Dear Colleague,
As the year winds down, it is a time of great anxiety for
some teachers as the “final” layoff notices are due shortly. Of course even if
a teacher does get bad news, depending on the yet to be determined final
budget, many of these teachers will get their jobs back in the fall. Things
unfold this way because the final budget isn’t due until July 1st. To
state the obvious, the layoff scenario needs to get in sync with the state
budget cycle. The state Legislative Analyst Office has issued a prescriptive report
which we wrote about in the April letter. In case you missed it, you can access
the report here - http://www.lao.ca.gov/reports/2012/edu/teacher-layoffs/teacher-layoffs-032212.pdf
The Los Angeles Times Steve Lopez recently wrote about the situation in
a piece called “LA Unified’s Annual Dance of Death.” (http://articles.latimes.com/2012/may/08/local/la-me-lopez-lausd-20120509)
Forty schools would close next year, and six additional schools would be closed every year thereafter until 2017. Closing just eight schools this year prompted an uproar.
Anyhow, the remaining schools would get chopped up into “achievement networks” where public or private groups compete to manage about 25 schools, and the central office would be chopped down to a skeleton crew of about 200. District HQ has already eliminated about half of the 1,100-plus positions that existed in 2010.
This is all aimed at closing a $218 million deficit for the coming year, part of a $1.1 billion cumulative deficit by 2017. Charter schools will teach an estimated 40 percent of students by 2017.
To learn more go to http://www.citypaper.net/blogs/nakedcity/Philadelphia-School-District-announces-its-dissolution-.html
The National Education Association celebrated “Stand Up To
Bullying Day” on May 4th. Its website is full of advice about how to
deal with what it calls “everyone’s problem.” But the union talks only about
children bullying other children; there is nothing about adults bullying other
adults, which is the subject of a report, “Bullying Teachers: How Teachers Unions Secretly Push
Teachers and Competitors Around” by Joy
Pullmann, managing editor of School Reform News. The
report is summarized as “When Bullies Grow Up, They Can Always Run
Teachers Unions,” an op-ed in the
Washington Examiner. She explains that teacher union bullying is rampant
and can come either directly from the unions or as a result of fear of them.
For example,
Many superintendents
and principals in Kansas will not even let Garry Sigle give teachers
information about his nonunion teacher organization. One superintendent told
Sigle, “Why would I want to [let you talk to teachers in my district] if I knew
that would create an issue between me and a union I have to negotiate with?”
At a new teacher
orientation in Jacksonville, Fla., a union representative
heard a presentation by a nonunion group. She walked onto the stage before 600
teachers, accused the presenter of being "a desperate former teacher"
and stalked about the room ripping up the competition's fliers, said Tim
Farmer, membership director for the Professional Association of Colorado Educators.
As sickening as
these examples are, Pullmann goes on to say that they are not isolated
incidents. “Teachers unions engage in repeated,
unashamed aggression against dissenting teachers and competitor organizations.”
To read Pullman’s
op-ed, go to – http://washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/op-eds/2012/04/when-bullies-grow-they-can-always-run-teachers-unions/538746
To read the full report go to - http://heartland.org/sites/default/files/bullyingteachers.pdf
It’s not news that school choice is in short supply in California. But what you may not know is that there is an “Open Enrollment Act” which has been on the books for a couple of years now. OEA lets parents whose children attend the lowest-performing 1,000 schools in California opt out and send their kids to a higher-performing, non-charter public school anywhere in the state. For more on this law you probably have never heard of, go to http://www.city-journal.org/2012/cjc0508ls.html
In honor of National Charter Schools Week, Professor Jay
Greene has posted a piece in which he makes the compelling claim that “Charter
Benefits Are Proven by the Best Evidence” and that “opponents of charter
schools have no equally rigorous evidence on their side.” To read more, go to http://jaypgreene.com/2012/05/07/charter-benefits-are-proven-by-the-best-evidence/
Dr. Greene also has another interesting
post in which he extols the virtues of decentralizing education. While he is
not necessarily enamored with local school districts, he prefers them to
“central planning fantasies.” To read more, go to http://jaypgreene.com/2012/05/08/why-i-favor-decentralized-governance-of-education/
A few weeks ago there was an online
learning conference at Cal State Fullerton. While only thirty people attended,
the information disseminated reached a lot more people thanks to Hailey Moran
who wrote about the conference in the Daily
Titan, the school newspaper. What ever you may think of technology in the
classroom, it’s undeniable that in some form, it will be a force in the future.
To read more about what was discussed at the conference, please go to http://www.dailytitan.com/2012/04/online-learning-now-essential-speakers-say/
And finally, Katy Grimes at Cal Watchdog
tells us that due to legislation, the state’s GATE program will be
subject to quotas if a bill proposed by Assemblyman Bob Blumenfield
becomes law. Blumenfeld claims that “‘children of color’ are not fairly
represented in GATE programs across the
state.” To read more, go to http://www.calwatchdog.com/2012/05/04/affirmative-action-attacks-gate-school-program/
CTEN has two
Facebook pages. If you have a Facebook account, we urge you to visit ours and
let us know your thoughts. Having a dialogue among teachers is an effective way
to spread information and experiences and share ideas. Our original Facebook
page can be found here - http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/group.php?gid=125866159932&ref=ts
Our second page,
which deals with teacher evaluation and transparency, can be accessed here - http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/group.php?gid=126900987357825&ref=ts
As always, we at
CTEN want to sincerely thank you for your ongoing support and feedback, which
in turn helps us to keep you informed, provoke discussion and address the needs
of all CA teachers.
Larry Sand
CTEN President
