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Perspectives on our profession,
Arguments for quality education. . . .
From Sid Kardon, ROEA President
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3/3/2012
ROEA Members, Please read and act on the following letter from MEA President, Steve Cook.
Sid
Fellow MEA members, Next week, a statewide campaign to protect our jobs and our voice at work will be launched -- and our most important task for the coming year will begin. A coalition representing Michigan workers, small business owners, clergy, unions and other organizations from across the state will announce the Protect Our Jobs campaign, which aims to amend the state constitution to protect the right to collectively bargain. Over the past year, Lansing politicians have moved one anti-worker measure after another, doing nothing to help put Michigan back to work. In fact, there are more than 100 bills currently pending in the Legislature that weaken protections for MEA members, and many other workers, from nurses and firefighters to construction and factory employees. The opposition's goal is clear -- dismantle collective bargaining rights for all workers. To rebuild our economy, we all need to work together to protect Michigan workers and strengthen the middle class to help small businesses create jobs. That's what the Protect Our Jobs campaign is all about. Visit www.ProtectOurJobs.com<http://msg4svc.net/cbiei/452205/62/214685/3384/0/S/0/0/frit.html> to volunteer with the campaign and help protect the middle class. MEA is proud to help lead this charge. But it won't be easy. We need to collect more than 322,000 valid signatures in less than four months to put this important measure on the November ballot. MEA has been working on a plan that involves all our field offices, staff, leaders and members -- working together, we can and will protect our work, our voice and our future. I know I can count on MEA's 150,000 members to take an active role in this effort and lead us to victory. Visit www.ProtectOurJobs.com<http://msg4svc.net/cbiei/452205/62/214685/3384/0/S/0/0/frit.html> to sign up and learn more about how you can help protect Michigan's working middle class families. In Solidarity, Steve Cook MEA President
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3/3/2012
A few days ago, a federal judge restored some of the pay cuts imposed on Detroit teachers by Emergency Manager Roy Roberts. This includes a restoration of salary steps. And about one week ago, a judge ruled that the proceedings in the proposed takeover of the Highland Park School District violated the Open Meetings Act. I believe that the petitions signed by over 200,000 Michiganians to halt the Emergency Manager takeover had bearing on two important public school decisions. That is why I want you to take this poll and vote AGAINST Michigan becoming a right to work state. You will never ever see a salary schedule under right to work, your wages will be cut as surely as the Emergency Manager imposed a 10% cut in Detroit teacher salaries, and your dismissal from work will be based on your age and the amount of money that you earn. Please act by participating in this poll. In union solidarity, Sid Kardon http://www.mlive.com/auto/index.ssf/2012/03/should_michigan_become_a_right.html |
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3/29/2012
Dear ROEA,
Remember to get your signatures for the petition drive. This is our most important job between now and early May.
In solidarity, Sid
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, March 28, 2012 8:08 AM
Subject: Life or death
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Dear Friend,
The next time you visit a loved one in the hospital, ask their nurse how many patients he or she is caring for, and pay close attention to the answer. If it’s more than four and your loved one is on an acute care unit, your loved one’s chances of infection, injury or death increase dramatically.
As a Registered Nurse, I see firsthand how collective bargaining directly impacts patients and quality of care. Collective bargaining is a vital tool to ensure patient safety, by requiring safe levels of patient-to-caregiver ratios.
But collective bargaining is under attack in Michigan.
State politicians want to strip away critical workers’ rights – including collective bargaining. To me, collective bargaining is a life or death issue. When health care professionals sit down to negotiate a contract, the No. 1 topic is the ratio of caregivers to patients.
Take away collective bargaining, and you take away an important safety net for patients. For me, it’s about protecting your loved ones and making sure they get the care they need.
It’s also about protecting the middle class. Collective bargaining gives all workers a voice, and the ability to come together to negotiate a fair contract.
Over the past year, state politicians have moved one anti-worker measure after another, doing nothing to help put Michigan back to work. Now more than ever, workers need the right to speak up and protect our wages and benefits.
Collective bargaining helps protect our jobs, our wages and benefits, and our safety on the job – as well as the safety of my patients. Working men and women in Michigan like you and me can’t afford to sit back and do nothing while our rights are under attack.
Sincerely,
John Armelagos
Registered Nurse
Ann Arbor
| | 2/25/2011
Dear ROEA member,
We have a great opportunity to stand up for the teaching profession and public education this Saturday. MEA President Iris Salters will be at the capitol building this Saturday at noon, in support of the workers IN wisconsin and public education in Michigan. It is critical that we support Iris. I will be there with my wife, daughter, and a few of our Executive Board members. We already have one full minivan!
I want you there as well. This rally will have bearing on future Michigan legislation that effects you. Governor Snyder, like his counterpart in Wisconsin Scott Walker, is determined to cut teacher's salaries and benefits and destroy public education. This may sound like hyperbole, but unfortunately it is not. In Wisconsin, Walker has the financial backing of the Koch brothers who are billionaires that finance tea party activities, media attacks on unions, and bogus research that concludes that class size and socioeconomic status has no bearing on the quality of education, only ineffectual union teachers do. They are determined to undermine participatory democracy in order to create more wealth for themselves. This is a political and societal crisis, not an economic one. The so-called economic crisis has been wholly created by politicians in both parties who are controlled by wealthy individuals and who develop tax policies to suit those individuals. We are then portrayed as selfish because we want decent slaries and benefits.
If you are a parent, bring your children along for a one hour walk around the capitol and then spend time in a Lansing museum. If you have a kid at MSU, ask him or her to meet you at the capitol and then enjoy a day with them on campus. Bring a friend, bring a family member. But whatever you do, be there. The Governor is asking you to sacrifice your pension and benefits so wealthy individuals can avoid any financial sacrifice. I'm asking you to sacrifice a day so you and your family can maintain not just a well deserved middle class life style, but a democracy that is of the people, by the people, and for the people; not one that is of, by, and for millionaires.
In Solidarity,
Sid Kardon, Proud president of the ROEA
3/12/2010
March 8th, 2010
Arne Duncan, Secretary of Education
U.S. Department of Education
400 Maryland Avenue, SW
Washington, DC 20202
Dear Secretary Duncan:
As a member of the National Education Association, I was taken aback by your support of Central Falls Superintendent Frances Gallo who recently fired 93 public school teachers. The summary termination of 93 individuals without due process rights is anathema to the American justice system and its reverence for individual rights. The Superintendent’s actions were illogical as well as untenable. Surely there must be one good, if not great, teacher amongst the ninety-three. Yet, in the current and fashionable zeal to convert true public schools to privately run charter schools, the merits of any individual teacher are rendered meaningless in what passes as educational policy- the unnecessary firing of teachers and other public employees who are now unprotected under Race To The Top from the vicissitudes of an administrator’s decree.
Ultimately, poor educational performance most often bespeaks poorly funded education. As such, the mass termination of teachers (by a superintendent who blithely removes herself from responsibility for the underperformance of Central Falls High School), merely masks an underfunded and unequally funded public school system.
I am asking that you publicly rescind your support of the arbitrary firing of 93 dedicated educators.
Sincerely,
Sidney Kardon, President, Royal Oak Education Association 11/10/2009An Oakland Press editorial advised caution before making changes in Proposal A, the primary tax mechanism for generating school revenue. However, Proposal A has resulted in an underfunded public school system that has been particularly devastating to poorer and inner city districts such as Pontiac. The reason that Proposal A has resulted in underfunded schools is simple: Proposal A was never meant to help schools; it was designed to reduce taxes. The reason that it underfunds poorer districts is that despite pronouncements by then-Gov. John Engler that Proposal A would equalize funding, the distribution of funding was based on the existing property tax structure, which meant that wealthier districts with a higher property tax base would get a larger per-pupil stipend from the state. As a result, Pontiac receives $7,491 per pupil, neighboring Bloomfield Hills get $12,443 per pupil. And just as Proposal A’s impact was disproportionately harsh to poorer districts, its implementation was disproportionately benign to wealthier property owners. Commensurate with Proposal A was Schools of Choice legislation, which allowed students to attend school in another district, taking their Proposal A money with them. With even less money to utilize for student programs, the deterioration of districts such as Pontiac with poorer students continues unabated. Proposal A’s damage refused to be contained by race and impoverishment. The better-funded districts began to take money out of their operating budgets in a deliberate decision to put less money into a student’s education and more money into the district’s bank account. The reason was twofold. First, districts developed an unfounded fear that the state would not pay them their allotment (unfounded because this has never happened) and they would need to have funds available for this contingency. These unused funds have grown to $2 billion statewide and more than $250 million countywide as of June, 2008. Second, districts are prohibited under Proposal A from improving educational programs with local funds. If local citizens wish to assess their property at a higher rate to benefit their students and community, they are legally enjoined from doing so under Proposal A. Unfortunately for Michigan students, Proposal A is working as it was intended to. Sold to the public as a mechanism to reduce funding disparity, in combination with schools of choice it has lead to more economic and race-based disparity in educational funding. Lower operating budgets, artificially created by transferring money into district investments, have been used as a rationale to privatize services. This has eroded the community-based nature of public schools and has harmed local economies and families. Underfunded districts such as Pontiac are heading into restructuring, a euphemism for the transfer of public tax dollars to private for-profit educational corporations. The legislature must fund schools based on generating enough revenue to meet the needs of students. Not only do we need Proposal A dismantled; the anti-public weal philosophy that led to its creation must be dismantled as well. |
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