I posted about the "Virtual Voucher bill" a couple of weeks ago. I was able to listen to the committee hearing for the bill yesterday, which went much longer than I expected.
Committee hearings are the background nitty-gritty of the legislature where 95% of the meaningful debate and education about bills occurs. Fewer legislators are present; those legislators have more leeway to ask questions and read supporting evidence about the bills; they have been in that ongoing committee and usually have more background and expertise on the subject matter than the legislature as a whole; and the public is allowed to comment which usually brings in further expertise and perspective not possible in the stilted parliamentary procedure of the legislative floor meetings tightly controlled by the Senate President and Speaker of the House. The floor debate usually just repeats talking points as a matter of course, very rarely actually changing anyone's mind. In the majority of debates, everyone already knows if the bill will pass or fail before it is brought before the body.
So the committee hearings are the place to get good background and info about a proposed bill. You can listen to the audio of the Feb. 8, 2011 meeting of the Senate Education Committee here.
However, it is over 90 minutes long. My notes will probably take you 10-15 minutes to read and cover all of the main points. They are definitely not perfect and I especially apologize to anyone's name I butchered. I listened to the hearing live and just tried to keep up as I took notes. If anyone feels my summarization misrepresents what someone said, let me know and I'll go back and listen.
I inserted a few comments of my own as I typed and a couple afterward as I looked over the notes. They are in brackets. Realize that there are two senators with similar names on the Senate Education Committee. Howard Stephenson is the sponsor of the bill. Jerry Stevenson is another member of the committee. My shorthand for their names will make sense if you know that.
My notes:
[Annoying because starts late with no warning, missed first part of Sen. Stephenson's comments.]
Stephenson - Some book says high school families will demand better than current.
Claims 3 time teacher of the year John Taylor Gotto said NY schools were intentionally designed for mediocrity because business bosses were threatened by social mobility and need for labor. System hurts kids. We can learn from that. We can respect learning styles much better than before.
Current factory model puts 30 kids in a cubicle and one adult trying to pour knowledge uniformly into different minds. Howard Gardner, multiple intelligences, no bell curve of intelligence. More efficient to teach to middle, bore some, lose some. Instead 3-D bell that is impossible for one teacher to reach. We can now respect diff styles through online learning. Brain research shows that self-directed learning is more rapid and deep than otherwise. Research in seminars. Synapses of brain connect when we make a choice and become a permanent connection when we receive feedback if we are correct or incorrect. If no feedback, synapses withdraw as if connection were never made. We need to provide immediate interactive feedback. Piaget said anyone could be highly proficient in math and science with immediate feedback. [A teacher online with no class size limit cannot provide this. A software program can only provide concrete answers and can't help much with process. Writing software is a joke.] Today it can be provided by computer. Tech is available today, bit not in classroom. Lack of vision for using these modern tools.
This bill allows students to get online instruction. Online provider is paid 60% at beginning of course, and 40% when student tests proficient. [Multiple choice tests?? Given by provider? Or will CRT be test?] We're trying to scale this in a reasonable way and not just open floodgates because we don't know how many will apply. So 2 credits available ion first year and more each year until reach 6 credits. Portion paid up front and remainder as competency proven.
Niederhauser asks for more explanation of provisions of bill.
Steph -- Definitions on pg. 4. Pg. 5 purposes of the program. Pg. 6 Option to enroll and phased scaling of program so ultimately option for student to get all credit through online means. this doesn't take away from fact there are established online schools. They will have to compete with other providers. Those I’ve talked with welcome the competition be/c can provide for other students that only want 1 or 2 course rather than whole year. Requirement for online providers to be authorized by law, State Office of Ed. Must be certified by State Board. Standards for online course providers. Then payment process. 60% up front, rest as competencies are proven. pg. 9 Plan for payment also identified. Requirement for course credit to be recognized. Then administrative things. Then we want to require a report on online course providers so we have transparency who is performing. Make available to public to decide who they want. Rule making by State board of Ed. Legislature will review results as ongoing.
Niederhauser acting as chair-- About 15 public people to talk about bill.
Superintendent Shumway -- I'm a strong believer that direction of this bill is the right direction. I appreciate intentions of sponsor. Is their a fiscal note? Or do you have any idea what it might be?
Steph: Not yet. I don't think it will be significant b/c not new funding. Takes current funding of students in schools.
Shumway: I met w/ Sen. Stephenson prior to meeting and discussed bill a lot. Primary area I hope Stephenson will be open to change is phasing language. To provide time to deal with problems I didn't anticipate. There are many options for phasing. I really hope you will be open to that discussion before going to floor.
Steph: I'm open. Currently, it was meant to not open floodgates. Dr. Shumway suggested to me with another way of phasing it. Maybe start w/ few districts and few providers.
Shumway: As my staff and I, I see significant rule-making and monitoring and support necessary. I want to do it in way that doesn't constrain intention of the bill to provide more online opportunity but provide for quality.
J Stevenson - I don't like idea of limiting, but I see necessity of making it not a burden on dept. of ed.
Shumway: I spoke with staff. Long line of things to be resolved: FERPA, transfers, special ed. Not to throw down roadblocks, but to work together on implementation.
Steph: This bill puts burdens on board to plow new ground with rules. 2 ways to get publicly funded school now: Online high school at state office and charter schools. I'm hoping we can expand as drastically as possible these opportunities. I believe making them make rules respects their constitutional prerogative to make rules over education.
Ashley Hanson: Student at open high school - I really love this school. Teachers, activities, getting to know people. Teachers email me back in 10 min. I can see my grades easily. Nied: All courses online? Ashley: Yes: Nied: When? Ash: Most of day until about 3:00.
Mother and teacher: My son went to 9th grade charter school in N. Utah, New Aims school. Sounded great. Big problem in first week with bussing. The charter school had to bus students from certain distance b/c was public school. [This seems fishy to me. Charter schools don’t have to bus students now. Have they ever?] Was a hard issue. If this is a charter school, taking public funds, is school responsible to provide internet access, computers, laptops, etc.? What if student wants online class and can't use school computer lab? Will online high schools be responsible for internet access and computers with certain specifications?
J Stevenson: New Aims is by Davis District and very successful.
Mom: They fell under state laws that they didn't understand.
Leslie Phillips, mother and electronic high school 4-yr teacher, 20-yr teacher overall: Teachers at elec high school have been discussing strengths and weaknesses of bill. I brought handout and summary of our concerns. I think one of the keys to online ed working is relationship w/ schools. We have great relationship w/ schools b/c we don't charge them. they provide computers, admin and counseling support. We share curric. Aims and Granite using our curric. If you take us out of service role and put us in competition w/ districts and schools, will hurt support and mean fewer opps to students. Example. I teach English 12, half are juniors who want to grad early encouraged by counselors. Law says can't discourage, but provides incentives to not encourage. Rigor of curric will also suffer. I teach eng and class is tough. My 1st duty is to students. But bring in for profit orgs and their duty is to share holders. 16-yr-olds will choose between easy and quality. For profit will play to those consumers and water down curriculum.
J Stevenson - Sen Stephenson has expressed worries about completion rates. Reason for 60 up front, but 40 after. What is elec high school completion rate?
Leslie - I don't know. Principal is here, she can tell you.
Kathleen Webb, prin of elec high school: Depends what you mean. In some online environments, they don't count students until in for a month., count all grades, including F as completion. We have in past measured since day in class, and whether they receive a credit. From 20% to 50%. If count as other online high schools, our grad rate would be higher.
J Stev: H Steph, what is your definition of credit?
H Steph: Get a credit.
J Stev: Based on that, what is rate %?
Webb: I don't know grad rate. We don't track that. About 7,000 students received funding last year.
Stev: That's uncomfortable.
Nied: Do you want to speak? No. How are you funded then?
Webb: We're a line item in budget. We received 3,000 FTE's. All courses of all students adds up to about 600 full-time students.
Jackie Warren w/ 14-yr-old daughter: My 14-yr-old daughter is in 9th grade. 6th grade honors after home school. Skipped 7th grade and went to 8th. She is in 9th. Her counselor suggested she go to online ed b/c she is too advanced. She is very frustrated w/ education system. She has ideas how to better school system in USA.
Nied: She should be legislator. (Laughs)
Warren: She's on her way. She wants to be a JAG officer in Marine Corp and go into politics form there. She has issues in school b/c 12th grade reading and comprehension level. 9th and 11th grade students don't know the word sarcastic. These students don't belong in school system. They don't know meaning of redundant or sarcastic. When counselor comes to me, that your student is too advanced, so go to online system, after I came to USA from Australia, which was bad--So we need online b/c US system is screwed up and we should go for it. But current bill doesn't allow that.
Female - ______ Meyer student: We are not currently retaining enough knowledge. Onoine school will help retain better, help slower do well and advanced accelerate, we should do it.
Laura Belnap, Principal of Online school Washington District: online ed for 9 years, my kids have used elec high school and other things, purchased software. Online ed is a complement to traditional. Traditional school is all or nothing, no options. Need flexibility, esp in cash-strapped system. Wonderful Bountiful photography teacher cut b/c of funding. Could do online. Provides options, ed w/o boundaries, but stable parameters. Online ed is no longer cutting edge, is now mainstream and probably the future. Thanks Sen Stephenson.
Elaina Tonks, direc of Open High School, one of 2 online charter schools: Misperception--charter schools are public schools. I take many calls from parents wishing one or two classes, especially health and biology classes. Schedules make this hard. Many advanced students don't fit into factory ssetem. Many others want a slower pace. We can leverage tech promise and meet the needs of every single student. At our school, we focus on student as individual. We have choices in every phase of our life. Can choose Harmans over Smiths, cars, gas, etc. Students and parents deserve to have a say in how their child is educated. Students deserve access to best courses and teachers. We put our stakeholder's report in handout w/ grad rates, scores, etc.
Kelly Broadbent, parent of Open High School student, former teacher, board member of school: My son Nathan had stumbling blocks in last school. Needed diff approach. This school provided a teacher who can individualize instruction. Teachers are inventive and passionate. Exciting. No busty work, every assignment has purpose. [She is reading a sales pitch...She likes it, but brother.] Get skills not offered at school, slower or faster paced courses. This bill would allow more flexibility and best time of day and day of week. More opps to learn and grow.
Former superintendent, Patty Harrington: I represent self, not school boards assoc. today. - I also love tech. We don't have enough in public system. We need to improve. I love parts of this bill. An interim study of WPU funding. What about students who go to school and do online after and use more than 1 WPU? Like planned site to connect providers, including private providers. I have concerns. I want report, lines 270-284, about accountability of providers. Do we need districts to contract w/ private companies? Tracking requirements are laudable, but almost impossible. We need to look at it. Much is already happening. Elec high school, 2 charter schools Davis and Washington District we heard from. Private providers. Colleges provide. I have discussed with Steph frustration with credits from online schools not being accepted. This is a voucher bill giving public money to support private companies.
Some lady they know (UEA)? [Ends up being Sharon Gallagher-Fishbaugh]: Sen. Steph, appreciate passion for online ed and multiple intelligence. I heard in approp. committee this morning. Deaf and blind begging for money, K-3 reading begging, transportation begging. I'm concerned about money without funding basic program. Lines 260-267 = vouchers. Pay to private schools. Completion rates--what about students not completing? Would 60% already gone be returned to LEA's? WPU would be sent, my tax dollars out of state to online providers? No limits on class size. No way to monitor quality of services. In light of budget cuts, not expand a program when trying to keep basic, minimum services at this point.
Carry Valentine, parent: I heard this afternoon and raced down here. I have 3 students. 2 in school, Jr High and Elem. Fit public school mold. My other son is in Utah Virtual Academy and fits that mold very well. Would a student be enrolled concurrently in public and private school? We had to withdraw our son. That sounds like logistical nightmare to administer student in both. How would my tax dollars provide both? Would my tax dollars already increase? How divvy up? How is this different than what is already provided? Can purchase more or less privately. Parents provide $ currently, not public. In light of current budget situation, seems redundant to provide things already provided when cutting. Let's look at direction of public ed like universities. Provide online option along with classroom model.
Victor Shanti: Board qualified psychologist from U of U, parent of student both online charters, traditional schools, and private schools. My son was not being challenged, given false sense of compassion for African American student, low expectations. Machine didn't have that bias. 2 types. Machine ?'s and instantaneous feedback and person teaching via computer. He raised reading level in 6 months. Better expectations. Standards of proprietary schools not necessarily lower than public schools. Our school had high standards, tracking, success rate. I know there is a conflict between retention of employees which cost a lot. Leverage one employee through machines can save a lot of cost. We put him in charter school after machine learning, now he is not in lower quintile, but in middle range at traditional charter school. I favor bill and expansion of online ed.
Mother of 3 children in Utah Public system: I have read bill many times in last week. I am favor of online ed and all possible choices. There are legitimate concerns. This looks like system behind times and unnecessary. We already have quality online ed, not perfect, but offered and available. Current system works in conjunction with pub schools w/o competing for WPU's or other money. The limits would limit students making up credit initially. Current system allows. [Interrupted here] Something about limiting private and homeschool students.
This would open door to WPU going to private services by choice of student. I support choice, but not pub money going to private schools. Accounting would be confusing to districts, cause conflict. Stephenson says bill would allow choice. I think bill would hamper choice and complicate things. He also said $ to private entities. This is simply a voucher proposal.
Nied: Last 3 people allowed to speak.
Stan Rassmussen, Sutherland Inst. We support SB 65 to help families. Need customized and personalized ed. This describes online ed. Avoids other requirements of time or place. Allows parents primary control over education of children. Doesn't require parents to meet schools' terms. Not driven by adults. Student can take some online and some on site. Develop social skills while avoid social problems. Study found students in online schools as well socialized, and not significant differences in bad social behaviors. Focuses on student learning. Study shows discussion between teachers and parents is focused more on learning than trad schools.
Judi Clark, PCE director: We heard v-word thrown around with animosity. This is not voucher program. Several districts are using private providers already. That is a concern for establishment. Puts emphasis on individual needs and helps digital natives. We love that funding is extremely efficient. These precious dollars will go to provider of student choice. Rather than protect systems that are entrenched.
Person in red Shirt: David Salazar, student at OHSU, charter school: Me being able to work online. I only passed public school b/c teacher was sick of me b/c I was causing probs and ditching school. Now I can't do that. They notify parents right away when I don't finish work. Now I know computer tech, Skype. These teachers actually helped me. My other teachers wouldn't help me when I didn't put in the work. Better than public school. My teachers contact me every day and I get help right away.
Back to committee:
Sen. Thatcher - I think everyone understands that online is great for those who choose and can learn that way. My concern is how track completion online? I know some children do not have self-motivation to complete online. How know students actually getting ed we're paying for?
Sen. Stephenson - The tracking of completion rates under my bill would change current paradigm. Elec high school was uncertain how to define completion rates. Get paid for completion. Tracking will be pretty clear. I have confidence State Board will make good rules. Miss Gee [That’s what I heard…] from UEA wanted 60% back if student doesn't complete. I support that, but also for high schools. If students doesn't complete, then high school gives back money too. [choice people clap] That's answer to question.
Thatcher - If completion rate is so low? How educate?
Stephenson - Best to now pay 60% to allow staffing other things, etc. Future we can make it all dependent and refund all on completion.
Thatcher: People willing to educate on conditional basis?
Stephenson: Now online schools only get $2500 for WPU, when average student, including capital outlay, uses $8500. [DISHONEST use of numbers. Same as voucher debate. No school being built in Saratoga Springs has its locally bonded construction funds divvied up among the students of Utah. I don’t get the funding now. The online voucher kids will get more than the WPU??!] Providers want to compete. Only online school concerned is elec high school [Of two that testified]. They get a line item in budget. I supported online high school. Now it's time for them to get funded on merit. Students will start to review ratings of providers. They will check ratings about support, other things. Provides transparency for online education.
Thatcher - I'd love to see adjustment made in implementation timeline. Allow children to excel, move quickly, but balance burden on schools. I want you to continue to work with Superintendent Shumway.
J Stevenson - I like discussion today. This is direction of future. Knowing Steph will work with Sup. Shumway, I move this be passed to Senate floor.
Steph: Thanks for input. I will work with Sup. Shumway. I think some exceptions will be provided for students who thrive in this environment. Let them take more than 2 credits.
[I don’t think all classes can be transmitted and experienced online. English? History? Debate? Not same experience. The goal of college readiness will not be improved by online education, although it definitely has an important role. Relying on it to spend less $ on public education and make a philosophical voucher beachhead of transferring funds to private schools is the true goal here.]
Showing posts with label UEA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label UEA. Show all posts
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Sad, but true--I don't think teachers are very politically minded or generally mobilized to fight for important issues
This is a follow up to a previous post discussing whether education issues actually affect how people vote.
My two broad points:
1. Teachers generally do not follow the legislative session closely, do not contact their legislators about issues, and do not feel extremely comfortable arguing policies or even articulating their stories in public forums. This sometimes prevents legislators and the public from knowing the real picture of everyday teaching, the good and the bad of public education in Utah. That’s bad.
2. The corollary to point #1 is that teachers and the UEA are not some huge, powerful political machine as described by some legislators and commentators trying to portray themselves as the underdog or victim in disputes over education policy. (Much less the PTA. It always makes me shake my head that people try and argue that the PARENTS who would join a parent-teacher association would somehow be biased in favor of teachers in the supposed conflict of interest between teachers and students. People sign up for the PTA not because they want to be involved in their children’s school, but because they suddenly feel an untrustworthy longing to help teachers? Their $5 membership in PTA somehow makes them enemies of their own children? That’s stupid. The PTA on a local level is about as grassroots as it gets. Can’t you just admit that these people can honestly like their public schools and pursue policies strengthening those schools to benefit all students?) Sure, there’s a small politically active core of teachers in the UEA. Yes, there are individual teachers who are angry and individual teachers who are informed and politically active. But when they try and pawn off the voucher defeat as solely because of the UEA vote or blame legislative defeats on teachers, it’s a political strawman meant to energize those who have a negative view of public school teachers. That’s good…or to say, the understanding of that reality is good when legislators try the “pity poor me” defense when attacking public schools against the will of the electorate.
I have tried to follow local politics and especially education issues much more closely in the last year. Before, I think I was more like the typical teacher or person in general. I would be aware of big issues that showed up on the front page, but couldn't usually give you names, bill numbers, history of the conflict, etc. I knew more about some national issues than local issues and thought more about the presidential campaign than local elections.
I know other people and other teachers have similar feelings and it kind of makes me sad now that I see this huge disconnect between our state leadership's perception of public education and reality. We as teachers need to be talking to people and making our experiences known, but we get too busy. On the other hand, I totally understand. Like many good people, work takes a lot of time to do it well and we often want to spend time with family and pursue our outside interests in our limited free time. I have personally had a lot of difficulty balancing all of my responsibilities this summer.
Two examples of teachers I know and current education controversies in Utah:
First, I was talking to another teacher at a meeting in June soon after school ended. He is an excellent teacher, highly respected by students and teachers alike for being very effective at teaching his subject as well as making his classroom an inviting place to be. We were chatting before the meetings began and I asked him what he thought about the education omnibus bill. He had no idea what I was talking about. I believe that would hold true over the whole district—there would be more teachers who haven’t heard of the omnibus bill than who have.
Second, I was taking classes this summer with a bunch of highly motivated teachers seeking their Masters Degrees, and our small talk often consisted of educational issues. I didn't talk to all of them about it, but no one I spoke with had heard of the 20 million dollar merit pay bill that passed the legislature this last year. And as far as I know of my school's faculty, only the couple other guys I talk to about politics had heard about it as we started our meetings in August.
Teachers rarely if ever win political battles—the UEA or a sympathetic legislator might hold a press conference, the papers will cover it, a Dan Jones poll will reveal for the umpteenth time that Utahns in general support higher funding for public education, and…the legislature will still do whatever it wants and rarely suffer an election night defeat because of it. Or to repeat myself, here is part of a comment I made in the discussion of a post I wrote about the UEA (with one corrected typo):
My two broad points:
1. Teachers generally do not follow the legislative session closely, do not contact their legislators about issues, and do not feel extremely comfortable arguing policies or even articulating their stories in public forums. This sometimes prevents legislators and the public from knowing the real picture of everyday teaching, the good and the bad of public education in Utah. That’s bad.
2. The corollary to point #1 is that teachers and the UEA are not some huge, powerful political machine as described by some legislators and commentators trying to portray themselves as the underdog or victim in disputes over education policy. (Much less the PTA. It always makes me shake my head that people try and argue that the PARENTS who would join a parent-teacher association would somehow be biased in favor of teachers in the supposed conflict of interest between teachers and students. People sign up for the PTA not because they want to be involved in their children’s school, but because they suddenly feel an untrustworthy longing to help teachers? Their $5 membership in PTA somehow makes them enemies of their own children? That’s stupid. The PTA on a local level is about as grassroots as it gets. Can’t you just admit that these people can honestly like their public schools and pursue policies strengthening those schools to benefit all students?) Sure, there’s a small politically active core of teachers in the UEA. Yes, there are individual teachers who are angry and individual teachers who are informed and politically active. But when they try and pawn off the voucher defeat as solely because of the UEA vote or blame legislative defeats on teachers, it’s a political strawman meant to energize those who have a negative view of public school teachers. That’s good…or to say, the understanding of that reality is good when legislators try the “pity poor me” defense when attacking public schools against the will of the electorate.
I have tried to follow local politics and especially education issues much more closely in the last year. Before, I think I was more like the typical teacher or person in general. I would be aware of big issues that showed up on the front page, but couldn't usually give you names, bill numbers, history of the conflict, etc. I knew more about some national issues than local issues and thought more about the presidential campaign than local elections.
I know other people and other teachers have similar feelings and it kind of makes me sad now that I see this huge disconnect between our state leadership's perception of public education and reality. We as teachers need to be talking to people and making our experiences known, but we get too busy. On the other hand, I totally understand. Like many good people, work takes a lot of time to do it well and we often want to spend time with family and pursue our outside interests in our limited free time. I have personally had a lot of difficulty balancing all of my responsibilities this summer.
Two examples of teachers I know and current education controversies in Utah:
First, I was talking to another teacher at a meeting in June soon after school ended. He is an excellent teacher, highly respected by students and teachers alike for being very effective at teaching his subject as well as making his classroom an inviting place to be. We were chatting before the meetings began and I asked him what he thought about the education omnibus bill. He had no idea what I was talking about. I believe that would hold true over the whole district—there would be more teachers who haven’t heard of the omnibus bill than who have.
Second, I was taking classes this summer with a bunch of highly motivated teachers seeking their Masters Degrees, and our small talk often consisted of educational issues. I didn't talk to all of them about it, but no one I spoke with had heard of the 20 million dollar merit pay bill that passed the legislature this last year. And as far as I know of my school's faculty, only the couple other guys I talk to about politics had heard about it as we started our meetings in August.
Teachers rarely if ever win political battles—the UEA or a sympathetic legislator might hold a press conference, the papers will cover it, a Dan Jones poll will reveal for the umpteenth time that Utahns in general support higher funding for public education, and…the legislature will still do whatever it wants and rarely suffer an election night defeat because of it. Or to repeat myself, here is part of a comment I made in the discussion of a post I wrote about the UEA (with one corrected typo):
But that illustrates the true lack of power of the UEA (My point #1). They make a lot of noise and get news coverage...and what? Senator Dayton mentioned how mad she felt over the UEA's "paving over the backs of students" ad campaign a couple years ago. (The legislature assigned tons of surplus to transportation in '06 when polls and the UEA wanted more for education. I feel we direly need both and it's a tough call, but I definitely believe that many legislators have a personal grudge against education.) The legislature was pilloried in editorials and in polls, but the money still got assigned to roads, none of the Republicans got ousted (well, PCE picked off a few anti-voucher Republicans, but with other Republicans), and business went on as usual. Polls support giving more money to education all the time, but legislators know that doesn't translate to the ballot box. How many teachers are there compared with habitual Republicans like my dad? The UEA has some token influence and gets some publicity, but the public only got really mad and acted with the rich money grab of vouchers.The empirical evidence of my observations is the results of the elections so far this year. Behold the (non-)power of the education lobby! I wish that teachers and public education concerns did have more influence on some of these races, but right now we’re just one more loosely affiliated group of semi-frequent voters with little quantifiable power.
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
What else can I say? Brief comments on the omnibus fiasco, positive developments, and some live-blogging of the final 1:15 of the Senate floor debate
As I said last post, I'm just sad. I was talking to some people earlier when I was mad, but I just don't have the energy to express my anger adequately right now after 12 hours of teaching and attending my own class. So I'm copying two comments I made on other blogs and some wonderfully sarcastic comments from a UEA observer of the Senate debate on SB 2 and SB 281 yesterday.
The comments are on a couple of Republican blogs that are pretty open to constructive criticism if you keep the ranting to a decent tone. Here's my comment on the Senate Site, minus the name of another commenter I was responding to:
The next comment is from Representative Steve Urquhart's blog. I'm hoping he'll be blogging more after he recovers from tonight. My comment was on a post where Rep. Urquhart explained his democratic method of running the House Rules Committee, which was changed, apparently at Speaker Curtis' command, halfway through the session.
The following description comes from a UEA staffer attending the Tuesday, Mar. 5 Senate debate on the omnibus bills. I'm underlining some more interesting bits and adding a comment or two in brackets. A lot of villains and good guys here:
Positive Developments
I was not a big fan of Rep. Daw, but he showed some grit today in the SB 2 debate. He's a charter school supporter, but he called BS on the state's attempt to unethically resurrect another defeated bill, HB 278, via the omnibus bill and to pawn off the cost of charter schools on local school districts. The bill in effect said "We want to require charter schools, but we want the school districts to be the bad guys and raise taxes to actually pay for charter schools." Rep. Daw wasn't able to completely get rid of the bill, but he cut the impacts down to 1/4 of the original cost to districts.
I was listening to the live Senate session and lo and behold, Sen. Stephenson stood at 10:45 and announced that the house had substituted SB 281 and gotten rid of the million bucks for the ABCTE funding. Sen. Stephenson expressed an eagerness to secure the 20 million dollars in top-down merit pay, so he was willing to let go of the ABCTE for now. The bill eventually passed. I looked at the substitute and it was Representative Dougall who proposed it. The $20 million was still a surprise insult to teachers and Rep. Last's taskforce, but at least they will work with/lean on the districts in conjunction with how that money will be spent. The elimination of ABCTE is a victory against corporate crap disguised as "merit."
At 11:25, Senator Hickman inadvertently revealed the utter hypocrisy of the education omnibus bill when he commented how "disturbing" it was to see a bill that his committee had designated as a low priority, HB 3, pop up at the last minute. Where was his anger about Stephenson ramrodding three defeated bills into the omnibus bill? Senator Hickman was so mad that he really surprised me with a reference to the "black baby" controversy. He said something like "I won't quote Senator Buttars, but, uhhh, this is an ugly bill." Huh? As I type this, he is announcing that he won't run for re-election, so maybe he doesn't give a hang what people think.
An example of bad government:
The Senators were rushing through bills in the last few minutes when they received an amended SB 327 from the house. Sen. Neiderhauser requested an immediate vote concurring with the amendments. Another senator asked for clarification on the fiscal note because he had heard it had increased by millions. (Was this the millions for the bid by Speaker Curtis' client?) Sen. Neiderhauser had no idea... no idea, but he wanted it passed anyway. The second senator froze the process when he demanded the fiscal note. Ten minutes later, he waived his request, apparently in a concession to time, and then voted for the bill having no idea how many millions it cost. That's disappointing.
And the final bill that passed, literally at 11:59, was...dang, I think it was SB 41. The amended version... It was something about education from Senator Stephenson. Well there's what I think was maybe the last bill.
The comments are on a couple of Republican blogs that are pretty open to constructive criticism if you keep the ranting to a decent tone. Here's my comment on the Senate Site, minus the name of another commenter I was responding to:
[T]he legislature does not practice what it preaches in terms of local management. The recent audit of class size reduction money specifically found that the districts were using the money correctly, but that the money just hadn't kept up with growth.
The point is, the Republican leadership is playing games and pushing a corporate agenda rather than responsibly legislating. Senator Valentine calls the American Board program "tried and proven" in the press conference when their own website explains that it is a pilot program. It's a fly-by-night outfit that sells online courses. What lobbyist even put this organization on the radar? Maybe all the pro-voucher people on the board? It's just weird. That million dollars could go towards WPU which had been appropriately and efficiently used by districts.
Senator Stephenson pushes software as an alternative for class size reduction and family reading--the originally rejected HB 200 bill that gives laptops to preschoolers!--because he uncritically accepts what industry lobbyists tell him. Pushing these bills in a conglomerate is an attempt to avoid public and legislative scrutiny. Claiming that we or they can adequately evaluate all of the pieces of SB 2 in two days is a self-serving lie.
The Senators complain about "media bias" at town meetings and tell themselves that is why the public mistrusts them. Can't they see that it is their determination to push their corporate priorities over sound education funding that alienates us?
The next comment is from Representative Steve Urquhart's blog. I'm hoping he'll be blogging more after he recovers from tonight. My comment was on a post where Rep. Urquhart explained his democratic method of running the House Rules Committee, which was changed, apparently at Speaker Curtis' command, halfway through the session.
Wow. In my opinion, your amendment to HB 473 was one of the few sane things done by a Republican in the last week of the session. I saw you acting as Speaker for awhile today.
I'm still interested in anything you can say about the rules changes.
I'm even more interested in your opinion of the omnibus bill, especially the inclusion of three bills that had been voted down in committee. As a "process guy," why did you vote for the bill?
I am disillusioned and angry. I feel like the talk about moving on from vouchers was just talk and that the legislative leadership is pushing their agenda over good government. Even someone who supported all 12 of those bills should be angered by the lack of respect shown to the process and to public input.
The following description comes from a UEA staffer attending the Tuesday, Mar. 5 Senate debate on the omnibus bills. I'm underlining some more interesting bits and adding a comment or two in brackets. A lot of villains and good guys here:
SB 2, “Omnibus” Bill # 1, (Stephenson)
Sen. Stephenson introduced the bill as the “much heralded” omnibus bill which contains twelve separate education bills. He acknowledged that is it “unusual” for this many bills to be packaged together like this, but claims the purpose is to “reduce the confusion” that would result from the “coordinating clauses” that would be required were the bills to be run separately. (One has to wonder how it has been done in past years).
Sen. Jones pointed out that she has worked on her bill, (SB 61, Financial Literacy), for nine months, marshalling it through the entire legislative process, only to see it now sitting next to other bills that were rolled out late in the game, some not even having passed out of committees. “Next year, should I just wait until the last few days and hope that the ‘powers that be’ put my bill in an omnibus bill?”
Sen. McCoy offered an amendment that would eliminate the $3.5 million for HB 200, Early Childhood Learning (Last), because it failed in a House vote 31-37-7, saying, “I don’t think it’s right to ‘bootstrap’ bills that have been killed with other good bills”. Sen. Stephenson argued against the amendment, saying that it was a “close vote” in the House, and that if we can approve funding for Head Start, we can approve this bill”. (Never mind that he voted against Lou Shurtliff’s $100,000 appropriation bill for Head Start, as Sen Romero pointed out). The amendment failed along party lines. [What?! It was a close vote? So we shouldn't have had to waste all that time and money defeating the voucher bill because it only passed by one arm-twisted vote?]
Sen. McCoy then spoke out against going down the “omnibus bill road”, much like the federal government does, and expressed the “utmost confidence” in the ability of legislative staff to “coordinate” the different bills as they have successfully done for years.
Sen. Romero then offered an amendment to take the $5 million from SB 35 (Differentiated Pay for Teachers), and use it to fund Rep. Morgan’s HB 194 (Class Size Reduction). “We already have $6.9 million for math and science teachers . (HB 270), but my constituents overwhelmingly want smaller class sizes. This way we can do both, and this is a better policy decision”. Unfortunately, the amendment failed, but Sen. Romero requested a “call of the Senate” so that all senators had to vote to support class size reduction, …or not. Only Senators Greiner and Van Tassell joined the Democrats and voted to support the class size amendment.
The bill ultimately passed, with Senators Davis, Dmitrich, Fife, Goodfellow, Greiner, McCoy and Romero voting “No” in protest. Sen. Romero explained his vote by saying, “Yesterday we patted ourselves on the back for how well our state is managed, and today we pass an omnibus bill that contains seven bills we haven’t even discussed. I’m disappointed”. [Over half of the twelve bills stuck into the omnibus weren't even debated on the Senate floor. That is disgusting. Way to go Republican leadership!]
(Note: If you are the local contacts for the senators listed above, please thank them for their efforts to bring some common sense to this omnibus mess.”)
SB 281, “Omnibus” Bill #2, (Stephenson)
Sen. Stephenson introduced this bill by saying, “We’re asking school districts to develop ways to distribute money based on merit”. The bill also provides $5 million for “signing bonuses”, as well as $1 million for teachers who pursue American Board Certification of Teacher Excellence, or ABCTE. (Not to be confused with National Board Certification, or NBC)
Sen. Jones offered an amendment that would make those gaining NBC eligible for financial rewards as well, pointing out that there are 64,000 NBC teachers across the country compared to only 100 ABCTE “pilot program” teachers, and that NBC is recognized in all 50 states where ABCTE is not yet recognized by any state. (Perhaps the reason they came to Utah)
Sen. Stephenson argued against the amendment, claiming that ABCTE is focused on “student performance gains”, where NBC is “too focused on teacher training”. Sen. Madsen chimed in, saying that the ABCTE bill was “completely vetted”, and that, “I wouldn’t want this program watered down”. [Vetted by who? How do you "water down" a pilot program from a shady online teacher course provider? See my posts below.]
Even Sen. Hillyard asked, “Why not open the bill up to both NBC and ABC teachers?” Sen. Stephenson argued that, “NBC doesn’t look at student test scores. Only the ABC program does”. [So screw the taskforce and poor schools. We'll just push through payments for test scores with that determination made by out-of-state, voucher-supporting corporate donors.]
Positive Developments
I was not a big fan of Rep. Daw, but he showed some grit today in the SB 2 debate. He's a charter school supporter, but he called BS on the state's attempt to unethically resurrect another defeated bill, HB 278, via the omnibus bill and to pawn off the cost of charter schools on local school districts. The bill in effect said "We want to require charter schools, but we want the school districts to be the bad guys and raise taxes to actually pay for charter schools." Rep. Daw wasn't able to completely get rid of the bill, but he cut the impacts down to 1/4 of the original cost to districts.
I was listening to the live Senate session and lo and behold, Sen. Stephenson stood at 10:45 and announced that the house had substituted SB 281 and gotten rid of the million bucks for the ABCTE funding. Sen. Stephenson expressed an eagerness to secure the 20 million dollars in top-down merit pay, so he was willing to let go of the ABCTE for now. The bill eventually passed. I looked at the substitute and it was Representative Dougall who proposed it. The $20 million was still a surprise insult to teachers and Rep. Last's taskforce, but at least they will work with/lean on the districts in conjunction with how that money will be spent. The elimination of ABCTE is a victory against corporate crap disguised as "merit."
At 11:25, Senator Hickman inadvertently revealed the utter hypocrisy of the education omnibus bill when he commented how "disturbing" it was to see a bill that his committee had designated as a low priority, HB 3, pop up at the last minute. Where was his anger about Stephenson ramrodding three defeated bills into the omnibus bill? Senator Hickman was so mad that he really surprised me with a reference to the "black baby" controversy. He said something like "I won't quote Senator Buttars, but, uhhh, this is an ugly bill." Huh? As I type this, he is announcing that he won't run for re-election, so maybe he doesn't give a hang what people think.
An example of bad government:
The Senators were rushing through bills in the last few minutes when they received an amended SB 327 from the house. Sen. Neiderhauser requested an immediate vote concurring with the amendments. Another senator asked for clarification on the fiscal note because he had heard it had increased by millions. (Was this the millions for the bid by Speaker Curtis' client?) Sen. Neiderhauser had no idea... no idea, but he wanted it passed anyway. The second senator froze the process when he demanded the fiscal note. Ten minutes later, he waived his request, apparently in a concession to time, and then voted for the bill having no idea how many millions it cost. That's disappointing.
And the final bill that passed, literally at 11:59, was...dang, I think it was SB 41. The amended version... It was something about education from Senator Stephenson. Well there's what I think was maybe the last bill.
Monday, February 4, 2008
Why Good Teachers Can Disagree About the Direct $2500 Pay Raise
Teachers are for the most part hardworking, caring people who want to serve their students while still providing for their families. However, they are nowhere near the monolithic, reflexive voting block the UEA haters decry. They unite against obvious attacks on public education like vouchers, but otherwise represent diverse philosophies and stages in life. This is no different than any profession. For example, podiatrists, plastic surgeons, and general practice physicians face similar challenges with schooling, high insurance rates, and balancing costs, but don’t all agree on every law, regulation, and medical practice. They have different opinions and interests depending on their area of specialization, place they live, family background, time in the profession, religion, and individual personalities. And that is a good thing. Different points-of-view are important to healthy democracy and debate. In Alpine District, the teachers reflect the population and are generally conservative Republicans, but each teacher’s individual circumstances and stage of life differ.
In the papers and at the legislator Q&A session I attended at Cherry Hills Elementary in Orem, the legislators have been trying to use those differences as wedges to fracture the occasional unity of teachers against their pet proposals like vouchers or merit pay. Last year, the legislature allocated a $2500 dollar raise and a one-time $1000 bonus for all teachers. That money really helped my family and I appreciated it. They put the money directly into salary, bypassing the normal process of increasing the amount of the WPU which is allocated per-student to the districts which then negotiate salary and benefits with the local unions. The UEA opposed this top-down measure.
The traditional route would end up in a percentage increase across the board for all salaries. A 7% WPU increase would likely end up as a 5% or 6% increase in salaries, not counting benefits. So a salary of $30,000 with a 5% raise would increase $2100, while a salary of $55,000 would increase $3850. Instead, the $2500 increase this year represented an 8% increase in my base salary and only a 4% increase for my colleague who has been teaching for 25 years.
At the Cherry Hills meeting, the legislators explained their support of the direct raises with claims that the money they allocated to salary “wasn’t getting to the end of the row” and that the districts couldn’t account for the money they gave them. These claims were misleading at best—see my previous post about admin. costs and audit results. They also explained to us how the UEA officials were opposed to the direct raises because they were all senior teachers and wanted the money for themselves. (There was no mention of senior leadership pressure on new legislators causing them to break explicit campaign promises or face all of their bills getting tabled. i.e. Rep. Sandstrom) The constant UEA bashing I detailed in my notes on the meeting shows the true game of the legislators. They are angry that the UEA organization provided the framework for the referendum signature gathering and raised funds to oppose the voucher bill. If teachers can be pitted against each other or the union, it dilutes the power of their opposition on important education bills. They’re getting something right for the wrong reasons.
We had some interesting discussions about the issue at lunch when we heard a similar proposal was in the works for this year, and I have spent quite a bit of time discussing the ramifications of the new raises with my aforementioned colleague. Seeing some of the issues from his point-of-view has helped me understand the complexity of all these issues and how compensation is inextricably tied to the healthcare system.
Being a teacher on the bottom half of the totem pole, I obviously really liked the direct raise on a purely personal level. It allowed us to put more money into my IRA and make some needed home improvements. The decision can also be justified for the profession in terms of attracting and retaining quality teachers. A teacher doesn’t go into the profession with the same mentality as someone going into business, but they do require some stability and the ability to provide for their family’s future. We’d be in deep trouble if teaching were only feasible for second earners in two-earner families as some have suggested. So I figure the $2500 increase is still an increase for the older teachers who are more financially stable, and that it will help the new teachers who need it most.
The “greedy” senior teachers have legitimate concerns about their pay when some circumstances are considered.
First, expenses of all sorts increase along with salary as your family grows and grows up. College alone has spawned an entire financial industry dedicated to paying for higher education and those expenses have increased at a rate triple or quadruple the rate of inflation. Teachers deserve the ability to plan for their children’s education. Undeniable point granted.
Second, people are living longer and retirement costs, especially healthcare, are increasing. My colleague gave me a copy of his first salary schedule in the Alpine district from 1983-84. A teacher with 30 years of experience and a Master’s degree made just under $25,000 a year. Since retirement money is based on years worked and previous salary, a teacher who retired after that year would receive a pension of about $15,000 a year. This obviously seemed at least reasonable at the time. If they had been prudent and had their house paid off, they could probably have gotten along just fine. But what if that person were still alive today, 25 years later? People commonly live into their 80’s and beyond now. Property taxes and normal living expenses don’t end. Living without insurance isn’t a reasonable option and an independent policy can be upwards of $10,000. What if they need to live in a nursing home? What if that stay is for a period of years? What if they require major surgery or medical devices such as wheel chairs? The healthcare crisis looms over anyone considering the years after retirement.
My colleague’s elderly mother receives care at a facility that costs $5000 a month. Her roommate and her husband are facing the necessity of using their house as collateral for Medicaid coverage so that the wife can continue receiving care at the nursing home. They’ll literally have nothing when they die. My colleague deals with his mother’s care weekly and often talks with that other couple, keeping his possible future financial needs fresh in his mind. What seems like a secure retirement now could look just as meager in 25 years as that $15,000 seems now. Teachers nearing retirement have a natural and understandable interest in maximizing their earnings now as every dollar translates into more security in retirement.
An argument can be made criticizing these teachers for overdependence on government retirement (though it would be awfully hypocritical coming from legislators…). I think this would be legitimate criticism of my generation, but you have to see where the teachers near retirement age are coming from. The stock market was widely viewed as speculative, risky, and beyond the abilities of individual investors as recently as the 1980’s. The retirement wisdom and mentality of the older generation counted on a stable pension to get through their retirement years as a matter of course. We can prepare the teachers my age to invest individually, but we can’t pull the rug out cold turkey from under thousands of teachers for following what was regarded as the prudent retirement path. Those teachers, along with everyone else of that age, just didn’t have the same resources we do now. Without the internet, investment information and competitive investment options weren’t easily accessible to a common worker. You couldn’t just pop into Vanguard online, check yields, see fund descriptions, and open up an IRA through an online funds transfer. The paradigm has changed now, but there’s still a steep learning curve to investment and savings as we can see in the financial news every day.
In addition, teachers retiring now and receiving pensions weren’t getting those higher salaries, and thus saving, for long. They made significantly less money as beginning teachers than I do. I was surprised to find out how many current teachers’ families qualified previously for free or reduced school lunches, sometimes for over a third of the teacher’s career. There wasn’t spare money to save and they missed out on a lot of years of compound interest.
Now, having said all that, I still think the current direct raises are a good thing. The new teacher shortage and huge initial investment needed to get a house are probably even more pressing than post-retirement benefits and the smaller raise still helps all teachers. Though, as my friend says, I’ll definitely have a different perspective in 20 years as I face my own medical problems and my family grows up needing more clothes, orthodontics, car insurance, etc. We can disagree without assigning selfish motives to each other.
The real solution lies in increased pay across the board to help secure both new and old teachers. Legislative motives don’t look good when they resort to untrue statements of cost and blame to justify the direct raises. The money IS flowing to teachers; it just hasn’t been that much historically. Trying to pit teachers against each other and delegitimize the unions as partners in education through bypassing traditional negotiations smacks of an ax to grind rather than true concern for teachers.
In the papers and at the legislator Q&A session I attended at Cherry Hills Elementary in Orem, the legislators have been trying to use those differences as wedges to fracture the occasional unity of teachers against their pet proposals like vouchers or merit pay. Last year, the legislature allocated a $2500 dollar raise and a one-time $1000 bonus for all teachers. That money really helped my family and I appreciated it. They put the money directly into salary, bypassing the normal process of increasing the amount of the WPU which is allocated per-student to the districts which then negotiate salary and benefits with the local unions. The UEA opposed this top-down measure.
The traditional route would end up in a percentage increase across the board for all salaries. A 7% WPU increase would likely end up as a 5% or 6% increase in salaries, not counting benefits. So a salary of $30,000 with a 5% raise would increase $2100, while a salary of $55,000 would increase $3850. Instead, the $2500 increase this year represented an 8% increase in my base salary and only a 4% increase for my colleague who has been teaching for 25 years.
At the Cherry Hills meeting, the legislators explained their support of the direct raises with claims that the money they allocated to salary “wasn’t getting to the end of the row” and that the districts couldn’t account for the money they gave them. These claims were misleading at best—see my previous post about admin. costs and audit results. They also explained to us how the UEA officials were opposed to the direct raises because they were all senior teachers and wanted the money for themselves. (There was no mention of senior leadership pressure on new legislators causing them to break explicit campaign promises or face all of their bills getting tabled. i.e. Rep. Sandstrom) The constant UEA bashing I detailed in my notes on the meeting shows the true game of the legislators. They are angry that the UEA organization provided the framework for the referendum signature gathering and raised funds to oppose the voucher bill. If teachers can be pitted against each other or the union, it dilutes the power of their opposition on important education bills. They’re getting something right for the wrong reasons.
We had some interesting discussions about the issue at lunch when we heard a similar proposal was in the works for this year, and I have spent quite a bit of time discussing the ramifications of the new raises with my aforementioned colleague. Seeing some of the issues from his point-of-view has helped me understand the complexity of all these issues and how compensation is inextricably tied to the healthcare system.
Being a teacher on the bottom half of the totem pole, I obviously really liked the direct raise on a purely personal level. It allowed us to put more money into my IRA and make some needed home improvements. The decision can also be justified for the profession in terms of attracting and retaining quality teachers. A teacher doesn’t go into the profession with the same mentality as someone going into business, but they do require some stability and the ability to provide for their family’s future. We’d be in deep trouble if teaching were only feasible for second earners in two-earner families as some have suggested. So I figure the $2500 increase is still an increase for the older teachers who are more financially stable, and that it will help the new teachers who need it most.
The “greedy” senior teachers have legitimate concerns about their pay when some circumstances are considered.
First, expenses of all sorts increase along with salary as your family grows and grows up. College alone has spawned an entire financial industry dedicated to paying for higher education and those expenses have increased at a rate triple or quadruple the rate of inflation. Teachers deserve the ability to plan for their children’s education. Undeniable point granted.
Second, people are living longer and retirement costs, especially healthcare, are increasing. My colleague gave me a copy of his first salary schedule in the Alpine district from 1983-84. A teacher with 30 years of experience and a Master’s degree made just under $25,000 a year. Since retirement money is based on years worked and previous salary, a teacher who retired after that year would receive a pension of about $15,000 a year. This obviously seemed at least reasonable at the time. If they had been prudent and had their house paid off, they could probably have gotten along just fine. But what if that person were still alive today, 25 years later? People commonly live into their 80’s and beyond now. Property taxes and normal living expenses don’t end. Living without insurance isn’t a reasonable option and an independent policy can be upwards of $10,000. What if they need to live in a nursing home? What if that stay is for a period of years? What if they require major surgery or medical devices such as wheel chairs? The healthcare crisis looms over anyone considering the years after retirement.
My colleague’s elderly mother receives care at a facility that costs $5000 a month. Her roommate and her husband are facing the necessity of using their house as collateral for Medicaid coverage so that the wife can continue receiving care at the nursing home. They’ll literally have nothing when they die. My colleague deals with his mother’s care weekly and often talks with that other couple, keeping his possible future financial needs fresh in his mind. What seems like a secure retirement now could look just as meager in 25 years as that $15,000 seems now. Teachers nearing retirement have a natural and understandable interest in maximizing their earnings now as every dollar translates into more security in retirement.
An argument can be made criticizing these teachers for overdependence on government retirement (though it would be awfully hypocritical coming from legislators…). I think this would be legitimate criticism of my generation, but you have to see where the teachers near retirement age are coming from. The stock market was widely viewed as speculative, risky, and beyond the abilities of individual investors as recently as the 1980’s. The retirement wisdom and mentality of the older generation counted on a stable pension to get through their retirement years as a matter of course. We can prepare the teachers my age to invest individually, but we can’t pull the rug out cold turkey from under thousands of teachers for following what was regarded as the prudent retirement path. Those teachers, along with everyone else of that age, just didn’t have the same resources we do now. Without the internet, investment information and competitive investment options weren’t easily accessible to a common worker. You couldn’t just pop into Vanguard online, check yields, see fund descriptions, and open up an IRA through an online funds transfer. The paradigm has changed now, but there’s still a steep learning curve to investment and savings as we can see in the financial news every day.
In addition, teachers retiring now and receiving pensions weren’t getting those higher salaries, and thus saving, for long. They made significantly less money as beginning teachers than I do. I was surprised to find out how many current teachers’ families qualified previously for free or reduced school lunches, sometimes for over a third of the teacher’s career. There wasn’t spare money to save and they missed out on a lot of years of compound interest.
Now, having said all that, I still think the current direct raises are a good thing. The new teacher shortage and huge initial investment needed to get a house are probably even more pressing than post-retirement benefits and the smaller raise still helps all teachers. Though, as my friend says, I’ll definitely have a different perspective in 20 years as I face my own medical problems and my family grows up needing more clothes, orthodontics, car insurance, etc. We can disagree without assigning selfish motives to each other.
The real solution lies in increased pay across the board to help secure both new and old teachers. Legislative motives don’t look good when they resort to untrue statements of cost and blame to justify the direct raises. The money IS flowing to teachers; it just hasn’t been that much historically. Trying to pit teachers against each other and delegitimize the unions as partners in education through bypassing traditional negotiations smacks of an ax to grind rather than true concern for teachers.
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
The UEA: The Legislature's All-Purpose Excuse
OK, I know I don’t have tons of people reading and commenting on this, but I don’t see a reasonable basis for all the hatred. The UEA advocates for many educational improvements such as smaller class sizes, along with higher teacher salaries, and most Utahns support that cause. Jesse
thinks the UEA are scammers because they haven’t achieved higher salaries:
I can't agree. I discussed this with a bunch of old-timers and no one felt there was some unrealized windfall we’d been swindled out of. What grand pot of money were we supposed to take drastically higher salaries from? Construction costs and growth alone account for most of the increase in spending. We also know we need computer labs, copy machines, test sheet scanners, software, training, etc. These costs differ GREATLY from the paper, pencil, chalk, and dittos of the past. The legislature hasn’t increased spending with that in mind. The needs have increased and funding has just barely kept pace with the growth. I think teachers in general sympathize with the difficulties in funding the large number of students in Utah from a smaller tax base. We can almost feel guilty when we see firsthand many of the families that struggle with taxes, but we also need some way to plan for the future if you want anyone teaching as a primary career. I was surprised to learn how many teachers’ salaries qualified their kids for reduced lunches in past years. I would have qualified for WIC if my wife hadn’t been doing extra babysitting while pregnant or if our second had come a year earlier.
Whoa. Just checked and I’m fairly certain we qualify now. I even had kids a little later than the average BYU guy. The point is, teachers are not just being whiny when they qualify for federally subsidized food. You’re not supposed to spend above something like 28% of your gross income on housing to be financially stable. Say you have a $1000 monthly payment for a $12000 yearly commitment to your mortgage. (At that price, you’re either getting a great deal on your interest rate or living in a very modest home. If you want your family to grow, good luck.) That translates to a yearly salary of $42,857 if you want to live at the threshold of fiscal responsibility. Here’s the salary schedule for Alpine School District:
http://www.alpine.k12.ut.us/publicComponents/newsletters/Employee%20Salary%20Schedules-Teacher%20schedule%20FY2008.pdf
Even tossing in savings from our admittedly good health insurance obtained from the large state-employee pool discount rates, how long until you can buy a home without moving to Genola? Surprised a lot of teachers quit in the first 5 years? And as salary increases, a lot of you know more than I do about the increasing costs of your growing family as well. (A 25-year teacher just told me he’s paying $150 more a month in insurance now that his 16-year-old son is driving. Ouch! I need to call my parents and retroactively thank them profusely.)
But with all this, teachers see firsthand at school that there are financial needs all over, and that is precisely why they DON’T go nuts and strike constantly. AND, while I believe Jesse is sincere, honestly tell me that UEA critics wouldn’t go nuts if we HAD gotten high percentage salary increases at the expense of the technology and extra classrooms that the funding went to. It’s a rock and a hard place for teachers. The same rock and a hard place hold true for the legislature, but the UEA gets demonized while having almost no real power.
I vaguely remember a strike from elementary/middle school years, and I was out of the country during the last strike in the late 90's. My school AEA rep says those two strikes made him disassociate from the union for awhile, and I would tend to agree with him. I want to be in the classroom even when I'm annoyed at the legislature. I only know only one teacher at my school, a California transplant who thinks the teachers should fight much harder for higher salaries like in his home state, who would support something like that. But that illustrates the true lack of power of the UEA. They make a lot of noise and get news coverage...and what? Senator Dayton mentioned how mad she felt over the UEA's "paving over the backs of students" ad campaign a couple years ago. (The legislature assigned tons of surplus to transportation in '06 when polls and the UEA wanted more for education. I feel we direly need both and it's a tough call, but I definitely believe that many legislators have a personal grudge against education.) The legislature was pilloried in editorials and in polls, but….the money still got assigned to roads, none of the Republicans got ousted (well, PCE picked off a few anti-voucher Republicans, but with other Republicans), and business went on as usual. Polls support better funding for education all the time, but legislators know that doesn't translate to the ballot box. How many teachers are there compared with habitual Republicans? The UEA has some token influence and gets some publicity, but the public only got really mad and acted with the rich money grab of vouchers.
Here’s two great posts from the Edu Blah Blah Blahg that sum it up well:
The Utah Education Association- we are not evil
I read a post on the Utah Amicus quoting a letter which stated,
"Why have we entrusted the education of our children to the faceless names of the Utah Education Association?"
In other words, "Why have we entrusted the education of our children to teachers?"
Well, I'm pleased to inform the general letter-writing public that UEA members (aka teachers) have names and faces (as both help when teaching).
This leads to one of the things that consistently bothers me about anti-union rhetoric. Many people who speak against the UEA regard it as an automaton with no heart. It doesn't take much effort to learn that the UEA is all teachers, through and through. Even the VP, Ellen Thompson, is still expected to be a classroom teacher while meeting all the obligations of her office. In fact, the only officer who is not a current classroom teacher is the president, Kim Campbell (understandably, as being UEA president must be a large time commitment).
I am a teacher. I love teaching. I believe in public education. If you've met me, you've met the UEA, and for that matter the NEA. Would you want to entrust your child's education to me? I would hope so.
Posted by andbrooke at Sunday, September 23, 2007
Yep, that's my union
I'm the union rep at my school- a job I've come to enjoy. I've made it a point to learn as much as I can about the union and almost all of what I've learned has been positive. I have yet to learn something about my teacher's union that would make me want to cancel my membership (and I even read Mike Antonucci's blog).
Talking to other teachers, I've heard a lot of different reasons for why they are not members. Some understandable, some absurd. The voucher referendum, though, makes me want to shake them all and ask, "Can't you see what they do for you? This referendum would not have gotten off the ground without the UEA!"
Now the NEA is throwing their weight behind the referendum. This is teachers' money from across the nation (including mine), and they're spending over a million on us. For me, this makes every dues payment worth it. By Nov 6, every penny I've sent them will have come right back to my state, for a cause I believe in.
Posted by andbrooke at Saturday, September 22, 2007
thinks the UEA are scammers because they haven’t achieved higher salaries:
My biggest problem with all teachers' unions is that they are ineffective at their core mission and thus are a corrupt drag on teacher salaries. Despite more than doubling inflation-adjusted education spending over the last four decades, teacher salaries have been flat during the same period. That's a pretty crappy job negotiating compensation for the rather large budgets that unions work with.
I just can't see how a group powerful enough to stare down the legislature can tuck tail and run when confronting district superintendents, you know? I wonder how long it'll take before teachers figure out they're being scammed.
December 31, 2007 1:17 PM
Both the NEA and AFT (page 3, PDF) show flat teacher salaries in separate surveys.
...(and some other stuff)…
December 31, 2007 3:42 PM
I can't agree. I discussed this with a bunch of old-timers and no one felt there was some unrealized windfall we’d been swindled out of. What grand pot of money were we supposed to take drastically higher salaries from? Construction costs and growth alone account for most of the increase in spending. We also know we need computer labs, copy machines, test sheet scanners, software, training, etc. These costs differ GREATLY from the paper, pencil, chalk, and dittos of the past. The legislature hasn’t increased spending with that in mind. The needs have increased and funding has just barely kept pace with the growth. I think teachers in general sympathize with the difficulties in funding the large number of students in Utah from a smaller tax base. We can almost feel guilty when we see firsthand many of the families that struggle with taxes, but we also need some way to plan for the future if you want anyone teaching as a primary career. I was surprised to learn how many teachers’ salaries qualified their kids for reduced lunches in past years. I would have qualified for WIC if my wife hadn’t been doing extra babysitting while pregnant or if our second had come a year earlier.
Whoa. Just checked and I’m fairly certain we qualify now. I even had kids a little later than the average BYU guy. The point is, teachers are not just being whiny when they qualify for federally subsidized food. You’re not supposed to spend above something like 28% of your gross income on housing to be financially stable. Say you have a $1000 monthly payment for a $12000 yearly commitment to your mortgage. (At that price, you’re either getting a great deal on your interest rate or living in a very modest home. If you want your family to grow, good luck.) That translates to a yearly salary of $42,857 if you want to live at the threshold of fiscal responsibility. Here’s the salary schedule for Alpine School District:
http://www.alpine.k12.ut.us/publicComponents/newsletters/Employee%20Salary%20Schedules-Teacher%20schedule%20FY2008.pdf
Even tossing in savings from our admittedly good health insurance obtained from the large state-employee pool discount rates, how long until you can buy a home without moving to Genola? Surprised a lot of teachers quit in the first 5 years? And as salary increases, a lot of you know more than I do about the increasing costs of your growing family as well. (A 25-year teacher just told me he’s paying $150 more a month in insurance now that his 16-year-old son is driving. Ouch! I need to call my parents and retroactively thank them profusely.)
But with all this, teachers see firsthand at school that there are financial needs all over, and that is precisely why they DON’T go nuts and strike constantly. AND, while I believe Jesse is sincere, honestly tell me that UEA critics wouldn’t go nuts if we HAD gotten high percentage salary increases at the expense of the technology and extra classrooms that the funding went to. It’s a rock and a hard place for teachers. The same rock and a hard place hold true for the legislature, but the UEA gets demonized while having almost no real power.
I vaguely remember a strike from elementary/middle school years, and I was out of the country during the last strike in the late 90's. My school AEA rep says those two strikes made him disassociate from the union for awhile, and I would tend to agree with him. I want to be in the classroom even when I'm annoyed at the legislature. I only know only one teacher at my school, a California transplant who thinks the teachers should fight much harder for higher salaries like in his home state, who would support something like that. But that illustrates the true lack of power of the UEA. They make a lot of noise and get news coverage...and what? Senator Dayton mentioned how mad she felt over the UEA's "paving over the backs of students" ad campaign a couple years ago. (The legislature assigned tons of surplus to transportation in '06 when polls and the UEA wanted more for education. I feel we direly need both and it's a tough call, but I definitely believe that many legislators have a personal grudge against education.) The legislature was pilloried in editorials and in polls, but….the money still got assigned to roads, none of the Republicans got ousted (well, PCE picked off a few anti-voucher Republicans, but with other Republicans), and business went on as usual. Polls support better funding for education all the time, but legislators know that doesn't translate to the ballot box. How many teachers are there compared with habitual Republicans? The UEA has some token influence and gets some publicity, but the public only got really mad and acted with the rich money grab of vouchers.
Here’s two great posts from the Edu Blah Blah Blahg that sum it up well:
The Utah Education Association- we are not evil
I read a post on the Utah Amicus quoting a letter which stated,
"Why have we entrusted the education of our children to the faceless names of the Utah Education Association?"
In other words, "Why have we entrusted the education of our children to teachers?"
Well, I'm pleased to inform the general letter-writing public that UEA members (aka teachers) have names and faces (as both help when teaching).
This leads to one of the things that consistently bothers me about anti-union rhetoric. Many people who speak against the UEA regard it as an automaton with no heart. It doesn't take much effort to learn that the UEA is all teachers, through and through. Even the VP, Ellen Thompson, is still expected to be a classroom teacher while meeting all the obligations of her office. In fact, the only officer who is not a current classroom teacher is the president, Kim Campbell (understandably, as being UEA president must be a large time commitment).
I am a teacher. I love teaching. I believe in public education. If you've met me, you've met the UEA, and for that matter the NEA. Would you want to entrust your child's education to me? I would hope so.
Posted by andbrooke at Sunday, September 23, 2007
Yep, that's my union
I'm the union rep at my school- a job I've come to enjoy. I've made it a point to learn as much as I can about the union and almost all of what I've learned has been positive. I have yet to learn something about my teacher's union that would make me want to cancel my membership (and I even read Mike Antonucci's blog).
Talking to other teachers, I've heard a lot of different reasons for why they are not members. Some understandable, some absurd. The voucher referendum, though, makes me want to shake them all and ask, "Can't you see what they do for you? This referendum would not have gotten off the ground without the UEA!"
Now the NEA is throwing their weight behind the referendum. This is teachers' money from across the nation (including mine), and they're spending over a million on us. For me, this makes every dues payment worth it. By Nov 6, every penny I've sent them will have come right back to my state, for a cause I believe in.
Posted by andbrooke at Saturday, September 22, 2007
Sunday, December 30, 2007
Why the irrational hatred of the UEA? Seriously...input please.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Work and then play have kept me away from the blog for too long. Just watched Spiderman 3. I liked some parts and hated others. Won’t be hurrying to see it again. Anyway, I have a few things to bring up in the next couple weeks.
This is not principally a voucher post, but an article from ksl.com about the #5 news story in Utah for 2007, School Vouchers, had comments that motivated me to get to this post I’d been working on. Here’s the link to the article and a couple pasted-in comments:
http://www.ksl.com/index.php?nid=148&sid=2398934
We won’t go into my embarrassment at the representation from my alma mater or all the details of who was lying about voucher finances—check earlier posts. But I honestly cannot understand why the UEA is such a lightning rod. The only substantial reason I can see is the UEA’s opposition to merit pay. I think there is a lot to that debate and I plan on posting my thoughts on that in the next few days. But is that “silver bullet” really the cure-all for education? There are no reasonable concerns about such a plan—the teachers are just looking out for themselves and don’t care about kids?
What I really want to know is why someone (you reading this post, another specific person, or a hypothetical person) specifically hates or vilifies the UEA. I can see where someone is coming from who disagrees on their merit pay stance, but I read so much bologna.
1. Intelligent, well-informed people voted against vouchers. This was an expression of public belief, not UEA “power.” That “power” is often attacked and exaggerated when people don’t want to admit that the average Utahn supports public education. If a lot of people disgree with a policy, it is more probable that they are informed than manipulated by the crafty science teacher next door.
http://www.heraldextra.com/content/view/243422/
http://reachupward.blogspot.com/2007/11/elections-mean-something.html
2. The UEA is not a large organization secretly opposed to noble individual teachers. I am not a UEA expert, but I believe there’s like four paid state UEA people, and most of them besides the president still work in the classroom. The district and school rep’s get nothing for their extra time. Then there’s a few lobbyists whom I for one think are worth every penny. Senator Dayton tried to convince me in conversation that the UEA leaders actually try and keep teacher pay low or the UEA wouldn’t have reason to exist. Representative Dougall supposedly dazzles teachers with this pearl of wisdom as well:
http://www.dynamicrange.org/2007/10/uea-scams-teach.html
(I would love to hear the other side of the story from a teacher who has had such a conversation w/ Rep. Dougall.)
This view is sometimes justified by saying the union focused too much on class size rather than pay. (But the teachers are than called whiners for asking for pay raises—catch-22…) Discipline problems and workload directly related to class size contribute as much or more to teacher attrition as low compensation. I strongly considered quitting after my first year of teaching because of those issues.
3. In a related point, the UEA does not focus exclusively on teacher salary at the expense of other priorities. (You can see from the last point that what exactly the UEA does so evilly varies when necessary to make a point.) However, salary and the ability to make a career out of teaching directly impact the classroom and are legitimate concerns of anyone in education. When 50-year-old starter homes in Orem are close to $200,000 and a 4th year teacher qualifies for WIC if he has two kids (Discussing this at lunch, I found that many of the older teachers’ kids got reduced-price or free school lunches for years because they fell under the poverty guidelines.), I worry about paying for my kids’college and my retirement. I don’t think that is greedy or unreasonable.
4. The UEA is composed of individual teachers who live in your neighborhood. They are not liberal bogeymen/women. Ask them their opinion rather than insulting them en mass behind their backs.
5. The UEA does not make specific curriculum decisions. The state school board and state curriculum committees do. Local school boards and district curriculum committees do too. Teachers and school or district administrations butt heads all the time. They work together, but also disagree on priorities sometimes. I can see legitimate concerns about bureaucracy and administrative pay, but why are those things blamed on the UEA? (And I believe all of Utah’s districts are all on the top 1% of fewest #’s of district personnel per student. I would be happy to see $50,000 lopped off the Alpine superintendent’s salary and some off of the assistant superintendents and others…but how many more teachers would that money really pay for? The funding problems in education are much deeper than a few administrators.)
6. Also, the UEA does not directly receive money from the state. Teachers voluntarily pay dues if they wish. I really like Jeremy’s blog. This comment came from his post worrying about the “status quo” after the defeat of vouchers. It is a perfect example of the vague anger I see at the UEA's supposed influence:
http://www.themannings.org/soapbox/2007/11/07/vouchers-are-deadare-our-schools-any-better/#comments
7. The UEA does not employ goons to ensure conformity. This is an exchange I had with another commenter on a blog. I cut down the original post to its barest bones—enough to understand the context of the comments below. There are a lot of other comments besides mine and David’s, but these are relevant to my post here.
http://kvnuforthepeople.com/?p=1033#comments
Original post summarization:
8. The UEA did not “lie” or spread misinformation about vouchers. The KSL "truth test" was wrong and KSL tried to spin it when PCE used their bad report in mailings. (See my Nov. 4th post) This next comment came from a discussion of the ridiculous USU study used to claim billions in voucher studies. I don’t know if this David is the same David as above.
http://www.utahpolitics.org/archives/2007/11/educate_dont_brainwash.shtml#comments
9. The UEA is not unionized “against the people.” You can’t have it both ways—the same “big government” that is railed against for trying to “control” education is the same one that teachers try to influence for the good of students and teachers. The government does not purely represent “the people.” Beyond all of the PCE donations to individual campaigns in 2004 and 2006 (FAAAAR beyond UEA donations. The millions spent in 2007 by both sides of Ref. 1 went to advertising, not campaign donations.), or lobbyist influence in general, we live in a republic and most public employees are just regular peons like everybody else. Our livelihoods are affected even more directly by the whims of the legislature than a private-sector employee who is affected indirectly by taxes and regulations, and we pay our same share of those taxes.
10. Many teachers regard the UEA as a professional organization like the Bar Association or AMA. It is inherently political as well as developmental because education is a government function.
11. "Throwing more money at education" is a myth, deliberate misnomer, and smear. Public education funding increases have never surpassed inflation of gas, heat, construction costs, higher education costs, groceries, etc. It has barely even kept pace. There has never been excess money "thrown" at education--it has always been underfunded. Allocating more funds to reach desired ratios and goals is not "throwing" money at a problem. "Give me a solution that doesn't involve throwing more money at the system" is code for "Funds have always been stretched by the number of kids in Utah, but I don't want to admit that because I have an agenda."
So after all that, why are you opposed to the UEA? Or why not? Or what do you agree or disagree with them about? Does the hatred really just boil down to merit pay? Does your perception or the public perception of the UEA square with reality? Are my perceptions wrong? Please comment.
This is not principally a voucher post, but an article from ksl.com about the #5 news story in Utah for 2007, School Vouchers, had comments that motivated me to get to this post I’d been working on. Here’s the link to the article and a couple pasted-in comments:
http://www.ksl.com/index.php?nid=148&sid=2398934
The real story was how the teachers unions and the government worshipers went around lying to people's faces about this.
by SAMSUNG @ 11:15pm - Fri Dec 28th, 2007
The teachers unions and the government worshipers went around lying and telling everyone that "vouchers will TAKE money from the public schools" when the truth was that the public schools got to KEEP thousands and thousands of dollars PER CHILD THAT THEY NO LONGER HAD TO EDUCATE!
This vote CLEARLY and OPENLY split the public into two camps: the government loyalists/government worshipers in one camp, and people who CAN DO MATH and who want CHOICE in education in the other camp. Sadly, the government worshipers won and this vote showed that most of the public in Utah consists of government worshipers who don't care about FACTS, only emotion.
UEA Worshippers...
by Byu beats utah!!! @ 7:24am - Sat Dec 29th, 2007
...were more of the problem in this instance. Roughly 40% of the electorate that cast ballots chose to vote for vouchers. Probably the majority of those who voted for vouchers including myself did so out of our disdain for the UEA. The UEA continues to fail Utah school children and families each year by fighting teacher qualification and other issues aimed at making classroom improvements, especially if it doesn't mean throwing a wad of money at the problem.
There are times when unions become too powerful and cumbersome, and the UEA isn't any different than the Iron and Steel Workers 25 years ago. Unions hate competition, and so I suspect that the legislature will allocate more funding for charter schools over the next few years, since the UEA hates charter schools nearly as much as vouchers.
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The World is Our Campus!
by BYUROCKS @ 8:51am - Sat Dec 29th, 2007
That would be so funny the UEA is pure Evil
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BYU FOOTBALL ROCKS
The UEA has a monopoly on education
by MaryT777 @ 4:34pm - Sat Dec 29th, 2007
There are a lot of parents that DO NOT agree with what is being taught in our public schools and would like more say on what our kids are taught. The UEA doesn't have any competition without the vouchers since most people cannot afford to send their children to private schools if they disagree with what their children are being taught. The UEA has failed Utah's children but for more money will "correct" their own problems. Private schools are more accountable than public schools since they cannot afford to lose money.
We won’t go into my embarrassment at the representation from my alma mater or all the details of who was lying about voucher finances—check earlier posts. But I honestly cannot understand why the UEA is such a lightning rod. The only substantial reason I can see is the UEA’s opposition to merit pay. I think there is a lot to that debate and I plan on posting my thoughts on that in the next few days. But is that “silver bullet” really the cure-all for education? There are no reasonable concerns about such a plan—the teachers are just looking out for themselves and don’t care about kids?
What I really want to know is why someone (you reading this post, another specific person, or a hypothetical person) specifically hates or vilifies the UEA. I can see where someone is coming from who disagrees on their merit pay stance, but I read so much bologna.
1. Intelligent, well-informed people voted against vouchers. This was an expression of public belief, not UEA “power.” That “power” is often attacked and exaggerated when people don’t want to admit that the average Utahn supports public education. If a lot of people disgree with a policy, it is more probable that they are informed than manipulated by the crafty science teacher next door.
http://www.heraldextra.com/content/view/243422/
I was disappointed in the defeat of Referendum 1. It would have had a better chance if citizens had done more research and understood it better. Lack of knowledge is intimidating, causing people to vote for the status quo. Do those who opposed vouchers really believe those who drew it up had a selfish agenda? Of course not. On the other hand the huge, impersonal, power hungry, liberal NEA union has pumped hundreds of thousands into Utah to defeat it. NEA does have a selfish agenda. The union's only objective is to protect their dues paying union members. As one past president of the teacher's union said, "I will start caring about kids as soon as kids start paying union dues." Those opposing vouchers joined hands with Ted Kennedy, Hillary Clinton, Al Gore and John Kerry to name a few. Ardent supporters were Governor Huntsman, Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani, and Orrin Hatch. Whose judgment do you trust most?
•Fay S. Parker Orem
http://reachupward.blogspot.com/2007/11/elections-mean-something.html
However, one thing is now abundantly clear. The UEA has functionally demonstrated that it is the most powerful political entity in Utah. The UEA and its fellow travelers pulled out all the stops on killing the voucher law passed by the legislature earlier this year, and they won — big time. The UEA will come into the 2008 legislative season with more political power than it has ever had.
Expect to see the governor and the legislature led around like cattle. Oh, not every legislator will kowtow to the UEA, but I would be very surprised if the overall legislature didn’t act like a wholly-owned subsidiary of the UEA. This does not bode well for Utah’s school children or for Utahn’s in general. As Rep. John Dougall (R-AF) reports in this post, the UEA “opposes improving academic achievement.” Its practice is to stonewall and ignore when ideas are solicited for ways to improve, because the UEA is invested in the status quo.
Rep. Dougall writes, “To talk about improvement would require an openness to admit that some things can be done better. It would require a discussion about change and the UEA opposes change.” He says that “the UEA takes the approach that if you are not with them 100% of the time, then you are against them.”
Regardless of whether voters rejected vouchers because they believe the solution was flawed or because they are anesthetized into thinking that Utah’s schools are fantastic, the result is that the UEA will be even less incentivized to be part of the solution to Utah’s education problems.
Another lesson is pointed out by LaVarr Webb (here). He says that voucher proponents lost vital ground early in the campaign when they allowed “the education establishment [to] successfully fram[e] the debate as pro-public school vs. anti-public school.” Webb says, “An important political lesson here is to never allow your opponent to define you early in a campaign.”
Jesse Harris discusses a number of other flaws with the pro-voucher campaign in this post. The problems, he says, began with the legislative process. Years of compromise amounted to only minor tweaking. The result of the narrowly-passed bill was a law that was easy to demagogue. This process has unwittingly empowered the UEA; the very establishment voucher supporters sought to diminish.
2. The UEA is not a large organization secretly opposed to noble individual teachers. I am not a UEA expert, but I believe there’s like four paid state UEA people, and most of them besides the president still work in the classroom. The district and school rep’s get nothing for their extra time. Then there’s a few lobbyists whom I for one think are worth every penny. Senator Dayton tried to convince me in conversation that the UEA leaders actually try and keep teacher pay low or the UEA wouldn’t have reason to exist. Representative Dougall supposedly dazzles teachers with this pearl of wisdom as well:
http://www.dynamicrange.org/2007/10/uea-scams-teach.html
(I would love to hear the other side of the story from a teacher who has had such a conversation w/ Rep. Dougall.)
This view is sometimes justified by saying the union focused too much on class size rather than pay. (But the teachers are than called whiners for asking for pay raises—catch-22…) Discipline problems and workload directly related to class size contribute as much or more to teacher attrition as low compensation. I strongly considered quitting after my first year of teaching because of those issues.
3. In a related point, the UEA does not focus exclusively on teacher salary at the expense of other priorities. (You can see from the last point that what exactly the UEA does so evilly varies when necessary to make a point.) However, salary and the ability to make a career out of teaching directly impact the classroom and are legitimate concerns of anyone in education. When 50-year-old starter homes in Orem are close to $200,000 and a 4th year teacher qualifies for WIC if he has two kids (Discussing this at lunch, I found that many of the older teachers’ kids got reduced-price or free school lunches for years because they fell under the poverty guidelines.), I worry about paying for my kids’college and my retirement. I don’t think that is greedy or unreasonable.
4. The UEA is composed of individual teachers who live in your neighborhood. They are not liberal bogeymen/women. Ask them their opinion rather than insulting them en mass behind their backs.
5. The UEA does not make specific curriculum decisions. The state school board and state curriculum committees do. Local school boards and district curriculum committees do too. Teachers and school or district administrations butt heads all the time. They work together, but also disagree on priorities sometimes. I can see legitimate concerns about bureaucracy and administrative pay, but why are those things blamed on the UEA? (And I believe all of Utah’s districts are all on the top 1% of fewest #’s of district personnel per student. I would be happy to see $50,000 lopped off the Alpine superintendent’s salary and some off of the assistant superintendents and others…but how many more teachers would that money really pay for? The funding problems in education are much deeper than a few administrators.)
6. Also, the UEA does not directly receive money from the state. Teachers voluntarily pay dues if they wish. I really like Jeremy’s blog. This comment came from his post worrying about the “status quo” after the defeat of vouchers. It is a perfect example of the vague anger I see at the UEA's supposed influence:
http://www.themannings.org/soapbox/2007/11/07/vouchers-are-deadare-our-schools-any-better/#comments
There are few things that make me really angry and frustrated.
The UEA is one of those things. (or I should say, groups of people). They seriously need to be taken down, or at least, changed so that they don’t have so much power over the money earmarked for various aspects of education. Money just seems to dissappear in their swollen, red tape infested belly.
Whoo. That felt good…
Comment by nosurfgirl — November 9, 2007 @ 12:20 pm
7. The UEA does not employ goons to ensure conformity. This is an exchange I had with another commenter on a blog. I cut down the original post to its barest bones—enough to understand the context of the comments below. There are a lot of other comments besides mine and David’s, but these are relevant to my post here.
http://kvnuforthepeople.com/?p=1033#comments
Original post summarization:
Potential Myth #1 – Spending more on education will improve education….The UEA and all their teachers keep asking us to throw more money at the problem. Perhaps we should find out if that’s a successful method before we spend the money.
Potential Myth #2 – Teachers are underpaid.
Comment from David James
Time: November 14, 2007, 9:04 pm
Tyson,
Perhaps you could help me with this one. I believe the union contract calls for 7 hour days. And if you’re a teacher, try staying after union quitting time–you’ll be hearing about it whether your a union member or not (ever notice how teacher parking lots at school clear at a certain time each day?) I assume that many teachers take work home (doesn’t every professional?) but it is kept pretty invisible.
Comment from UtahTeacher
Time: November 14, 2007, 10:43 pm
Some of the comments above just blow me away. What schools are they claiming to watch and on what days? A large percentage of teachers are at my school hours past contract time everyday, just doing their normal planning and grading. And we all use more family time to supervise extra activities like concerts, plays, dances, etc., sometimes getting paid a generous $7 hourly wage for that. The anti-UEA stuff is kinda, sorta understandable with many negative union stories nationwide, but have you actually talked to a teacher, whether member or not? To think that the two dedicated, middle-aged union reps at my school, who often stay late themselves, would pressure someone to leave early instead of doing a good job is ridiculous in every sense. The supposed union arm twisting does not happen. They distribute information and encourage everyone to join with a couple flyers. Really talk to a teacher from your neighborhood and ask them. The stuff floating around is just silly.
Comment from David James
Time: November 15, 2007, 5:02 pm
UtahTeacher,
Yes, I have. She is my sister. I backed that up with conversations with my niece. No giant conspiracy this time. Sorry.
Comment from UtahTeacher
Time: November 16, 2007, 8:02 am
I’m not sure exactly what you mean by conspiracy, but the experiences you mention are so completely foreign to anything I have seen, that I really do have trouble believing it. I know teachers in many different districts, in elementary and secondary, and I’ve never heard of the union discouraging teachers from working. On the contrary, we’re always sympathizing with each other on all of the papers we have to correct and how much we have to prepare. (Insert anti-UEA whining/belly aching comment here.) I see teachers in school late, early, and on weekends. It doesn’t even make sense that the union would want to limit teachers working from a negotiation standpoint–why try and make your job look easier if you’re seeking higher salaries and smaller class sizes?
David, we don’t know each other, so it is impossible for me to completely evaluate your assertions. I see anti-UEA stuff on any local news comment board and many blogs, and I don’t believe that most of them argue with anything beyond hyperbole. I think they see what they want to see, and no doubt, they think that as a teacher I do the same thing. Anyone else, I repeat my request that you ask a teacher or teachers you know about this. If David’s relatives really feel pressure to leave after 7 1/2 hours (my contract time), I submit it’s an isolated, overzealous exception. The union rep’s in my school are good teachers who work hard, advocate for causes I support, and listen to my input, even though I am not a paying union member. I’d love to hear what anyone else finds out.
8. The UEA did not “lie” or spread misinformation about vouchers. The KSL "truth test" was wrong and KSL tried to spin it when PCE used their bad report in mailings. (See my Nov. 4th post) This next comment came from a discussion of the ridiculous USU study used to claim billions in voucher studies. I don’t know if this David is the same David as above.
http://www.utahpolitics.org/archives/2007/11/educate_dont_brainwash.shtml#comments
UtahTeacher,
Where do you get your facts? I read the USU study and thought it gave some very true and interesting points and remains neutral. No one has been more manipulative in this whole race than the UEA. I know that both sides have done their fair share of stretching the truth but PCE has only been fighting to keep up with the competition. And why do we not trust those that almost definitely know more than we do about the issue. The legislators that decided to pass the bill had studied this option for years…
9. The UEA is not unionized “against the people.” You can’t have it both ways—the same “big government” that is railed against for trying to “control” education is the same one that teachers try to influence for the good of students and teachers. The government does not purely represent “the people.” Beyond all of the PCE donations to individual campaigns in 2004 and 2006 (FAAAAR beyond UEA donations. The millions spent in 2007 by both sides of Ref. 1 went to advertising, not campaign donations.), or lobbyist influence in general, we live in a republic and most public employees are just regular peons like everybody else. Our livelihoods are affected even more directly by the whims of the legislature than a private-sector employee who is affected indirectly by taxes and regulations, and we pay our same share of those taxes.
10. Many teachers regard the UEA as a professional organization like the Bar Association or AMA. It is inherently political as well as developmental because education is a government function.
11. "Throwing more money at education" is a myth, deliberate misnomer, and smear. Public education funding increases have never surpassed inflation of gas, heat, construction costs, higher education costs, groceries, etc. It has barely even kept pace. There has never been excess money "thrown" at education--it has always been underfunded. Allocating more funds to reach desired ratios and goals is not "throwing" money at a problem. "Give me a solution that doesn't involve throwing more money at the system" is code for "Funds have always been stretched by the number of kids in Utah, but I don't want to admit that because I have an agenda."
So after all that, why are you opposed to the UEA? Or why not? Or what do you agree or disagree with them about? Does the hatred really just boil down to merit pay? Does your perception or the public perception of the UEA square with reality? Are my perceptions wrong? Please comment.
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