she gave it a chance, starting out as an elementary school teacher and social worker in a poor rural district near her upstate New York home.

Over 20 years ago Randi Weingarten quit a cushy Wall Street lawyer's job to do legal work for the New York City teachers union. Wanting to know what it was like in the classroom, she took a part-time job teaching social studies at a largely black and Latino high school in Brooklyn.

These are amazing women. Women who wanted to make a difference and in doing so, moved toward the union, not away. In that move toward being unionists, they worked to make the lives of kids and their families better as well as the lives of teachers and teaching para-professionals (often called teaching assistants).

Not only have these women moved toward their roles in the union, including their own personal leadership role, but they are the first to lead a major union. Again, from the Chicago Tribune:

Their election would mark the first time three women will hold top positions in a union whose membership is more than 70 percent female. Similarly, no other major union in the U.S. has such a female-driven leadership, AFT officials point out.

And somehow, we still aren’t done yet. Again, from the Chicago Tribune:

As for the union's future, all three women talk of signing up more early childhood workers, paraprofessionals and charter school workers. They talk of stepping up the union's political activities so that schools get support from state and local lawmakers.

They also want to expand teachers' roles in their own professional groups.

One issue for Weingarten is helping workers deal with discrimination.

After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, for example, she felt a drop-off in women serving in top union positions in the New York City area. Her only explanation was that the tragedy triggered a harkening back to "more traditional roles."

She faced her own fears about discrimination when she announced at a public meeting in New York City last October that she was gay.

"I never hid my sexuality, but I never talked about it," she said.

She had hesitated, she explained, because "the things that most people are afraid of, I was afraid of too."

Much to her pleasure, the response, she said, was overwhelmingly supportive.

So, not only do we have these amazing women leading a huge union, but one of them is also an openly gay woman who makes as one of her goals to ensure that workers no longer face discrimination?! OMG!! This is FREAKING AWESOME!

It’s thrilling to see this sort of enthusiasm and excitement about the work of organizing and ensuring the rights of the membership as well as empowering these same workers to establish links in the communities in which they serve along the lines of services that I recall having at school when I was growing up. From the New York Times (login may be required)

Ms. Weingarten >snip< lays out a “new vision of schools for the 21st century.”

“Can you imagine a federal law that promoted community schools — schools that serve the neediest children by bringing together under one roof all the services and activities they and their families need?” Ms. Weingarten is expected to ask in the speech, a copy of which was provided by the union to The New York Times. “Imagine schools that are open all day and offer after-school and evening recreational activities, child care and preschool, tutoring and homework assistance,” the speech reads. “Schools that include dental, medical and counseling clinics”

>snip<

Ms. Weingarten’s speech says, “Sisters and brothers, this is an idea whose time has come.

“Imagine if schools had the educational resources children need to thrive, like smaller classes and individualized instruction, plentiful, up-to-date materials and technology anchored to that rich curriculum, decent facilities, an early start for toddlers and a nurturing atmosphere,” she says.

>snip<

“We all have to work tenaciously to eliminate the achievement gap and to turn around low-performing schools. But the folks who believe that this can all be done on teachers’ shoulders, which is what No Child tries to do, are doing a huge disservice to America.”

Leadership, mission, and the vision to get it done, I think this pretty much sums up Antonia Cortese, Lorretta Johnson and the new AFT President, Randi Weingarten. I’m so excited to see what these accomplished, activist, unionist women can do for AFT, America and the labor movement. Tall order, huh? But these are women with the kind of shoulders to carry this burden and excel at it!!

Congratulations AFT! Congratulations!!

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