WEA NEWS RELEASE: TEACHERS SUE STATE OVER PAY CUT
WASHINGTON PAY RAISES "AN EGREGIOUS ATTACK ON BARGAINING RIGHTS"
SCHOOL SUPERINTENDENT FAILS MUST-PASS ENGLISH TEST
FAKING COMPETENCE
UNCONSTITUTIONAL ABUSE OF HIGH STAKES TESTING
ANSWERS ADD UP IN MATH DRILLS
CITY SCHOOLS FAIL TO SEE OBVIOUS IN STUDENT PROMOTION DEBATE
NEW COURSE BRINGS BIBLE BACK TO PUBLIC SCHOOL CLASSROOMS
NOTE: The news and information shared herein are to provide readers with a broad range of perspectives on education issues. They do not necessarily reflect the views of Northwest Professional Educators.
WEA NEWS RELEASE -- TEACHERS SUE STATE OVER PAY CUT
Legislature violated voter-approved Initiative 732
Washington teachers are suing the state of Washington for cutting teacher pay last year, a violation of both the state Constitution and voter-approved Initiative 732.
Nine individual teachers and the 76,000-member Washington Education Association are filing the lawsuit today in King County Superior Court. The individual teachers are from Federal Way, Issaquah, Lake Stevens, Moses Lake, Kettle Falls and Clarkston.
The 2002 Legislature voted to cut one day of work for all Washington teachers, a non-student Learning Improvement Day dedicated to higher student achievement and education reform. The loss of the day was a pay cut for each teacher. The average teacher lost about $250. As a result, teachers received a smaller cost-of-living salary adjustment than mandated by voter-approved Initiative 732, and they lost important work time devoted to improving student achievement. I-732, approved in 2000, mandated state-funded COLAs based on the state Consumer Price Index.
In addition to violating I-732, by cutting the day without considering the impact on basic education, the Legislature failed to fund basic education as required by the state Constitution. The pay cut affected teachers, not administrators or support employees.
The complaint is the second lawsuit filed against the state over its refusal to fully fund I-732. Last December, the state Supreme Court ruled that the Legislature had violated I-732 by funding COLAs for only 75 percent of the state's school employees instead of all. The remaining cost was shifted onto local taxpayers and school districts.
Earlier this year, the Legislature voted to suspend I-732 for at least the next two years, which means teachers and education support professionals can expect to receive no state-funded COLA for the 2003-04 or 2004-05 school years.
"The lawsuit is necessary," said WEA President Charles Hasse, "because lawmakers have stubbornly refused to comply with the provisions of both I-732 and the state Constitution. They persist in evading their sworn duty to adequately fund public schools."
Washington Pay Raises "An Egregious Attack on Bargaining Rights."
The Washington Education Association (WEA) is out to prove that teachers' unions aren't just about higher pay for teachers. In fact, WEA is threatening to go to court to prevent the state legislature from increasing the pay of new teachers. "It's an egregious attack on bargaining rights," said WEA President Charles Hasse in an interview with The Olympian.
The union is happy to use low salaries for new teachers as an argument for more education funding, but when the state appropriated money for teachers with seven years of experience or less, WEA announced it was "highly likely" to sue, saying any state money is subject to collective bargaining at the local level. A WEA spokesman said the issue was not about salaries but about local control over salary negotiations.
But teachers' unions aren't just about "local control" either. In California, a mandatory agency fee bill was passed two years ago, removing that issue from the local control of over 400 school districts in the state. Nary a peep was heard about this, because it benefited the union. Introduce a similar bill in Washington and watch Haase switch sides faster than you can say "egregious attack on bargaining rights."
The Education Intelligence Agency conducts public education research, analysis and investigations. Director: Mike Antonucci. PO Box 580007, Elk Grove, CA 95758. Ph: 916-422-4373. Fax: 916-392-1482. E-Mail: EducationIntel@aol.com
School superintendent fails must-pass English test
"This city's superintendent of schools, who recently put two dozen teachers on unpaid leave for failing a basic English proficiency test, has himself flunked a required literacy test three times."
___________________________
Faking Competence
"Now that high stakes academic testing is 'IN,' - while academic instruction remains 'OUT,' - schools are confronted with thousands of these uneducated students who must soon put on a theatrical show of competency for a national audience. The schools are now the desperate ones, but their tactics, unlike our simple childish ones, are not for the short term; are increasingly expensive; and will serve to mentally cripple further generations of Americans. Desperate for federal approval (which assures federal funding) the states grasp at any possible solution - even if they must aid and abet what is, in effect, cheating."
_____________________________
Unconstitutional Abuse of High Stakes Testing
"From TABS to TEAMS to TAAS to TAKS, minority children have been pawns in a cynical game of criterion academic testing that has suddenly taken a turn towards punitive, sinister and evil nastiness.
"The notion that Texas is a national model that addresses society's burden to at-risk minority students is morally, ethically, philosophically, academically and constitutionally perverse.
"EducationNews.org calls upon those groups that represent the interests of at-risk minority students to launch a broad-based federal assault on what has become of high stakes testing. The focal issue should be the failure of public education to make meaningful progress in closure of the academic equity gap between White and at-risk minority students."
____________________________
http://www.educationnews.org/Its-Time-To-Go-Back-To-The-Federal-Court-System.htm
Answers add up in math drills (opinion)
"Kumon math makes a lie out of the public education establishment's claim that zillions of dollars and class sizes of one student per teacher are necessary to raise math test scores."
________________________________
http://www.azcentral.com/community/scottsdale/columns/articles/0730sr-cantoni30.html
City Schools Fail to See Obvious in Student Promotion Debate
"HERE'S THE latest memo from Baltimore school officials to Baltimore citizens: We surrender. Here's the memo Baltimore's citizens should send back: Fine. When can we expect all your resignations?
"The wimp-out came this week, when school muckety-mucks 'fessed up that they may have to back off of their policy against social promotions - a policy that lasted all of three years. It seems that, horror of horrors, the policy means that some students may have to repeat a grade more than once.
"Excuse me, but the honchos running this shebang, from the school board to the administrators on North Avenue, are intelligent, college-educated folks with all kinds of degrees. Are they seriously suggesting that when they abandoned the practice of social promotion, they really didn't know some students would have to repeat a grade more than once?
"Exactly who are the dummies here - the flunking students or the people running the system?"
________________________________
http://www.sunspot.net/news/local/bal-md.kane02aug02,0,1203686.column?coll=bal-local-headlines
New Course Brings Bible Back to Public School Classrooms
"The National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools is promoting an elective course in which the Bible is taught as history and literature on campus, during school hours, for credit. The group's founder and president, Elizabeth Ridenour, says contrary to what groups like the ACLU claim, the course is constitutionally legal.
"'We have an open door. The National Secretary of Education and the Supreme Court have said it's legal.'
"This has already been voted into 236 school districts in 33 states, and we have already had 153,000 students take the course nationwide," the Council's founder adds.
"Ridenour says the central approach of the course is simply to study the Bible as a foundation document of society, an approach that is altogether appropriate in a comprehensive secular education program. In the course, the Old Testament is taught the first semester, and the New Testament is offered the second semester. Students who only want to take the Old Testament are allowed to do so."
