CFT and NFT - Working together!

 

Negotiations Update by Fran Rozoff

On May 15, 2014 NFT and NUSD reached an agreement to resolve contractual and financial issues in our Collective Bargaining Agreement which was later ratified overwhelmingly by our unit members.

Highlights of our agreement include allowing high schools to be within contract on a modified block schedule while also allowing middle schools to remain on a traditional schedule and guaranteeing secondary teachers and upper elementary teachers increased compensation for classes above 34 and 30 students respectively.  We increased the scope of sick leave and compensation rates for curriculum work, high school department chairs and coaches.

Most importantly, the District contribution to health care benefits has increased and the sting of rising health care costs and it's impact on teachers pay has been significantly mitigated for the 2014-2015 school year.

Negotiations were very collaborative and productive, and both sides walked away feeling able to propose many positive changes to the Contract.  The combined fiscal impact of these changes is approximately equivalent to a 3.25% raise.

Successful bargaining rests on the ability of both parties to achieve shared goals while protecting their own rights and responsibilities.  During our bargaining sessions we shared relevant information that was critical for effective solutions.  We focused on present issues, not past disagreements.  We discussed our mutual interests and developed options to satisfy those interests with objective criteria.

It is important for district stakeholders to be joint problem solvers and work together cooperatively to try and figure out the best ways to meet the interests of labor and management.   Productive labor negotiations in a mutually respectful environment values the very important "social capital" of NUSD, the teachers and staff who do their best to meet the needs of Novato's schoolchildren every day.

A Voice for Teachers

Diane Ravitch is a prominent education scholar who made big waves when she reversed ground and came out against such controversial measures as charters and high-stakes testing and accountability. She spoke to a packed house of Bay Area teachers at the Herbst Theater in San Francisco, on January 18, 2012.

"Maybe standardized tests are not good predictors of future economic success or decline. Perhaps our country has succeeded, not because of test scores, but because we encouraged something more important than test scores - the freedom to create, innovate, and imagine."

No one should doubt Diane. She is an historian of education, educational policy analyst, and a research professor at New York University's Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development. Previously, U.S. Assistant Secretary of Education, she was appointed to public office by both President of the United States George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton. Secretary of Education Richard Riley asked her to serve as a member of the National Assessment Governing Board, which supervises the National Assessment of Educational Progress.

At the outset, Ravitch was hopeful that Charter Schools might be something along the lines that Al Shanker [the late president of the American Federation of Teachers] described. Public teachers could create charters. They would take the hardest-to-educate kids. And then they would return to the public schools to say this is what we've learned, free of all regulations.

Ravitch reminds us that now Charters have turned into a competitive force. Most of the people behind the charter movement are coming from the voucher movement, and they see it as a way to drive public education into the ground. Ninety-five percent of charter schools in this country are non-union schools. They try to keep the workforce very young. They have competitive salaries but only at the lowest level.

Ravitch also rejects Race to the Top, which bribes states to expand the number of privately managed schools. She predicts that we’ll see more profit-seeking corporations coming in and creating charter chains, and they will be interested mainly in the money, not in the kids.

The most toxic thing in Race to the Top, explains Ravitch, is that teachers will be evaluated by their student test scores. There is no evidence that this will make for better schools. The evidence is that it will cause fanatical, obsessive teaching to the test, a test which Arne Duncan has publicly admitted is no good, yet teachers will be judged by them. Should we here in California worry? The legislature in Florida just passed a law saying 50 percent of teachers’ salaries will be based on test scores.

Ravitch goes on to explain that the single biggest indicator of low achievement is poverty.

But there is a calculated effort to keep teachers from being heard and to have all the decisions made by the Gates and Broad foundations; the editorial boards; the think tanks (funded by Gates and Broad) who say to blame poverty is an excuse.

Then how will we evaluate the teachers? Diane describes the answer in two words: human judgment. “That's what we do in most other professions. We trust that they have supervisors who know their work better than we do.” As Ravitch remarked to sympathetic listeners in her closing remarks Wednesday evening “…when did accountability replace humanity in public education?”

Message to the One Percent

Every now and then, someone comes along and says something that makes everything clear. Elizabeth Warren just did that, and the world is taking notice.

As Tea Party politicians make disingenuous excuses from the right-wing about why the super-rich can't pay their fair share, Elizabeth Warren sets the record straight.

The Blame Game

I don't know when teachers became the enemy. Yet, it seems that lately, blaming teachers for all that is wrong with the American school system is very en vogue. When test scores are down? Blame the teachers. When the latest silver-bullet solution fails? Blame the teachers. When graduation rates fall to an all-time low? Blame the teachers.

The situation has gotten so out of hand that I would not be shocked to see a news segment on why teachers are behind high gas prices. While we're at it, let's add rush-hour traffic and overcrowded animal shelters to the list.

Welcome to the blame game, my friends. We're being brutalized, and all too often we're not even given the courtesy to respond. I'm not sure whether to cry or to call Pat Sajak and inform him that America's favorite game show is now Blame Teachers for Everything.

Why Us?

Perhaps it's easy to blame teachers because everyone went to school at some point in their life. Let me just say this. Friends, I have been to the doctor many times, but I wouldn't dream of rolling up my sleeves for a little minor surgery, much less advise said doctor on how the procedure should be done.

While it's clear that the work of teachers is undervalued and misunderstood, certainly this reality alone can't tell us why it's so easy to blame teachers.

Perhaps it's easy to blame teachers because of the ways we're portrayed in the media. Teachers too often play one of two roles. The first is that of the Sing-Along Simpleton. We take attendance, read stories, line up the class for lunch and then it's time to go home, right? On a tough day, there might be some coloring. When not playing the part of the Simpleton, we're cast as the Superhero. Living off Ramen noodles in order to afford supplies, the Superhero spends sunrise to sunset in her classroom and saves every student from a perilous path. Talk about a dangerous dichotomy!

And yet, while this Dynamic Duo fails to portray a reasonable image of teachers, this can't be the sole reason teachers get stuck with the blame.

Perhaps it's easy to blame teachers because they represent the low man on the totem pole. Teachers rarely get a voice when it comes to issues of school reform. A dysfunctional system has been created in which teachers' hands are tied by "solutions" that are created for them, yet when those so-called solutions fail, the teacher is to blame.

However, teachers' under-representation in the political conversation on school change alone can't be the reason so many fingers are pointed their way.

We're the Scapegoats

Ultimately, it's so easy to blame teachers because it lets everyone else off the hook. If we can blame teachers for all that is wrong in our schools today, then no one has to take a long, hard look at what is really going on.

Let's be honest-blaming teachers is much easier than thinking about issues such as poverty, unequal resources, overcrowded classrooms, poor parenting, violent neighborhoods. or layers of conflicting leadership, just to name a few. Yeah, that stuff. Evidently, those things are too hard to think about.

I wonder if any thought has been given to the fallout of all this blame? My guess is no, because I can't imagine that this behavior would continue if anyone in a position of power had thought about where all this blame is getting us.

The way I see it, holding teachers solely accountable for student performance doesn't seem to be getting us anywhere. What's more, blaming teachers alone when students do not perform at the level we'd like them to isn't doing a heck of a lot to improve that performance. Instead, all this blame creates an environment where the work of teachers is not respected and it becomes nearly impossible for teachers to do their best. Maybe it's just me, but it seems ridiculous to try to reform education by hacking away at the very limited status, rights, and respect teachers have managed to earn for themselves.

As a teacher myself, I have the rare ability to relate everything in my life to some aspect of the classroom experience. With that being said, this whole situation is like a bunch of children arguing on the playground at recess. Just like a group of 5-year-olds, re-imagining the public school experience has become all about blame rather than a reflective examination of the many factors that contribute to our complex problems today. And let me tell you, no one wants to hear all the shouting on the way in from the playground. So, take the hint Powers That Be-while it may feel productive to point that finger from atop a soapbox, enough is enough. No one wants to hear it anymore.

In the end, all blame does is cloud our ability to learn what is truly causing the problems our schools are facing. Blame is about judging, not finding solutions.

So what are we teachers going to do? Are we going to let this blame define us? I say we let all this blame motivate us. Let it push us to step up as the professionals that we are, clear our dusty throats and make our voices heard.

By Jennifer Scoggin, author of It's Not All Flowers and Sausages

The High Cost of Low Teacher Salaries

WHEN we don’t get the results we want in our military endeavors, we don’t blame the soldiers. We don’t say, “It’s these lazy soldiers and their bloated benefits plans! That’s why we haven’t done better in Afghanistan!” No, if the results aren’t there, we blame the planners. We blame the generals, the secretary of defense, the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

No one contemplates blaming the men and women fighting every day in the trenches for little pay and scant recognition.

And yet in education we do just that. When we don’t like the way our students score on international standardized tests, we blame the teachers. When we don’t like the way particular schools perform, we blame the teachers and restrict their resources.

Compare this with our approach to our military: when results on the ground are not what we hoped, we think of ways to better support soldiers. We try to give them better tools, better weapons, better protection, better training. And when recruiting is down, we offer incentives.

We have a rare chance now, with many teachers near retirement, to prove we’re serious about education. The first step is to make the teaching profession more attractive to college graduates. This will take some doing.

At the moment, the average teacher’s pay is on par with that of a toll taker or bartender. Teachers make 14 percent less than professionals in other occupations that require similar levels of education. In real terms, teachers’ salaries have declined for 30 years. The average starting salary is $39,000; the average ending salary — after 25 years in the profession — is $67,000. This prices teachers out of home ownership in 32 metropolitan areas, and makes raising a family on one salary near impossible.

So how do teachers cope? Sixty-two percent work outside the classroom to make ends meet. For Erik Benner, an award-winning history teacher in Keller, Tex., money has been a constant struggle. He has two children, and for 15 years has been unable to support them on his salary. Every weekday, he goes directly from Trinity Springs Middle School to drive a forklift at Floor and Décor. He works until 11 every night, then gets up and starts all over again. Does this look like “A Plan,” either on the state or federal level?

We’ve been working with public school teachers for 10 years; every spring, we see many of the best teachers leave the profession. They’re mowed down by the long hours, low pay, the lack of support and respect.

Imagine a novice teacher, thrown into an urban school, told to teach five classes a day, with up to 40 students each. At the year’s end, if test scores haven’t risen enough, he or she is called a bad teacher. For college graduates who have other options, this kind of pressure, for such low pay, doesn’t make much sense. So every year 20 percent of teachers in urban districts quit. Nationwide, 46 percent of teachers quit before their fifth year. The turnover costs the United States $7.34 billion yearly. The effect within schools — especially those in urban communities where turnover is highest — is devastating.

But we can reverse course. In the next 10 years, over half of the nation’s nearly 3.2 million public school teachers will become eligible for retirement. Who will replace them? How do we attract and keep the best minds in the profession?

People talk about accountability, measurements, tenure, test scores and pay for performance. These questions are worthy of debate, but are secondary to recruiting and training teachers and treating them fairly. There is no silver bullet that will fix every last school in America, but until we solve the problem of teacher turnover, we don’t have a chance.

Can we do better? Can we generate “A Plan”? Of course.

The consulting firm McKinsey recently examined how we might attract and retain a talented teaching force. The study compared the treatment of teachers here and in the three countries that perform best on standardized tests: Finland, Singapore and South Korea.

Turns out these countries have an entirely different approach to the profession. First, the governments in these countries recruit top graduates to the profession. (We don’t.) In Finland and Singapore they pay for training. (We don’t.) In terms of purchasing power, South Korea pays teachers on average 250 percent of what we do.

And most of all, they trust their teachers. They are rightly seen as the solution, not the not the problem, and when improvement is needed, the school receives support and development, not punishment. Accordingly, turnover in these countries is startlingly low: In South Korea, it’s 1 percent per year. In Finland, it’s 2 percent. In Singapore, 3 percent.

McKinsey polled 900 top-tier American college students and found that 68 percent would consider teaching if salaries started at $65,000 and rose to a minimum of $150,000. Could we do this? If we’re committed to “winning the future,” we should. If any administration is capable of tackling this, it’s the current one. President Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan understand the centrality of teachers and have said that improving our education system begins and ends with great teachers. But world-class education costs money.

For those who say, “How do we pay for this?” — well, how are we paying for three concurrent wars? How did we pay for the interstate highway system? Or the bailout of the savings and loans in 1989 and that of the investment banks in 2008? How did we pay for the equally ambitious project of sending Americans to the moon? We had the vision and we had the will and we found a way.

Dave Eggers and Nínive Clements Calegari are founders of the 826 National tutoring centers and producers of the documentary “American Teacher.”

A Letter to My President - The One I Voted For

February 1, 2011

Dear President Obama:

I mean this with all respect. I’m on my knees here, and there’s a knife in my back, and the prints on it kinda match yours. I think you don’t get it.

Your Race to the Top is killing the wrong guys. You’re hitting the good guys with friendly fire. I’m teaching in a barrio in California. I had 32 kids in my class last year. I love them to tears. They’re 5th graders. That means they’re 10 years old, mostly. Six of them were 11 because they were retained. Five more were in special education, and two more should have been. I stopped using the word “parents” with my kids because so many of them don’t have them. Amanda’s mom died in October. She lives with her 30-year-old brother. (A thousand blessings on him.) Seven kids live with their “Grams,” six with their dads. A few rotate between parents. So “parents” is out as a descriptor.

Here’s the kicker: Fifty percent of my students have set foot in a jail or prison to visit a family member.

Do you and your secretary of education, Arne Duncan, understand the significance of that? I’m afraid not. It’s not bad teaching that got things to the current state of affairs. It’s pure, raw poverty. We don’t teach in failing schools. We teach in failing communities. It’s called the ZIP Code Quandary. If the kids live in a wealthy ZIP code, they have high scores; if they live in a ZIP code that’s entombed with poverty, guess how they do?

We also have massive teacher turnover at my school. Now, we have no money. We haven’t had an art or music teacher in 10 years. We have a nurse twice a week. And because of the No Child Left Behind Act, struggling public schools like mine are held to impossible standards and punished brutally when they don’t meet them. Did you know that 100 percent of our students have to be on grade level, or else we could face oversight by an outside agency? That’s like saying you have to achieve 100 percent of your policy objectives every year.

It’s not bad teaching that got things to the current state of affairs. It’s pure, raw poverty.

You lived in Indonesia, so you know what conditions are like in the rest of the world. President Obama, I swear that conditions in my school are akin to those in the third world. We had a test when I taught in the Peace Corps. We had to describe a glass filled to the middle. (We were supposed to say it was half full.) Too many of my kids don’t even have the glass!

Next, gangs. Gangs eat my kids, their parents, and the neighborhood. One of my former students stuffed an AK47 down his pants at a local bank and was shot dead by the police. Another one of my favorites has been incarcerated since he was 13. He’ll be 27 in November. I’ve been writing to him for 10 years and visiting him in the maximum-security section of Salinas Valley State Prison.

Do you get that it’s tough here? Charter schools and voucher schools aren’t the solution. They are an excuse not to fix the real issues. You promised us so much. And you want to give us merit pay? Anyway, I think we really need to talk. Oh, and can you pull the knife out while you’re standing behind me? It really hurts.

Sincerely yours,

Paul Karrer

Fifth grade teacher at Castroville Elementary School

North Monterey County, CA