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 | 2012 - 02 Reporter | State legislation has eroded our salary, benefits and rights to maintain our jobs. Corporate profits have been strengthened at the expense of our public schools. Betty Ann Garlak provides a PAC Update. | | 2011 - 11 Reporter | A discussion of the effects of politics on teacher evaluations. A live model of "Teacher's Plan for Classroom Observation." | | 2011 - 10 Reporter | Sid welcomes everyone back during a difficult year. Specific suggestions about how to deal with legislative attacks. Betty Ann Garlak encourages teachers to contribute to PAC. Contract Feature on Sick Leave, Personal Business Leave and Jury Duty. | | 2011 - 06 Reporter | Sid thanks members who contributed to successes during a difficult year. | | 2010 - 12 Reporter | Corporate Attack on Public Education, Teacher Evaluation, New Executive Board Members, Joint Committee Notes, Bargaining Conference | | 2010 - 09 Reporter | Election Recommendations, Paid Leave, Personal Business Days, Jury Duty | | 2010 - 06 Retirement Issue | List of retirees' names and group pictures | | 2010 - 06 Reporter | Privatization in Royal Oak | | 2010 - 01 Reporter | Race to the Top, Democracy and Civil Rights | | 2009 - 10 Reporter | Sick leave and personal business leave policy. Class size relief grievance regarding class size and special education students. | | 2009 - 06 Reporter | Class size relief grievance regarding special education students. Bargaining update by Marcia Rauschendorfer | | 2009 - 03 Reporter | Middle School Grievance regarding implementation of changes in instructional and planning time. PAC Update by Betty Ann Garlak. Supporting our rights by supporting other bargaining units. | | 2008 - 11 Reporter | School politics and the presidential election. Unfair Labor Practice charged against the district due to the change in elementary starting times. Candidate screenings and recommendations by Betty Ann Garlak. | | 2008 - 10 Reporter | | | 2008 - 05 Reporter | | | 2008 - 04 Reporter | | | 2008 - 02 Reporter | | | 2007 - 11 Reporter | | | 2007 - 10 Reporter | | | 2007 - 03 Reporter | |
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I’m going to kick-off MEA’s campaign 2012 with a blunt observation: Republicans in the state legislature have continually eroded our salary, benefits, and rights to maintain our jobs. They are actively handing over our national treasure of public schools to private corporations whose motive in running charter schools and cyber schools are profits, not the welfare of students. |
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It's been a rough year for teachers, students, and public schools and there is no end in sight to the assaults on the rights of citizens. Millionaires such as the DeVos family support so-called "think tanks" such as the Mackinaw Center for Public Policy. In turn the Mackinaw Center spews out anti-public education propaganda which is happily but erroneously reported as research-based by Fox News and fellow millionaire club member Rupert Murdoch.
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It has been a difficult year for public school teachers. Nevertheless, with the assistance of our very capable members, the ROEA has accomplished a few things this year.
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The MEA was able to ward off an attack on teacher tenure in December, but our victory is likely only a temporary one. Once the new Legislature and Governor are seated, expect a spate of legislation that will erode teacher job security, pay, and benefits. Additionally, the legislation will most likely follow the current media fueled fad of assessing the quality of public education by using test data to evaluate a teacher’s effectiveness. The misuse of data will create the illusion that teachers are being correctly categorized by their ability and that student learning is a direct result of only a teacher’s ability rather than the complexity of factors which contribute to learning and test performance.
Read more in the December, 2010 Reporter |
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I [Sid Kardon] was part of the MEA statewide screening committee that met with Democratic candidate Virg Bernero and Republican candidate Rick Snyder. Bernero impressed our committee with his understanding of the challenges faced by public school students and teachers. He talked knowledgeably about the limitations of high stakes testing, difficulties faced by at-risk students, and the value of services such as social work. Mayor Bernero’s sound understanding of public schools is due in large part to his wife, Terry, who is an elementary principal in the Lansing School District. This has resulted in a great opportunity for us to elect a governor who understands the pragmatic challenges that we face daily in our goal of providing a great education for our students. Beyond pragmatics, Bernero understands that without full funding of public education we can never achieve those goals. He believes that a fully funded public school education for all children is a right, not a privilege.
In sharp contrast to Mayor Bernero, Rick Snyder did not demonstrate an in depth knowledge of schools. His primary political philosophy can be categorized as Reagonomics. Snyder’s philosophy is to cut taxes which will adversely impact our jobs. He also believes in privatizing public school jobs, eliminating our defined benefit pension, and sharply reducing health benefits. As an officer at Gateway Corporation he shipped Michigan jobs to China, hurting Michigan citizens in order to advance the interests of Gateway.
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In a repudiation of the needs of students for quality services and the desires of community members to maintain our educational support staff, the Royal Oak School Board voted 6 to 1 on May 13th to terminate our custodians, maintenance workers, and bus drivers and outsource their jobs to a private company.
Most community members understand that private sector services, motivated by profit and not student or school need, are vastly inferior to those provided by public education employees. On the face of things, that understanding would seem to reduce the issue to a straightforward financial one. However, that is not the case as evidenced by the Board’s vote to privatize in light of the Royal Oak Educational Support Personnel Association’s financially competitive bid in which they offered drastic reductions in their wages and benefits. As a result, the vote was not a financial one; it was a philosophical one pitting a corporate agenda against a community based public school district.
Read more in the June 2010 Reporter
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The nature of the legislation that states must pass to qualify for RTTT funds is problematic. Several features of the legislation undermine the interests of union members and alter public education in significant ways. The two areas of greatest impact to teachers and students are the linkage of student standardized test results to teacher evaluations and the linkage of test results to school takeovers by a state appointed manager. These two provisions relegate the definition of student and school success to math and ELA test scores and create a top down managerial model, as opposed to a site based collaborative model, as the basis for school decision making.
Read more in the January 2010 Reporter |
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