Sonya, Sonya, Sonya....(A Review of the May 9th Get Free! EFF Podcast)
I'm listening to the EFF's Get Free podcast from May 9th, and their new director of Labor Policy Sonya Jones says that it's "very hard to get your hands on" teacher's contracts (it's at about the 6:20 mark).
#1- Many school districts post their contracts on-line.
#2- It's public record; you should be able to get a copy in three days or less by mail if you ask for it.
#3- If the Director of Labor Policy thinks getting copies of the contract is the difficult part, then actually effecting changes in those agreements would be nigh-on impossible.
I've disagreed with her before, but this just seems defeatist.
"The school board can not reduce the number of teaching positions they have without negotiating that with the union," says Sonya. That's false on the face of it. The school district doesn't have to hire for positions that aren't needed. which is why many districts will handle decreased enrollment via attrition. I'm not going to defend Kitsap (the same way I wouldn't defend Spokane last year when they were bleeding kids but refusing to cut staff), but I really can't see how this is a union problem.
I do like the Godfather comparison, as long as it doesn't include the woefully terrible Godfather III. As the lead negotiator for my district I'm considering getting a fedora and wearing a white-on-white shirt/tie combination in order to set the tone.
It's also flat-out wrong to say that the schools that won't be receiving the AP grant didn't have AP programs in place; University High School in Central Valley has AP and would have been a grant recipient.
It's also wrong to say that union dues in this state are $900 a year without pointing out how much that can vary from district to district; while the WEA and NEA dues are consistent, local dues are not.
And can you imagine the stress on administrators if the teachers were represented by four different bargaining units, or if one teacher joined more than one association? If you think it's hard to fire a teacher now, sheesh....
And Sonya obviously has some research to do on teacher strikes here in Washington. They happen, and simply saying "They're illegal!" is ignoring the problem.
This idea that contract language looks the same from the smallest districts all the way up to Seattle is ludicrous. There might be some commonality in the nuts and bolts, but compare a Seattle or Spokane to a small district like Cheney or Reardan and the differences are far greater than the similarities.
It's also interesting to me to see a group like the EFF that's put a lot of work into model legislation projects that can be used in any state criticizing the WEA for having boilerplate language available. Different sides of the same coin?
Anyhow, lots of education discussion in this episode. Well worth listening to for anyone here in Washington who cares about education, from either side of the political spectrum.
#1- Many school districts post their contracts on-line.
#2- It's public record; you should be able to get a copy in three days or less by mail if you ask for it.
#3- If the Director of Labor Policy thinks getting copies of the contract is the difficult part, then actually effecting changes in those agreements would be nigh-on impossible.
I've disagreed with her before, but this just seems defeatist.
"The school board can not reduce the number of teaching positions they have without negotiating that with the union," says Sonya. That's false on the face of it. The school district doesn't have to hire for positions that aren't needed. which is why many districts will handle decreased enrollment via attrition. I'm not going to defend Kitsap (the same way I wouldn't defend Spokane last year when they were bleeding kids but refusing to cut staff), but I really can't see how this is a union problem.
I do like the Godfather comparison, as long as it doesn't include the woefully terrible Godfather III. As the lead negotiator for my district I'm considering getting a fedora and wearing a white-on-white shirt/tie combination in order to set the tone.
It's also flat-out wrong to say that the schools that won't be receiving the AP grant didn't have AP programs in place; University High School in Central Valley has AP and would have been a grant recipient.
It's also wrong to say that union dues in this state are $900 a year without pointing out how much that can vary from district to district; while the WEA and NEA dues are consistent, local dues are not.
And can you imagine the stress on administrators if the teachers were represented by four different bargaining units, or if one teacher joined more than one association? If you think it's hard to fire a teacher now, sheesh....
And Sonya obviously has some research to do on teacher strikes here in Washington. They happen, and simply saying "They're illegal!" is ignoring the problem.
This idea that contract language looks the same from the smallest districts all the way up to Seattle is ludicrous. There might be some commonality in the nuts and bolts, but compare a Seattle or Spokane to a small district like Cheney or Reardan and the differences are far greater than the similarities.
It's also interesting to me to see a group like the EFF that's put a lot of work into model legislation projects that can be used in any state criticizing the WEA for having boilerplate language available. Different sides of the same coin?
Anyhow, lots of education discussion in this episode. Well worth listening to for anyone here in Washington who cares about education, from either side of the political spectrum.
posted by Ryan at 1:54 PM
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