Dear Members:

 

This is a follow-up to last weeks meeting.

 

Last week, teachers faced an unprecedented attack on our employment rights when State Senator Alex Padilla’s bill to gut due process rights in teacher dismissals came before the State Assembly for a committee vote.  We’re happy to report that we were successful in fighting it off thanks to the efforts of local teachers who showed up to speak against the bill. The following report is from Ken Poppers of Elk Grove Education Association:

 

First, I would like to thank the EGEA and SCTA members that attended the CTA training and then went on to the capitol building to participate in the hearing.

 

The hearing was scheduled for 1:30, but because of delays due to floor sessions in both the state senate and assembly, some folks had to leave because of other commitments, myself among them.
Secondly, the professionalism, skills and knowledge of the CTA legislative team were very impressive.  These folks, many of whom are classroom teachers, are true advocates for those of us in the trenches.

Senate bill 1530, proposed by Senator Alex Padilla, was a bad idea, which only got as far as it did because of legislative courtesy in the state senate.  Majority party members will generally back the efforts of their fellow party colleagues because they know that many bad ideas will be killed in the other house of the legislature.  

SB 1530 would’ve changed the dismissal process in ways that possibly could’ve created a system where site and district office administrators would have a way to dismiss teachers that are considered troublesome for reasons other than that of true misconduct.  
The decision of the administrative law judge would only be advisory to a school board, rather than the current system of a 3-person panel, which is binding.  To put that in perspective in the recent Sacramento City Unified layoff hearings the ALJ found the “Priority Schools” skipping was not legal.  SCUSD’s district administration and board chose to reject the ALJ’s finding and went ahead and skipped more junior teachers.  This resulted in many experienced teachers, including the SCUSD Teacher of the Year to be laid off.  That story, which conveniently leaves out the district’s layoff skips, went viral, as misreported by Channel 10.

The best example for misuse of the changes proposed in SB 1530 I heard was that in a case of a messy divorce/custody battle an estranged spouse could accuse his/her former partner of child neglect.  The district could then move to dismiss the teacher based on this charge.  

I am including a couple of links to news stories regarding the defeat of this bill.  Pay attention to how the news media continues to blame CTA for the failings of individuals and administration. The teacher that started all this could’ve been dismissed under current law, but LAUSD did not follow through.

http://www.sacbee.com/2012/06/29/4598503/california-assembly-bill-to-alter.html
http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_20965275/defeat-calif-teacher-bill-shows-union-powe

It is imperative that you engage in this process, none of us are immune and what happens in the capitol affects you.

 

Thank you,

 

SCTA

Ah, summer!   As most teachers know, summer is the time for catching up on reading, and your SCTA Organizing Committee has prepared this list of suggested titles to learn about important education policy debates that are currently affecting us, and which could affect our profession in the coming years.

Diane Ravitch

First, if you have not yet read Diane Ravitch’s monumental work on the state of public education in this era of corporate reform, Death and Life of the Great American School System,  now is the chance.   The book is available in an expanded and revised paperwork edition and for Kindles and other e-readers.

Dr. Ravitch recently started her own blog, dianeravitch.net, which has quickly emerged as an important daily read for anyone interested in “a better education for all.”  Her range of topics is impressive, but always she writes with a passion for the teaching profession,  a respect for teachers and an unflagging commitment to a well-rounded education for all children.  Do check it out.

Tenure and Seniority

Our district made some significant changes to layoff procedures this year that are affecting many of our members. Seniority-based pay and layoffs are a bedrock of union rights, but many may wonder why they are so essential.

The NEA has good basic piece explaining “what tenure is and what tenure is not.”

Teacher Marc Epstein writes in the Huffington Post in defense of seniority, including a bit of a history lesson.  While his article focuses on New York,  Epstein reminds us that seniority pre-dates unions and owes its origins to civil service reforms and efforts to remove arbitrariness, patronage, graft and corruption from hiring and firing practices.

 

For more on this topic, including a list of articles from different authors presenting a variety of views, please see Larry Ferlazzo’s list of The Best Articles For Helping To Understand Both Why Teacher Tenure Is Important & The Reasons Behind Seniority-Based Layoffs.

 

By the way, Larry Ferlazzo is a SCTA member from Luther Burbank High School, who is a considered one of the most prominent and prolific teacher-bloggers in the nation; his blog is called  Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day.

 

Priority Schools, So-Called “Failing Schools” and School Improvement

Questions have come up about the priority school program in our district. This list of articles, again from Larry Ferlazzo, gives a nice overview of the school reform plans that the federal government requires: The Best Resources For Learning About The Four School Improvement Grant Models.  In our district, Oak Ridge Elementary is the only school that the state has designated for this reform and is eligible for this particular grant program.   Some of the articles here reach more broadly and challenge the “shut it down” mentality for so-called “failing schools” that calls for dismissing teachers, closing schools and converting them to charters.  These articles offer suggestions for school improvement that are rooted instead in community engagement and teacher professionalism.

 

Race to the Top

Under Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, the federal government has been moving its reform efforts towards a program called Race to the Top. The program requires states to apply and compete for federal education funds,  but to qualify states have to enact a number of very onerous and costly reforms. California Governor Jerry Brown and Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson figured that it would cost the state more money they it would ever get to do this, and declined to apply for the Race to the Top program.     The federal government, however, has opened the program up for individual school districts or consortia of districts to apply directly without going through their state officials.    Our district may be going down this road in the future, and it is a dangerous one that should be avoided.

 

Education Week has  a  good comprehensive piece  on what districts must do to qualify for Race to the Top funding. (Interestingly, the article headline refers to the program as a “contest.”)

 

Sacramento’s own Kate Lenox, of the Sacramento Coalition to Save Public Education, recently penned this warning about to the Sacramento City Unified School District that the Race to the Top grant “may not be worth its cost.”

For more much more on Race to the Top, Larry Ferlazzo again has it covered:  The Best Resources On “Race To The Top.”

 

~  Thanks to Alice Mercer for compiling this list.

 

 

Last Friday night in an emergency meeting, the SCUSD School Board unanimously voted (Gustavo Arroyo was not present) to reject a decision reached in recent layoff hearings by the Administrative Law Judge (ALJ), which invalidated many of the lay-off “skipping” criteria that the District had used for issuing pink slips. The ALJ (who served as an independent third party) found:

• Many priority school skips were invalid.

• A number of math skips were invalid.

• Some special education, dual language and Accelerated Academy skips were invalid.

• The District could not bar reassignment of more senior teachers to a priority school.

The ALJ’s ruling would have resulted in 90 pink-slipped teachers being called back to work for the coming year.   Because the Board chose to reject part of the ruling, approx.. 60 of those teachers will be issued permanent lay-off notices.

 

Interestingly, in the San Francisco Unified School District last week, an ALJ invalidated similar lay-off skipping at select Superintendent Zone schools.  Unlike our Board, the trustees in San Francisco chose to accept the ALJ ruling.

 

 

• SCTA strongly supports efforts to make every school in this District a nurturing, highly professional and academically successful place.  This was most recently demonstrated when our members overwhelmingly voted to voluntarily give back to the District $95/mo. of each member’s pay for two years in order to fund lower class sizes District-wide in the critically important K-3 years.  Teachers supported this even though, for most, such a program would not alleviate the crowding and strain at the grade levels in which they teach.  We did it because it was the right thing to do for our students, especially the very large number of high needs students and families we serve District-wide.

 

• We are a Title 1 District with 85 schools and about 65% of the students living in poverty.  Nearly a quarter of our students are designated as English Language Learners.  These high needs students are not solely concentrated in the seven schools Superintendent Raymond designated as his priority schools, but are spread out in a majority of our schools throughout the District.

 

• The decision by the Superintendent to concentrate District funding and attention to seven designated priority schools has created a situation where precious resources, including staffing guarantees, are being funneled away from the many other high needs schools and kids throughout the District.  Especially during this time of unprecedented fiscal crisis, this policy decision must be critically analyzed both to its ethical basis and its compliance with state law, which is what the ALJ was duty-bound to consider.

 

• During the lay-off hearings, the District failed to provide sufficient evidence to convince the ALJ that all of the priority schools special staffing guarantees (“skips”) were justified under state law.  This ruling does not in any way call into question the enormous dedication the teachers at the seven priority schools have demonstrated over the past two years.  Rather, it underscores the failure of the District administration to provide for the needs of the students at the seven priority schools at the same time as it provides for the needs of the students at the District’s 78 other schools.

 

• This District failure perhaps can best be seen in the plight of Luther Burbank High School.  Like Hiram Johnson High School, Burbank is a school serving students from high poverty neighborhoods with large numbers of English Language Learners. Statistics show Burbank with a larger student population, larger English Language Learner population and larger high poverty population than Johnson (nearly 100%).  Burbank, however, is not a designated Superintendent priority school.  This is largely due to the work of Burbank’s long-time principal, Ted Appel, in attracting a stable, experienced staff who have worked well together over the long haul to create successful academic and social programs for the students.  However, due to the staffing and resource demands of the Superintendent’s priority school program, Burbank is set to lose nearly a quarter of its staff and the continuing viability of its unique programs, including the only International Baccalaureate program in the District.

 

• The ALJ’s ruling is a warning to the Board that some of the Superintendent’s priority school staffing program was likely illegal.  Heeding the ruling would have provided the Board with the opportunity to critically consider the impacts of this program District-wide, not merely at the seven priority schools.  Since the timing of this ruling would have brought back 60 more pink-slipped teachers, while leaving in place the priority school teachers, no student, teacher or program would have been harmed.

 

• The Board could have chosen to direct to the Superintendent to work over the next year with SCTA to seek resource solutions that are equitable and respectful of the needs of all our District students, schools and teachers, without undermining the progress at the seven priority schools.

 

• The Board could have rejected the cynicism, divisiveness and fiscal irresponsibility on display in the email sent to Hiram Johnson High School staff by the school principal, Felisberto Cedros, who wrote, “[T]he Superintendent is inclined to ignore the Administrative Law Judge’s ruling and force SCTA to file a lawsuit against the District; that can happen with the support of the Board of Education.”  [Italics mine.]

 

• The Board could have decided that it needs to follow the law.

 

• Instead, the Board chose the path outlined in Mr. Cedros’ email: “force SCTA to file a lawsuit against the District….”  In doing so, it demonstrated its eagerness to rob from our students and families by spending ever-more-precious education dollars on lawyers instead of kids.

  We are currently exploring all avenues in response.  We will keep you updated.