Dear Colleague,

In last month’s newsletter, we mentioned that education spending levels are at an all-time high.

Nationally, average per-pupil spending exceeds $11,400 this year. To learn more, go to http://blog.heritage.org/2012/08/27/back-to-school-some-surprising-education-numbers/ 

One of our subscribers suggested that we post California’s spending numbers. There are actually two sets of figures that are used: one for actual spending (we are 41^st nationally at $8,667 per pupil) and one is adjusted for cost of living. Using this formula, we are 47^th nationally. For more, go to http://california-in-crisis.news21.com/node/24  As I wrote last month, for a comparison of years past, go to the National Center for Education Statistics website for some surprising numbers – http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=66

The California Charter Schools Association (CCSA) is celebrating the 20^th anniversary of the charter school movement with the “California’s Charter Schools: 20 Years of Reinventing Public Education” campaign.

According to CCSA:

Charters are tuition-free public schools.

·         Serve all student populations and are designed to boast student achievement.

·         Can make innovative changes to meet a student’s individual needs.

·         Have more flexibility and greater accountability.

The schools are flourishing, engaging more students every year, and giving families and kids more educational options than ever before.

Since the signing of the charter school legislation, California has been on the leading edge of the innovative and fast-growing charter public school movement. There are currently 982 schools across the state, which serve more than 412,000 students.

More information about the anniversary, events and milestones can be found on the campaign website: http://anniversary.calcharters.org.

By now most of you are aware that there is a new (and in some quarters controversial) education movie playing all over the country. Won’t Back Down centers around two determined mothers, one a bartender and the other a teacher, who team up and try to transform their failing public school in Pittsburgh. Facing a powerful and entrenched bureaucracy, administrative corruption and the teachers union, they devote their lives to making a difference in the education and future of their children.

It’s a very good film, with a narrative in which the educational establishment is presented in a realistic and honest way – the portrayal of good teachers, bad teachers and mediocre ones and the parents’ frustrations in dealing with the system’s bureaucracy are quite true to life. The union leaders are not caricatures, but are like many that I knew and worked with during my long teaching career. Here is the trailer - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0J5-w7a78Xg

For a libertarian take on unions and their relationship to management, John Stossel has written a pointed piece on the subject. (http://townhall.com/columnists/johnstossel/2012/09/26/strangulation_by_union/page/full/ )  If you would like to share your thoughts on the article, please do so at http://www.ctenteachers.blogspot.com

Last week, Jay Greene had an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal about a topic that will get a lot of mixed reactions from teachers. “The Imaginary Teacher Shortage” (“http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443482404578042704123153548.html) will definitely rankle some of you. Again, if you are so inclined please let your feelings be known here - http://www.ctenteachers.blogspot.com

Mike Antonucci had a very interesting post recently which included some rather startling information. Here is one of the more provocative bullet points:

*That CTA Board explore options to generate additional resources from both internal and especially external sources to counter the vast resources available to our political opponents due to the Citizens United decision.

Rationale: CTA needs to recognize we are in a war we do not currently have the resources to win. Since the Citizens United decision our political opponents have been able to raise unlimited amounts of money via “Independent Expenditure Only Committees,” popularly known as “Super PACs.” Although CTA currently has such a committee, it has only been utilized on an ad hoc basis. We need to aggressively pursue consistent funding sources. These could include entertainers, professional athletes or other wealthy individuals with possible ties to public education. CTA-retired members could be a valuable resource to assist in this effort.

To read more, go to http://www.eiaonline.com/intercepts/2012/09/21/charter-caps-laser-pointers-and-superpacs/
 

Maybe the teachers unions need a new strategy. Motoko Rich suggests just that in a New York Times piece, “Teachers’ Unions Court G.O.P., Too” To read it, go to http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/25/us/politics/challenged-by-old-allies-teachers-unions-court-gop.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
 

A report from our friends at the Education Action Group tells us that,

Prior to the 2010-11 school year, the San Francisco Unified School District made a series of painful spending cuts in an effort to eliminate a $113 million budget deficit.

Teachers, principals and support staff were laid off, according to the media reports. The school year was shortened by four days, teachers were given unpaid furlough days and many programs like summer school, art, music, and special education were trimmed back.
Yet somehow the district found the resources to spend $134 million on salaries for athletic coaches and other extracurricular labor costs, $44.8 million on health insurance for union employees (employees only contributed a combined $14.7 million), more than $800,000 on national board certification bonuses for teachers, and more than $500,000 on retention bonuses for teachers.

To read the report, go to http://eagnews.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/San-Francisco-report.pdf
 

CTEN now has a YouTube page. We have three videos posted with more to come; they deal with agency fee status and conscientious objector status. To view these videos, go to http://www.youtube.com/user/TheCTEN?feature=mhee

And talking about becoming an agency fee payer….

Final reminder: If you are considering becoming an agency fee payer, it is a two-step process. First, you resign from the union (thus becoming an agency fee payer) and then request that the political part of your dues be returned to you. Sample letters for both steps are available here - http://www.ctenhome.org/knowMembership.htm#exoptions  (First timers, you must complete both steps by November 15^th to get a full rebate.)

If you already are an agency fee payer, you must request your rebate this year (and every year!) by November 15^th. If you are even one day late, you will not get a penny back. Also, because liability insurance is very important for teachers, we suggest joining the Association of American Educators http://www.aaeteachers.org/  or Christian Educators Association http://www.ceai.org  Both AAE and CEAI are professional organizations, not unions, and are apolitical. (Also, teachers who mention CTEN when they sign up with AAE for the first time will get a $30 discount off the regular $180 first year membership.)

A repeat from last month, in case you missed it…regarding information about how teachers can start up their own independent teacher association, and the details of a lawsuit that could affect all teachers in CA: I have pasted in the salient information at the end of this newsletter. If you contact either of the parties, please keep CTEN in the loop, via CC or separate email; it will help us keep track of our members’ activities and involvement.

In any event, if you enjoy these letters and find them informative, please pass them along to your colleagues. We know that there are many independent-minded teachers in California who are looking for alternative sources of information.

If you would like to see us address certain issues, topics, etc. in these newsletters or on our website – http://www.ctenhome.org - please let us know.

As always, we at CTEN want to thank you for your ongoing support and feedback.

Sincerely,

Larry Sand
CTEN President

------------------------

A Better Model

The big teachers’ unions have been taking from teachers for decades, often pushing policies that build their membership and power but don’t necessarily improve working conditions or wages for the very teachers they claim to represent – let alone improve the educational system. The power of CTA in California seems too big, too entrenched to ever change. But what if there was a better model, and the shift to that model could happen one school district at a time?

In California, individual teachers can opt out of paying a portion of their union dues by becoming an agency fee payer.  That can save a teacher hundreds of dollars a year, but they are still forced to pay as much as $700 a year or more. Teachers who become agency fee payers also lose many benefits of union membership, including the right to vote on their contracts.

The Better Model is an independent public teacher association that controls its own destiny. By contracting out for expert legal and labor representation, but retaining for its members all policy and decision-making authority, teachers can easily save half of their current dues ($500/year or more) and get better and more responsive representation than the big union model.

CTA apologists will say that such a model would be risky and leave the teachers unprotected by the vast resources of the statewide organization. The thing is that tens of thousands of California public employees are already doing it. Hundreds of public employee associations are independent - meaning, they are simply not attached to CTA, SEIU, AFSCME, or one of the other large national and international unions. Public employee associations represent California public employees that work for the state, counties, cities and special districts, including police officers, nurses, managers, firefighters, general employees, and everything in between. There are even public school teachers operating under this model, including traditional public and charter schools.

This model works. Ask around. Chances are that your local police officers’ association or deputy sheriffs’ association are not affiliated with a statewide or national union (though they probably belong to a lobbying organization and/or legal defense fund) and they pay substantially less than teachers do in dues.

The truth is that CTA and CFT have had a virtual monopoly of teacher representation in California. While we can debate the long term success or failure of such representation statewide and nationally, there is no doubt that locally, the big union model is not responsive, not independent…but it is very expensive.

California Independent Teachers was founded by labor and legal professionals that have been working for independent employee associations for decades. We know that this works; we make our livings from making sure that we provide superior value and responsive representation to our association clients.

If you are interested in talking to someone with CIT about their model and about the steps that need to be taken to decertify CTA in your district, go to www.caindependentteachers.com or call Rafael Ruano at (888) 993-1600.

Students Matter Case

Students Matter was formed to bring an education reform case here in California. The purpose of the litigation is to remove barriers from the education code that make it nearly impossible to identify and reward quality teachers and almost equally as impossible to remove those who persistently underperform. Students Matter believes so strongly in the critical importance of teachers to improving student achievement, we want to ensure that there is a quality teacher in every classroom.

We filed our case, Vergara v. California, on May 15 on behalf of eight students currently enrolled in California public schools. The case challenges three provisions of the education code: the process for granting teacher's permanent employment, mandated seniority-based layoffs, and teacher dismissal procedures. For more information, please visit the Students Matter website studentsmatter.org, where you'll find recent press coverage and editorials, and read the attached FAQ and statement of support from Los Angeles Unified Superintendent Dr. John Deasy.

The voices of courageous teachers who stand up for school reform help us bring attention to the issues at the heart of our case and ultimately help us help those who matter the most: students.

If you would like to get involved in any capacity, either through contributing your story to an op-ed piece, sharing your insight on background with reporters or simply passing our information along to interested friends and colleagues, please email Jaclyn Matthews at jmatthews@griffinschein.com.

Dear Colleague,

Welcome back! By now all school districts in California are in session and we hope that the start of the school year has gone well for all of you.

Being an election year, there are many items on the ballot that will see CTA spending millions of your dues dollars on candidates and initiatives regardless of your preferences. Two initiatives the union will be focusing on are Prop. 30 and Prop. 32. CTA will be selling its positions and we will do our best to give you an alternate view. Unlike CTA, we will point out facts and let you make up your own mind. Regarding Prop. 30 – the official site advocating its passage is http://www.yesonprop30.com/  – while for the anti-Prop.  30 forces, it’s http://defeat30.com/. For Yes on Prop 32 it’s http://yesprop32.com/ and for “No” it’s - http://www.stopspecialexemptions.org/  If you have any questions, send them our way and we will do our best to give you the spin-free facts. (At this writing, the Yes on 32 forces are being outspent by over 10:1, with most of the No money coming from CTA.)

If you are willing to speak publicly about Prop. 30 or Prop. 32, please let us know.

If your politics don’t happen to jibe with CTA’s, or you don’t think that a teachers union should be spending money on issues that have nothing to do with teaching or education, you might want to consider not giving them the 30 percent or so of your dues that go toward politics. If you’d like more information about your options, please go to http://www.ctenhome.org/know.htm

If you do decide to make this move, it is a two step process. First, you resign from the union, thus becoming an agency fee payer, and then request that the political part of your dues be returned to you. Sample letters for both steps are available here - http://www.ctenhome.org/knowMembership.htm#exoptions  If you already are an agency fee payer, you must request your rebate this year (and every year!) by November 15th. If you are as much as one day late, you will not get a penny. Also, because liability insurance is important for teachers, we suggest joining the Association of American Educators http://www.aaeteachers.org/  or Christian Educators Association http://www.ceai.org/  Both AAE and CEAI are professional organizations, not unions, and are apolitical. (Also, teachers who mention CTEN when they sign up with AAE for the first time will get a $30 discount off the regular $180 first year membership.)

Concerned Educators Against Forced Unionism, the arm of the National Right to Work Legal Defense and Education Foundation that deals with educators, has a new website – http://ceafu.org/ – which is well worth checking out. Among other things, it tells teachers how to get free legal aid, gives info about non-union professional educator groups, etc.

Common wisdom has it that we are spending less and less on education. However, the numbers don’t bear this out. At the Heritage Foundation, Lindsey Burke reports, “Students headed back to school this fall will have historically high levels of dollars spent on them in the public school system. (Emphasis added.) Nationally, average per-pupil spending exceeds $11,400 this year….” To learn more, go to http://blog.heritage.org/2012/08/27/back-to-school-some-surprising-education-numbers/  And for a comparison of years past, go to the National Center for Education Statistics website for some surprising numbers – http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=66

If you are unclear about what online learning is and isn’t, “Fixing Our Schools,” a recent Juan Williams special, should be able to answer many of your questions. It’s excellent, full of information and is a fast 42 minutes. To watch the video, go to http://vimeo.com/47868845

The National Council on Teacher Quality has an alarming report in its August newsletter. “States play an enormous role in setting the framework for teacher preparation programs. So enormous, in fact, that policies about teacher preparation comprise the largest section of our State Teacher Policy Yearbook. Unfortunately, it's also the area where state policies earn the lowest grade, averaging just a D.” To see how California compares to other states in teacher prep as well as identifying and retaining effective teachers, go to http://www.nctq.org/stpy11Home.do

In case you missed it, Assembly Bill 5 – after CTA and its friends went through major contortions to get it passed – died at the end of the legislative session on August 31^st. The bill was an attempt to negate a judge’s ruling in the Doe vs. Deasy case. Just about every newspaper in the state editorialized against the bill. The San Francisco Chronicle wrote,  

California is getting a lesson on how not to improve schools, courtesy of well-entrenched teacher unions. At issue are teacher evaluations based on student scores - a measuring stick that unions hate - and a pending state law that's been gutted to serve this labor group.

The state Senate has a last-ditch chance to reject the measure, AB5, which basically eliminates statewide requirements that student test results be used as one measure of teacher performance. 

For years, California has lived with a mandate that teachers' performance be evaluated by a multitude of measures, including classroom tests, but this requirement was largely ignored. Student performance, no matter how abysmal, was never attributed to a teacher, even if year after year test scores suggested a problem in the classroom. 

To read the rest of the editorial, go to http://www.sfgate.com/opinion/editorials/article/AB5-should-be-voted-down-3805501.php

Recently, we sent you a couple of emails – one about how teachers can start up their own independent teacher association, the second about a lawsuit that could affect all teachers in CA. In case you missed these emails, I have pasted in the salient information at the end of this newsletter. If you contact either of the parties, please keep CTEN in the loop, via CC or separate email; it will help us keep track of our members’ involvement.

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

If you were away over the summer and did not read the July and August letters, we encourage you to get caught up.  Please visit http://www.ctenhome.org/newsletters.htm to do so.

Are you still using your school email address to receive these emails? If so, we suggest that you use your personal email address. More and more school email programs are blocking us.

Finally, despite our state’s fiscal turmoil, we hope that 2012-2013 will be a great one for you and your students.  As always, sincere thanks for your continued interest and support.

Sincerely,

Larry Sand

CTEN President

 -----------------------------------------

A Better Model

The big teachers’ unions have been taking from teachers for decades, often pushing policies that build their membership and power but don’t necessarily improve working conditions or wages for the very teachers they claim to represent – let alone improve the educational system. The power of CTA in California seems too big, too entrenched to ever change. But what if there was a better model, and the shift to that model could happen one school district at a time?

In California, individual teachers can opt out of paying a portion of their union dues by becoming an agency fee payer.  That can save a teacher hundreds of dollars a year, but they are still forced to pay as much as $700 a year or more. Teachers who become agency fee payers also lose many benefits of union membership, including the right to vote on their contracts.

The Better Model is an independent public teacher association that controls its own destiny. By contracting out for expert legal and labor representation, but retaining for its members all policy and decision-making authority, teachers can easily save half of their current dues ($500/year or more) and get better and more responsive representation than the big union model.

CTA apologists will say that such a model would be risky and leave the teachers unprotected by the vast resources of the statewide organization. The thing is that tens of thousands of California public employees are already doing it. Hundreds of public employee associations are independent - meaning, they are simply not attached to CTA, SEIU, AFSCME, or one of the other large national and international unions. Public employee associations represent California public employees that work for the state, counties, cities and special districts, including police officers, nurses, managers, firefighters, general employees, and everything in between. There are even public school teachers operating under this model, including traditional public and charter schools.

This model works. Ask around. Chances are that your local police officers’ association or deputy sheriffs’ association are not affiliated with a statewide or national union (though they probably belong to a lobbying organization and/or legal defense fund) and they pay substantially less than teachers do in dues.

The truth is that CTA and CFT have had a virtual monopoly of teacher representation in California. While we can debate the long term success or failure of such representation statewide and nationally, there is no doubt that locally, the big union model is not responsive, not independent…but it is very expensive.

California Independent Teachers was founded by labor and legal professionals that have been working for independent employee associations for decades. We know that this works; we make our livings from making sure that we provide superior value and responsive representation to our association clients.

If you are interested in talking to someone with CIT about their model and about the steps that need to be taken to decertify CTA in your district, go to www.caindependentteachers.com or call Rafael Ruano at (888) 993-1600.

Students Matter Case

Students Matter was formed to bring an education reform case here in California. The purpose of the litigation is to remove barriers from the education code that make it nearly impossible to identify and reward quality teachers and almost equally as impossible to remove those who persistently underperform. Students Matter believes so strongly in the critical importance of teachers to improving student achievement, we want to ensure that there is a quality teacher in every classroom.

We filed our case, Vergara v. California, on May 15 on behalf of eight students currently enrolled in California public schools. The case challenges three provisions of the education code: the process for granting teacher's permanent employment, mandated seniority-based layoffs, and teacher dismissal procedures. For more information, please visit the Students Matter website studentsmatter.org, where you'll find recent press coverage and editorials, and read the attached FAQ and statement of support from Los Angeles Unified Superintendent Dr. John Deasy.

The voices of courageous teachers who stand up for school reform help us bring attention to the issues at the heart of our case and ultimately help us help those who matter the most: students.

If you would like to get involved in any capacity, either through contributing your story to an op-ed piece, sharing your insight on background with reporters or simply passing our information along to interested friends and colleagues, please email Jaclyn Matthews at jmatthews@griffinschein.com.

Dear Colleague,

Now that most districts in California begin the school year in August, many of you are back in class. The post Labor Day starts seem to be disappearing from the landscape. In any event, we hope that the beginning of your school year has been (and will continue to be) a good one.

In the July letter, we told you about SB 1530 -- a bill that, if passed, would have shortened the endless “dismissal procedures” and make it easier to get rid of a teacher who has abused children with drugs, sex and violence. The theme continued to stay in the limelight when former CNN and NBC news reporter Campbell Brown wrote in the Wall Street Journal that in New York, “Teachers Unions Go to Bat for Sexual Predators.”

(http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443437504577547313612049308.html)

Needless to say, AFT President Randi Weingarten couldn’t ignore Brown’s op-ed and the two of them wound up in something of a cat fight on Twitter. (http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/teacherbeat/2012/08/a_twitter_debate_on_teacher_se.html)

The National Council on Teacher Quality has a new newsletter, TR³ Trends, aimed at school officials, but we see no reason why the information it contains would not be of interest to teachers. Each month they use data from NCTQ's TR³ database to “highlight the latest trends in school district policies and collective bargaining agreements nationwide. TR³ contains teacher policies from 113 school districts, including the 50 largest districts, the largest district in each state, Broad Prize winners, Gates investment districts, and members of the Council of the Great City Schools.” For more information, go to http://www.nctq.org/p/tqb/pdq.jsp?tag=TR3%20Trends

 

The New Teacher Project, now known as TNTP, has come out with a new study which claims that urban schools are “systematically neglecting their best teachers, losing tens of thousands every year even as they keep many of their lowest-performing teachers indefinitely – with disastrous consequences for students, schools, and the teaching profession. The study by TNTP documents the real teacher retention crisis in America’s schools: not only a failure to retain enough teachers, but a failure to retain the right teachers.” While TNTP has conducted similar studies with similar results in the past, this study should certainly not be ignored. For more, go to http://tntp.org/assets/documents/TNTP_Irreplaceables_2012.pdf
 

On the same note we found an excellent op-ed in the New York Post recently, which describes a teacher’s frustration with the New York City school district’s ability to retain great teachers. The writer is leaving the teaching profession, and while describing New York, she undoubtedly speaks for many educators all over the country. The op-ed can be found here - http://www.educators4excellence.org/news/2012-07-why-nyc-cant-keep-great-teachers

We all know that data can be skewed to make a protagonist’s argument. The following video makes this point graphically and purports to outline the real state of California K-

12 schools. “The presentation shows that our state is not really making any real progress at improving actual student subject mastery. The analysis details the performance of some of the state's largest districts, as well as some of the author’s local district's as a way to clarify important information.” See if you agree with the video which can be found here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hwru7faexew

Another video worth watching, especially for those of you who are looking for an alternative to the teachers union, comes from our friends at the Association of American Educators which is the largest non-union, professional educators' organization in the country. They advance the profession by offering “a modern approach to teacher representation and educational advocacy, as well as promoting professionalism, collaboration and excellence without a partisan agenda.” To watch the video, go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lC0ornsg_4&feature=player_embedded

Researcher Jay Greene has written an important blog post in which he proclaims that “Charter Benefits Are Proven by the Best Evidence.” Referring to randomized control trials (RCT), he says, “Happily, we have four RCTs on the effects of charter schools that allow us to know something about the effects of charter schools with high confidence.  Here is what we know:  students in urban areas do significantly better in school if they attend a charter school than if they attend a traditional public school.  These academic benefits of urban charter schools are quite large.  In Boston, a team of researchers from MIT, Harvard, Duke, and the University of Michigan, conducted a RCT and found:  ‘The charter school effects reported here are therefore large enough to reduce the black-white reading gap in middle school by two-thirds.’” To read Greene’s blog post, go to http://jaypgreene.com/2012/05/07/charter-benefits-are-proven-by-the-best-evidence/

For those of you who are interested in getting more info about charter schools or are possibly interested in working in one, the best place to start is the Center for Education Reform FAQ page - http://www.edreform.com/2012/03/just-the-faqs-charter-schools/      

CTEN is in the process of setting up a YouTube network in which we will try to present various issues in a simple, easy-to-understand way. Topics will include agency fee status, religious objector status, charter school basics, an explanation of vouchers, etc. We will have more information in the “official” welcome back newsletter in September.

Also, next month, we will have information about the steps needed to attain agency fee status. (If you are already an agency fee payer and plan to apply for your yearly rebate, make sure not to do so before September 1st.)

If you are interested in giving CTEN brochures to colleagues, you can print them right from the home page - http://www.ctenhome.org/index.htm  Or, if you prefer, we will be happy to send you as many preprinted ones as you need.

And finally, we still have a limited number of t-shirts available. They are navy blue with the CTEN logo on front and “A resource for all who care about education” printed on the back. They come preshrunk, in small, medium, large and extra large. If you would like one, all you have to do is make a $15 donation to CTEN via PayPal - http://www.ctenhome.org/donate.htm ) Then, please let us know what size and where to send it and we will get it out to you.

As always, we at CTEN want to thank you for your ongoing support. Please keep providing feedback so that we can continue to meet your needs by keeping you informed as well as provoking lively discussion. Thank you very much.

Sincerely,

Larry Sand
CTEN President

CTEN - July 2012 letter

Dear Colleague,

The Los Angeles chapter of New York based Educators 4 Excellence has come up with an evaluation plan for teachers, which was rolled out last month. On hand for the presentation were local teachers, media and LAUSD Superintendent John Deasy. While Deasy had a few issues with the plan, he found much to his liking. In any event, kudos to E4E for embarking on this teacher-led project. Teachers have complained for a long time that decisions were being made over which they had no control. It is heartening to see an organization made up of teachers take the lead. For more about their plan, go to http://educators4excellence.s3.amazonaws.com/8/e7/3/461/E4E-LA.Teacher_Evaluation.final.pdf

Talking about LAUSD, according to a report released last week by the Education Action Group, the teachers’ contract in Los Angeles is costing the city, which is on the verge of bankruptcy, unnecessary millions that it can ill afford to spend at this time. “Sucking the Life Out of America’s Public Schools” gives us the gory details. It is also a primer on what other districts should not do. To read the report, please go to - http://eagnews.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Los-Angeles-contract-report.pdf

Is it possible that the NEA is in deep trouble? According to Mike Antonucci,

After a year of unprecedented membership losses driven by economic stresses and political attacks, the National Education Association stands at a crossroads. Unlike in the past, our shrinking membership is not the sole product of a down economy from which we could expect to eventually recover. The forces impacting us are so strong that they have indelibly changed our industry, the educational system, and society at large. Things will never go back to the way they were. Attacks on collective bargaining and the role of the union, the nation's changing demographics, education reform efforts, and an explosion in the use of education technology and online learning have radically changed the role of educators and the system of educating our nation's students.

To read more of Antonucci on the subject, go to http://www.eiaonline.com/archives/20120611.htm  

On the same subject, Greg Toppo in USA Today writes,

The National Education Association (NEA) has lost more than 100,000 members since 2010. By 2014, union projections show, it could lose a cumulative total of about 308,000 full-time teachers and other workers, a 16% drop from 2010. Lost dues will shrink NEA's budget an estimated $65 million, or 18%. (http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/story/2012-06-28/Teacher-unions-education/55993750/1)

I throw in my two cents on the subject here - http://www.capoliticalreview.com/top-stories/the-national-education-association-finds-itself-in-a-big-hole-and-keeps-digging/

In a story that garnered  a lot of angry editorials in California newspapers, the teachers unions managed to prevail on state assembly education committee members to kill SB 1530, a bill that if passed would have shortened the endless “dismissal procedures” thus making it easier to get rid of a teacher who has abused children with drugs, sex and violence. An editorial from the SF Chronicle typifies the POV of many of the CA newspapers who wrote about this situation. The editorial begins with,

The influence of the California Teachers Association was rarely more apparent - or more sickening - than in the defeat of SB1530.

To read the rest of it, go to

http://www.sfgate.com/opinion/editorials/article/SB1530-defeat-a-disservice-to-children-3684559.php

Back in April 2010, we told you about the strange case of Eileen Blagden who was a principal at Stowers Elementary School in Cerritos in South Los Angeles County. “Her troubles began when she questioned the history of a teacher she was ordered to place at her school. This eventually led to her being removed from her position after seven years on the job. According to Ms. Blagden, she has not been given any reason for her removal.” In the intervening years, she was “demoted” to a classroom position as court proceedings went forth.

The facts have now been revealed and it would seem that she lost her job as principal because she reported death threats made by one of her teachers against two other teachers to the police. Her superiors in the district told her not to tell anyone about the threats, not even the teachers whose lives were threatened. For more on this woman who did the right thing and paid a heavy price for it, please watch this brief video on KNBC about the story - http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/Demoted-Principle-Accuses-District-of-Trying-to-Hide-Threats-161315835.html

The Long Beach Press Telegram had a front page article on July 4^th - http://www.presstelegram.com/education/ci_21002087/former-principals-lawsuit-claims-she-was-demoted-reporting

Then the most damning piece to date in the July 6^th Los Cerritos News ran with the headline “Court Rules ABC School District Fabricated Evidence Used to Demote Former Stowers Principal.” ( http://www.loscerritosnews.net/2012/07/06/court-rules-abc-school-district-fabricated-evidence-used-to-demote-former-stowers-principal/ )

We received an email recently from The American Center for School Choice, an organization that is launching a "Commission on Faith-based Schools." Its objectives are to “expand public understanding of the role(s) of faith-based schools in American education, especially in low-income communities” and to “address the need for expanding publicly funded school choice to increase family ability to choose a faith-based school.”

If you are teacher who supports this concept and would consider being a Commission member of this fledgling group, please let me know and I will pass your information on. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact me.

Last week, Andrew Coulson penned a provocative op-ed in the Wall Street Journal that raised the hackles of many. As of this writing, “America Has Too Many Teachers” has garnered 680 comments. Please read the article and at least some of the comments to get an idea of how volatile this subject really is.

( http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303734204577465413553320588.html#articleTabs%3Dcomments )

As always, we at CTEN want to thank you for your ongoing support. Please visit us regularly at www.ctenhome.org.  We do our best to keep our website up-to-date, but if you need information and can’t find it there, please send us an email at cteninfo@ctenhome.org or call us at 888-290-8471 and we will get back to you in short order. 

Sincerely,

Larry Sand
CTEN President

Dear Colleague,

As the 2011-2012 school year draws to a close, there are two pieces of litigation in the news that will affect just about every teacher in the state. The first case – Doe vs. Deasy-- first came to light last November (http://www.city-journal.org/2012/cjc0119ls.html) when EdVoice, a reform advocacy group in Sacramento, filed a lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court against the LAUSD, district superintendent John Deasy, and United Teachers Los Angeles. The lawsuit accuses the district and the union of a gross dereliction of duty.

According to the parents’ complaint, the district and the union have violated the children’s “fundamental right to basic educational equality and opportunity” by failing to comply with the Stull Act which is part of the California Education Code. The 1971 law states that school districts must include student achievement as part of a teacher’s evaluation. Los Angeles Unified has never done so: the teachers union wouldn’t allow it. The case was settled last Tuesday in favor of the plaintiffs. (http://www.scpr.org/blogs/education/2012/06/12/6587/draft-l-unified-must-include-student-performance-t/)

Though only LAUSD was named as a defendant, every district in the state will be affected, as no district outside LA has followed the law either. Then, last month, a suit with even broader ramifications for teachers was filed on behalf of eight students from around the state, claiming provisions of California’s education code—rigid tenure rules, a seniority-based firing system that ignores teacher quality, and a “due-process” system that makes it all but impossible to remove incompetent or criminal teachers—violate student rights. As a result of these arbitrary distinctions in hiring and firing, the complaint reads, “children of substantially equal age, aptitude, motivation, and ability do not have substantially equal access to education. Because education is a fundamental interest under the California Constitution, the statutes that dictate this unequal, arbitrary result violate the equal protection provisions of the California Constitution.” To read more, go to http://www.city-journal.org/2012/cjc0606ls.html

The worst union in the country? Troy Senik makes his case that it is our very own California Teachers Association. See if you agree. (http://www.city-journal.org/2012/22_2_california-teachers-association.html) As always, if you have opinions one way or the other, please share them on the CTEN blog - http://www.ctenteachers.blogspot.com/

Then there is a snippet from the May Issue of CTA’s magazine, California Educator, the hard copy of which is mailed to all its members. For the rest of us, it is now available online. (HT Darren Miller.) On page 20-21 of the current issue --(http://digital.copcomm.com/i/65746) --there is a two page spread in which CTA excoriates Stop Special Interest Money Now, an initiative that will be on the ballot in November. CTA commits two sins here. First, it shamelessly lies about the details of the initiative. The second and worse sin is on page 22 where CTA suggests that teachers tear out the poster on the previous page and hang it in their classrooms:



On the lighter side, Choice Media has posted a cartoon which concerns itself with the teachers unions - http://youtu.be/LdACxVeaq3Q which brings to mind an earlier effort called “Teachers Unions Explained” -http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kxc6kzH-uI A report from the National Council on Teacher Quality delves into what teacher candidates are learning about student assessment. This disturbing document quantifies the magnitude of a serious problem. “Before going into the classroom, teacher candidates' exposure to the task of assessing student learning, including how to interpret results and better plan instruction, is pretty thin--and that includes helping teachers do a better job designing their own pop quizzes, tests and exams.” This is yet another example of what a poor job of so many of our education schools are doing. To read the report, go to http://www.nctq.org/p/publications/docs/assessment_report.pdf

Better schools for less money? Marcus Winters thinks this is possible by giving individual schools more autonomy. He makes a good case for it here - http://www.city-journal.org/2012/22_2_public-education-spending.html

If you are a supporter of school choice, National School Choice Week is giving you the opportunity to get involved by posting a photo of yourself with a placard of your own creation on Facebook or Twitter. For more information, go to http://www.schoolchoiceweek.com/resources

To see what it looks like on Facebook, go to https://www.facebook.com/schoolchoiceweek If you would like some hard copies of the placards, I’d be happy to send you some.

If you are still using a school email to receive these newsletters, please consider sending us your personal email address. More and more school districts are blocking CTEN.  In any event, if you enjoy these letters and find them informative, please pass them along to your colleagues. We know that there are many independent-minded teachers in California who are looking for alternative sources of information, and we would like to be one of those sources. 

If you would like to see us address certain issues, topics, etc. in these newsletters or on our website – http://www.ctenhome.org – please let us know.  

Some of you have asked whether or not we will be sending out the newsletter in July and August.  Absolutely. We will certainly do our best to update you on any important educational issues. As such, even if you are traveling, please try to stay in touch. Thanks – and have a great summer! 

Sincerely,

Larry Sand
CTEN President