Liv Finne: Knows All, Sees All

I really wanted to call this post "Liv Finne: Knows Fuck-All, Sees Fuck-All", but blogger doesn't like the strike tag in the header of a post. Which is kind of ironic, considering the topic.

The Tacoma Education Association ended their strike this week (yes, the one I was wrong about), and that gave Liv some brief cause for joy:

The final agreement represents an important victory for students. By gaining flexibility in work assignments district officials will be better able to place the best teachers in the classroom, not just the ones with the most seniority. But the entire conflict could have been avoided.

Note that this was posted on Thursday at about 5:30 in the morning, according to the tagging on Google Reader. Later that day The News Tribune offered that they didn't have any details to share yet, meaning that the paper of record for Tacoma was either scooped by Liv Finne or that Liv was talking out of her ass.

Later on Thursday the teachers of Tacoma voted to ratify the contract by a margin of 1,683 yes to 15 no, so either 99%+ of the members of the TEA voted for a contract that isn't in their best interests, or Liv was talking out of her ass.

King 5 TV provided the final piece of the puzzle Thursday evening:

The way the district reassigns teachers, which was the main point of contention for many teachers, will not change in the current school year. But starting this year a committee of teachers and school district officials will look at potential changes for next year. The union originally wanted to maintain the current system based on a teacher’s seniority. Under the contract, any changes in the policy would need a two-thirds majority.

So that flexibility, that important victory? It's in a committee that needs a super-super-majority to effect change. Liv's post makes no sense, unless you look at it through the lens of "Anything to make teachers look bad".

This isn't a first for Liv. It was about this time last year that we talked about her being lead around by the nose by the since-disgraced Maria Goodloe-Johnson during the negotiations between the Seattle Schools and their teachers. Liv loves her administrators; the teachers in the classrooms, not so much.