Don Phillips--former VUSD assistant superintendent passes

Sad news. Don Phillips a truly fine man and an excellent administrator here in VUSD as well as other school districts has passed away. The staff and students of VUSD were better for having had an association with him.

Besides being extremely well organized and a genuinely nice person, he had a interest in pottery and ceramics. I imagined him throwing pots at some community college during his retirement years. What a shame that he had so little time to enjoy his retirement from Poway Unified School District where he ended his career.

It is hard to believe that someone as talented, personally nice as well as athletically trim and fit could pass away without ever making it to his 65 birthday.

Read more here:
http://www.pomeradonews.com/article/News/News/Former_PUSD_superintendent_Don_Phillips_dies/33666

District emails--Bales busy work vampires sucks all district planning time from elementary teachers

Did you ever wonder why you have to spend twenty to thirty minutes a day sorting through and answering district email every day? Or why your precious minutes of prep time should be spent on such uselessness instead of what it was meant for, preparing for teaching?

Why can't Bales get a spam filter for email? How are you expected to check your email several times a day when you are teaching class and preparing for class?

All good questions. Sadly no good answers except that Bales et. al. have no idea of how much time email takes, how inefficient it is at reaching everyone in a timely fashion and probably no concern for either as long as their backsides are covered by their multiple email missives.

Elementary teachers are supposed to have some planning time. It is good educational policy to give teachers time to get ready for their classes. Teaching is more effective when teachers have this time to prepare.

In the old days all this district and school office important notices 'crapola' came in our mail boxes. We had sheets of paper that could be gone through in two to five minutes at most. Look--throw away. Look--throw away. Look--save. Boom boom boom, it was done in at most a few minutes with only seconds needed for most notices as most of them have nothing to do with any particular teacher. It was a fast and efficient system.

The current snail slow email system only comes up one at a time. The same info that could be easily dealt with in seconds in paper form takes twenty to thirty minutes of processing when it arrives via district email. Why because we have waiting for the email message to open, dealing with it by answering or eliminating and then checking the next message, etc., etc ad nauseum. Each message taking the better part of a minute to deal with rather than a second or two like a piece of paper would. With twenty to forty email messages that is the better part of an hour lost to district email on most days. Does any one at the district office ask for what good teaching purpose are teachers being forced to waste all this time. Or questions like is this time wasting of benefit to our students? No, no one at the district office ever thinks to ask those questions.

Why does Joyce Bales keep adding more and more busy work like this "check email" requirement to district school teachers already frantically busy days?

Technology can be helpful and a boon to teaching for instance being able to project the information on a single computer screen unto a whole classroom projection screen or technology can damage teacher effectiveness. Bales several times a day "check email" time vampire is the latter.

Martin Garrick, the man born without a heart given space to brag in the North County Times

Martin Garrick is the person most responsible for the terrible cuts in this year's California state budget for K-12 education, aid to the poor, the elderly and the infirm. He celebrated those cuts while championing massive increases in tuition at our California State colleges and universities. Millions of our most fragile fellow Californians and including neighbors on our street are in far worse financial shape today then they were two years ago largely due to his actions. Yet the editorial staff of the North County Times chose to give him space to brag about his 'accomplishments' in today's newspaper.
Read it here:

http://www.nctimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/article_3e4580c0-8893-5edb-9ca3-23deb5bb334a.html

Martin Garrick was able to make these massive and unfair cuts by using archaic rules in the California Constitution which required a two thirds vote to pass a state budget and tax increases. Garrick led the rogue gang of Republicans in the state assembly, under his leadership they voted to stop any reasonable fix for the state budget. See him brag about his heartlessness here:

https://www.calchannel.com/channel/viewVideo/1387

Read about the easy fixes, Garrick and his gang would not allow to be passed here:

http://caltaxreform.org/?p=211

Read other posts about the evil that is Garrick and his gang below:

May 23, 2010--http://vistaschools.blogspot.com/2010/05/martin-garricks-gang-directly-caused.html

February 24, 2010--http://vistaschools.blogspot.com/2010/02/who-is-responsible-for-california.html

Here is what I, under my nom de guerre--con no more, wrote in the comment section following the "bragfest" self congratulatory slime that the arrogant bully Garrick wrote about himself today in the North County Times:

con no more said on: December 3, 2010, 7:18 am

Martin Garrick, and the Republican gang he led in Sacramento are directly and almost solely responsible for the fiscal mess in Sacramento.

This Republican gang of vandals in the State Assembly and State Senate caused the massive public school layoffs, cuts to aid to the poor, the infirm and the elderly by refusing any reasonable suggestions for a fix to the California budget funding crises.

If you have a strong stomach you can watch a you tube type video of Martin Garrick acting as an arrogant bully demanding across the board cuts while leading the California Republican Press Conference on May 12th. He is almost gleeful with joy at the thought of the poor getting poorer, the ill becoming sicker, the elderly losing caregivers and school children in larger classes for fewer school days. Those of you who ever supporter this heartless monster should watch the video to see who and what he is.

Here: https://www.calchannel.com/channel/viewVideo/1387

There were incredibly easy fixes to the California budget problem that would not affect a single person reading this, but Garrick and his gang would not let those fixes be considered. He used the archaic 2/3rds majority rule needed at the time for the passage of state budget time to force ever more cuts to the neediest of our neighbors--the poor, the elderly and school children.

See easy fixes to the state budget that the immoral monster, Martin Garrick would not allow to be voted on here:
See: http://caltaxreform.org/?p=211

Thomas K. Arnold and the DeceptaCON universe of overpaid California teachers

Today in the North County Times we find yet another CON man out to deceive North County Times readers with the great misdirection con game that con men of every stripe are so famous for. Tell the truth about small unimportant item and hide the greater truth.

Go to a used car dealer and he will point out the beautiful and clean engine in the car without ever telling you that he had the engine steamed cleaned so the oil leaks would not show.

Go to a real estate broker and he will show you a beautiful home without telling you that it is in a slide zone.

Go to the North County Times and their CON men hacks give you 'real' but meaningless statistics that seem to show that unions are always bad. Today Arnold took his lying turn as a con man hack.

Read the deception of Arnold here:
http://www.nctimes.com/news/opinion/columnists/arnold/article_2e16b1b4-8137-5515-85f8-5acdd5ff13e2.html?mode=story

Thomas K. Arnold calls California teachers among the highest paid in the nation. What a con.

Like all good con men Arnold has perfected the misdirection lie.

The real question for any worker is not how much the salary is but how much does the salary buy? Will it cover the cost of housing, medical, and food where the person (teacher) lives? So what does a California teacher salary buy in California? The answer is not much.

Arnold knows that of course but real statistics would inconvenience the CON game he is playing on the readers of the North County Times.

Teacher salaries in California are ranked 44th lowest out of the fifty states when it comes to buying power that is salary compared to cost of living. Read more below:

http://teacherportal.com/salary/California-teacher-salary

"TeacherPortal Salary Comfort Score
44th out of 50 states."


The poor pay and terrible buying power of the average California teacher is not because we live in a poor state or an overly generous state to public schools. Forty five states spend more per person than California does on its schools. Read more below:

"California, the eighth richest state, spends 3.8 percent of per capita income on education, making it the 46th ..."

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/backgrounders/school_funding.htm

The above facts do not fit into the CON universe of deception created by the CON men like Arnold. They would rather play inside their own deceptaCON universe where they pretend without truth or facts that public school teachers, fact based public schools, unions of all kinds and the middle class that unions create are all evils that need to be crushed beneath the boot hill of billionaire bullies and their hired gun hacks.

The only question is why does the editorial staff of the North County Times continue to go along with this CON? I have no answer to that question but I do know that I do not have to support their attacks on unions and the middle class that was created by unions.

I have not bought a North County Times newspaper in over ten years. Until they change their editorial stance against unions, I will not buy another one of their papers again. I will read only on line for free without subsidizing their unfair attacks on the middle class.

Jane Swanson, Chuck Rabel, Silvia Peters, Roxy, and Tea Party traitors

I received a comment from a person calling herself Jane Swanson regarding my post on Chuck Rabel who is running for mayor of Vista.

The real Jane Swanson seems like a very reasonable person who writes a nice blog here. Since I know of no way a tea party traitor or one of our anti-public education friends could have used her personal profile, I will assume that the person who posted is Jane Swanson.

The Jane Swanson post made two valid points. One she is correct that I am not one hundred per cent certain that the Chuck Rabel supporter who came to my door was Silvia Peters and two my description of that supporter sounded more unkind than I meant it to. But as to her other points that Silvia is not a member of the Vista Tea Party traitors* or is not the blogger Roxy, I am afraid that person posting as Jane Swanson has been mislead.

The wild 'roxy' posts and the the rants of Silvia Peters at school board and DELAC meetings sound too similar for Silvia not to be the infamous blogger, 'roxy'. Silvia as Roxy has posted over and over about the Oceanside Tea Party traitors. She has written on a past blog post at the North County Times that she had to stop writing because she was on the way to the traitors big Oceanside meet up last summer. She found that meeting more important than writing. In numerous other North County Times posts 'roxy' has invited others to attend the tea party traitors gatherings with her. There is no question the North County Times blogger, 'roxy' is a member of the misguided Tea Party traitors.

Interestingly the posts by 'roxy' use the same phrases and wording that Silvia Peters uses. Both 'roxy' and Silvia Peters make the same wild eyed and unfounded allegations against VUSD and its teachers. Therefore I am quite confident that 'roxy' is Silvia, Silvia is 'roxy.' My confidence approaches one hundred percent on this topic. I am not surprised that Silvia wants to run away from her posts as 'roxy' any reasonable person would.

As to my description of the overweight women who came to my door who physically resembled Silvia in hips and hair, I am sorry if it seemed over the top. I was attempting to paint a word picture and was not thinking about its effect.

Obesity runs in my family. My maternal grandmother, my mother and my sister and one of her daughters have been or are morbidly obese. They have fought a terrible losing battle with weight for most of their lives.

I believe the tendency to become addicted to sugar and fats as well as the tendency for the satiety feedback to short circuited are all genetic. It is not a simple matter of will power. It is not the fault of the overweight person. I do make any moral judgment.

As to the frizzy hair on the precinct walker, it looked just like my sister's hair. In fact the precinct walker who I still believe to have been Silvia Peters looked so much like my sister did twenty years ago that was the first thing I noticed. I thought to myself, 'Hey, there is a women across the street who looks a lot like my sister used to. How weird.'

Again I am not one hundred percent sure that the women precinct walker who came to my door was Silvia, she did not identify herself. However, I still feel quite confident it was Silvia, no matter what Silvia is telling the person calling herself Jane Swanson. The women supporting Chuck Rabel for Mayor who came to my door looked like a dead ringer for Silvia to me.

As to Chuck Rabel, he is a tea party traitor. No loyal patriotic American should vote for him or support him in his efforts. He himself brags on his website that he is endorsed by the Oceanside Tea Party traitors. They are the number one endorsement he lists on his site. Number two is the infamous Jim Gibson who has cost VUSD schools tens of millions of dollars as a school board trustee when he prevented our district from building the third high school on the cheap level primary site in 2002. With endorsements like that it is obvious that no loyal Vistan, no thrifty taxpayer and no patriotic Americans should vote Chuck Rabel.

I recommend Judy Ritter for mayor of Vista based on her long and dedicated experience in city government. I have also met her once and talked on the phone with her--both more than ten years ago. She impressed me then as smart and level headed.

*Members of the Tea Party are traitors to America and the American way of life because they do not support our Constitution which is the basis of our democracy and to which all elected officials must swear allegiance. The tea party traitors would like to repeal much of the Bill of Rights and many other amendments. But worse yet they and their representatives running for national office have on numerous occasions threatened armed rebellion against our country.

We have had one civil war in this country. In four short years, we lost more Americans than in any dozen other wars. Civil wars are brutal. We do not need another. Any one advocating a civil war or armed insurrection is a traitor to the United States and should be dealt with as such. We do not need these tea party traitors elected to any office anywhere.

Boycott Netflix, cancel your subscription today!

Netflix founder Reed Hastings is pouring money into the campaign of Larry Aceves for State Superintendent of Public Instruction. Aceves wants to fire more teachers, end seniority, reduce union representation of teachers targeted by admin, and cut back the scope of negotiations and bargaining.

Fact based public education Netflix nemesis, Reed Hastings, wants unlimited charter schools as well. He has poured $400,000 into the campaign of Larry Aceves that we know of.

How much more has Hastings given to Aceves through secret funding of third party "hit man" political organizations remains a mystery. Thanks to the last years Roberts Court's clearly unconstitutional and outrageous decision in Citizens United, we will never know. The Citizens United hit on our democracy allows unlimited amounts of SECRET, ANONYMOUS money to be spent in scurrilous "attack ad" campaigns to rid the rich of any politician who will not dance to the tune they are playing. Read more about the historically outrageous decision of the Robert's Court here: http://blog.sunlightfoundation.com/2010/10/19/citizens-united-before-after-what%E2%80%99s-next/

Aceves clearly is willing to dance to the tune of the filthy rich Reed Hasting. (Why should a single filthy rich person like Hastings have more power to determine a politician's platform in a democracy than you or I?) Aceves has recently changed his reasonable positions during the primary that teachers were hard working "good folks" to his current Netflix position that teachers are scum.

His positions all have changed since the despicable, filthy rich Reed Hastings gave him the 400K campaign contribution. It appears that Aceves is willing to be bought and likes to dance to whatever tune the selfish filthy rich like Hastings want.

Here are Aceves NEW positions since his campaign themes were 'bought' by Netflix founder Reed Hastings. All quotes from today's LATIMES article found here:
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-statesupt-nov-20101026,0,206984.story

(1)"Aceves recently called for curtailing the power of teachers unions and making it easier to fire poorly performing teachers..."

(2) Aceves said, "The law and how the dismissal process is structured needs to be changed at the state level"

(3)"Aceves also criticized traditional seniority protections that result in a "last-hired, first-fired" policy when teachers must be laid off."

(4)"Aceves has been bolstered by support from the Assn. of California School Administrators, which he once headed"

(5)"Aceves has shifted his views on teacher-related matters" since the evil Netflix mogul "Hastings gave him 400K last week."

If you do not think that teachers are scum, then boycott Netflix and write them an email telling them why you are boycotting their product.

Whoops! they have no email address, but they do have a phone number. Here is Netflix customer service number: 1-866-716-0414

Vote: Tom Torlakson for State Superintendent of Public Instruction

Are teachers scum? Are they too lazy to do their jobs? Do we need to fire more teachers and get rid of all seniority? Are teachers jobs too easy and too safe?

Those are the messages of the Republican Party, the billionaire bullies funding the Republicans and the message of AM con men radio and FOX “fooled you again” News. If you agree with those messages don’t vote for Torlakson.

If you think that these pernicious lies being promulgated by the rich in their attack on the last stronghold of rational voters, public school teachers, is a not only immoral, unwarranted and anti-American but just plain wrong, then Torlakson is your candidate.

Torlakson wants more funding for public schools, not less. He thinks you are doing a good job under very difficult circumstances. He is the only candidate in the race with these views.

Read more here: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-statesupt-nov-20101026,0,206984.story

Don't vote for Chuck Rabel for Mayor--a potential disaster for Vista

Normally City of Vista elections are out of my purview for this blog, but I saw Peter Murnieks letter to the editor in today's North County Times and I just had to comment. Peter endorsed Chuck Rabel for Vista mayor.

Peter is wrong. I know Peter. I like Peter. But he is easily mislead and often gets his facts wrong which then leads him to get it wrong politically. But more to the point, Chuck Rabel is supported by the most infamous blogger in the history of the North County Times, Roxy! Yes, that Roxy. The one whose posts are famous for all capitalized venom and salacious lies about teachers and VUSD.

Sylvia Peters, aka Roxy, waddled to my front door last weekend with a clipboard doing precinct walking for Chuck Rabel. I did not recognize her when I first saw her out my window. I saw an incredibly obese women with a bad frizzy perm barely able to do a kind of painful looking, rolling, waddling walk towards my neighbor's house. I could tell by the clipboard that she was carrying and marking off names of those she visited that she was a precinct walker.

I felt sorry for this immensely overweight women whose feet seemed so painful that she could hardly walk being assigned to be a door to door precinct walker. I wondered who would make a women in that condition walk a precinct? Couldn't they find a job at a desk or a phone for her?

Then she came to my door. She did not just leave her literature. She rang the bell.

I immediately recognized her. I was polite. She did not seem to know me. I took her literature but I knew whoever she was pushing I was not for. I had never heard of her candidate, Chuck Rabel. But made a mental note to let others know that he has to be a pretty bad candidate in order to motivate a women like Sylvia Peters to go out walking precincts or to walk at all.

I do not know who I will cast my vote for mayor yet, but I can assure you it will NOT be Sylvia's candidate Chuck Rabel.

Sylvia is a proud member of the Vista Tea Party group. For the last several weeks she has stopped posting at the North County Times after leaving posts last summer about her intent to work full time for tea party candidates.

Anything or anyone Sylvia Peters supports must be opposed by any and every right thinking, patriotic American.

I have copied the comments that Sylvia Peters posted after just one article last January in the North County Times. The article was about the recall publicity stunt that was pulled by the Gibson supporters last winter. They ultimately failed to turn in even one signature in favor of recall to the Registrar of Voters. That's right. They turned in zero signatures. But they sure got a whole lot of stories and editorials written for them by the friendly folks at the North County Times.

In Roxy posts below she will make a number of untrue allegations and one that is actually nearly true but out of context. I don't have time or inclination to deal with all her lies and exaggerations except for two.

Here's the nearly true statement made by Roxy: VUSD spends 85% of its general fund on salaries and benefits. Yes, that is close to the truth. The state wide average for the thousand plus school districts in California is 83.3% spent on salaries and benefits.

But why so much on salaries and benefits for teachers, you might ask? Whoa, that's salaries and benefits for ALL personnel in the district from custodian to superintendent not just teachers.

Our salary and benefits money comes from the school district's General Fund because the state legislature bundled the money that way in order to reduce school employee salaries. That's right, our California State Legislature (pushed by Republicans) set up the system so salaries had to come from the same funds as classroom supplies, in order to force a conflict that would ultimately mean lower salaries for all school employees.

In other states, these two very different funds are kept separate. There are no conflicts. Salaries and benefits for employees are a completely distinct funding category in those states from funds for students but not in California.

Roxy also falsely alleges that while the VUSD school district has lost student enrollment in the last decade, it has not lost any teacher positions. Totally bogus. There are hundreds of less teachers in VUSD now than a decade ago. Easily seen on the VUSD website.

Here is a link to the Peter Murnieks' letter in support of Chuck Rabel:
http://www.nctimes.com/news/opinion/letters/article_0e2db71b-23e4-5442-b319-44827428dc93.html

Here is a only a portion of Roxy's rants after a single article in the North County Times. For years she was the most frequent poster of comments after any article about VUSD. I have left in her misspellings and scatological references to our former VTA president, Jan O'Reilly so that you can get the full flavor of Sylvia Peters aka Roxy. I would never vote for anyone she endorses, I hope after reading the comments below you will understand why.

article title and date:

VISTA VUSD could face another recall
Activists start process that could remove three trustees
By STACY BRANDT - sbrandt@nctimes.com | Posted: January 15, 2010 7:20 pm |

Roxy comments:

Roxy said on: January 16, 2010, 8:41 pm
Always Right~~ so are you saying that UNION THUGS are PREDATORS? You are probably right if they bully kids the same way they bully their parents.

Congrats to Jill Parvon (sic) for having the courage to recall the three union puppets. Too bad she did not add Herrera's name to it but she is a sitting duck since she is up or reelection in November.

Where and when cam I get a petition to sign?????
------------------------------------

Roxy said on: January 16, 2010, 8:36 pm
Lisa~~ too bad we cannot recall Jan and Lucky!! (sic)

the Oceanside recall is a completely different and quite distinct from VUSD.

In Oceanside the unions were doing the recall and people showed they had enough and were disgusted with union thugs.

here Vista will have an opportunity to get rid of union thugs.
------------------------------------------------
Roxy said on: January 16, 2010, 9:48 am
Cal ~~ rage against the district? Try saying that over 85% of the budget goes to pay for their SALARIES, BENEFITS and PENSIONS.

For what? Dirty union politics and no education, kids can’t read, can’t write and cannot calculate, add the highest dropout rate in the state.

Herrera says its because of SIATech dropout recovery program, yeah OK. How and where did these students dropout from?

Before 1994 was when the KIDS COULD READ, WRITE and CALCULATE.

See this is the problem with union thugs, they don’t seam to understand kids attend school to LEAN how to READ, WRITE and CALCULATE.

21 Century education came with the village mentality and over 60% dropout rate, illiteracy and racism.
Teachers are more concerned with SOCIAL RE ENGINEERING than education. Brainwashing students, and promulgating their own social political views rather than teaching kids how to READ, WRITE and CALCULATE.


Very said you don’t even know what the term, “WHITE FLIGHT” means.

Very interesting you slam the churches yet these were the same ones who voted for Jaka and Chunka. Are you afraid these same churches have woken up?

Sounds like you have a lot of gas to pass try farting Jan's way...
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Roxy said on: January 15, 2010, 11:16 pm
Chunka says the school trustees are in a standoff with the VTA, how hilarious!!!

Wasn’t she the only one who voted not to submit the “RACE TO THE TOP” MEMORANDUM to the state? Or was it JACKA? It doesn’t matter because both said it would be unlikely that the VUSD would support the RACE TO THE TOP proposition.

Gut wrenching decisions? Don’t worry Chunka, Jan has already decided how you all should/will vote.

Lets not forget that in 1994 VUSD was a viable school district since then it has suffered from white flight. Loosing thousands of students. 700 this year and the year I still YOUNG!!!!

While VUSD has LOST THOUSANDS of students NOT a SINGLE TEACHER has been laid off.

VTA should counter sue VUSD to recover excess payment to VUSD for release time president compensation

Will the VTA file a counter suit against VUSD?

The cost of salary and benefits for VUSD is exactly the same whether the president is in her classroom or out of it, except for one thing, the cost of her substitute. The VTA has always paid more than that cost every time the president has been out of her classroom. Since January of this year VTA has paid far more than the cost of a substitute.

The intent of the language on this matter in the state Education Code is clear no side should profit, neither the district nor the association. In our case the district has profited for years.

The Education Code says that an association is only responsible for the additional costs of a substitute for the president which may also include a small administrative charge, no more. Read section 44987.3(d)
http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=edc&group=44001-45000&file=44930-44988

The VTA bargained in good faith and got stuck with paying more than the costs of a substitute plus administrative costs. Now the district via the lawsuit has reneged on the bargained agreement. VTA leadership owes no loyalty to the bargained agreement since the district school board has chosen not to honor it. Excess money above and beyond the cost of a substitute for the president should now be placed into an escrow account. Under no circumstances should this excess be given to the school district.

Here is the bargained contract language between the association and the district: “VTA Contract, Article 9.10, allows for up to a 100% release of the VTA President. The cost of this release time will be borne by the VTA based on Class C, Step 4 ($41,562) of the Teacher’s Salary Schedule.”
http://vistaschools.blogspot.com/2009/09/release-time-president-vusd-board.html

The cost of paying for a teacher at Class C, Step 4 is far more than the cost of a classroom substitute as required by law.

The governing body of the VTA, the Representative Assembly, needs to immediately file a counter suit against the district for the return of all of that excess payment plus interest. They sued us. Let's return the favor.

The Vista Teachers Association and its members are the victims in this whole release time president brouhaha. We need to be made whole. No teacher’s salary, in this already very low paying district, should be used to subsidize the running of this school district.

Release Time President Compensation lawsuit

Today in the North County Times brings news that the Vista Unified School District has decided to sue the Vista Teachers' Association for the full costs of our release time president. Not a good move for VUSD as the California Education Code clearly says that the VTA only owes the district the costs of the substitute who sits in the classroom of the release time president.

Because the VTA has always paid more than the cost of a substitute, at the end of the day, VUSD will owe a great deal of money to the VTA, not the other way around. Suing VTA was a very foolish move for our school board.

Read the article:

http://www.nctimes.com/news/local/vista/article_8bc1d924-7186-5b1d-8b0b-6ddff33557f1.html

My response to the inevitable inaccurate blogs from our dwindling group of angry friends is printed below in blue. To read their howlings, foamings, and inaccurate rants go here:
http://www.nctimes.com/news/local/vista/article_8bc1d924-7186-5b1d-8b0b-6ddff33557f1.html?mode=comments


The Vista Teacher’s Association owes no money to the Vista Unified School District. It is just the reverse. The school district owes a great deal of money to the VTA. Each month that the VTA pays more than the cost of a substitute for its release time president that amount is growing.

The agreement between the VTA and VUSD for the VTA to pay the costs of the substitute for the VTA release time president is based on long standing practices, settled law and the California Education Code [44987.3(d)]. http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=edc&group=44001-45000&file=44930-44988

That section of the California Ed. Code says that in regards to employees on leave for non school business including union activity, “…the school district shall be reimbursed… the compensation paid to the employee's substitute…”

The Ed. Code clear intent is that no California school district shall incur any additional cost from a union leader’s absence from the classroom for union activities nor on the other hand shall the school district benefit from these necessary absences.

The cost of the substitute for the VTA president on leave from her/his classroom has always been fully covered by the VTA. Not for one minute of the history of the VTA release time president has the VTA paid less than the full cost of the substitute. In fact in most years the VTA has paid more.

The Vista school district has illegally benefited financially in the past from the release of the VTA president from his or her classroom in years when the VTA paid in excess of the costs of the substitute for the president. Any money the school district received above and beyond the cost of the substitute (other than small admin costs) will have to be returned to the VTA.

The greatest illegal benefit for the school district has been obtained since last January when the VTA ill-advisedly decided to pay 40% above the cost of the substitute directly into the general fund of the VUSD, rather than into an escrow account to be held untouched until the VTA prevails in court.

It should also be noted that the VTA/VUSD bargaining agreement is not unique to VUSD. The language and concept for a teachers’ association to reimburse a school district for the additional costs incurred by the district for substitutes and only the cost of those substitutes is currently being used in every school district in California whether for full time release president in large districts like VUSD or for part time or as needed releases in smaller districts.

I hope that the VUSD school board is putting money aside for their inevitable loss in their ill- conceived legal action. When this lawsuit is settled, VUSD will end up owing the Vista Teacher’s Associations a great deal of money. I hope they can afford the bill. The school board should have let sleeping dogs lie.

Richard Kirk does no research when writing for North County Times

Richard Kirk fact challenged opinion piece referred to in the last blog post shows that he does no research before writing. Here are a couple of examples where he is just wrong, "Vista's teachers union was priming its members for a "work to the rule" withdrawal of services." "A settlement was reached that avoided the "go slow" action." Read more of Kirk's drivel here: http://www.nctimes.com/news/opinion/columnists/kirk/article_50f1f441-78b5-563f-b4c9-bc8276d0c58c.html?mode=story

There was no 'go slow' or work slow down in VUSD by teachers last Spring or ever. During the work action, teachers worked even faster than usual to finish what usually tacks nine or ten hours in the the seven and half hours they were paid for. This work action lasted three days. Whoopee. Why does the fact that employees stopped working when their paid hours ended merit most of Kirk's column space?--especially when the 'work action' lasted for only three days and had NOTHING TO DO WITH TEACHER PAY?

That's right the work action had NOTHING to do with pay. Nothing. Teachers were merely seeking to make the increase in class sizes for K-12 potentially TEMPORARY rather than permanent.

Teachers thought that 38 students in a class made learning a bit more problematic. What horrible thing did then did teachers do? For THREE DAYS they watched the clock and stopped working when their paid day was done. This is in contrast to the hours of unpaid free time virtually every one of them gives every other day of the year as a gift to their students, their student's parents and the community.

Below is proof that Kirk's description is wrong. Read the North County Times article about the incident. The work action was not a work slow down or go slow action. The article was written by Stacy Brandt, North County Times reporter last spring.

What is wrong with Richard Kirk that he could not even read his own newspaper's account of the job action before he wrote his fact challenged opinion piece?


VISTA: Teachers plan to stop after-hours work
http://www.nctimes.com/news/local/vista/article_361e98e6-d599-5d3f-a4bd-23a0bbd1c0e0.html

"Teachers in the Vista Unified School District plan to stop doing any extra work outside of contract hours..."

There was no slow down. Teachers just stopped working when their paid day was done. What other opinion columnist in what other paper would find workers going home when their paid day was done to be in the least bit controversial?

Richard Kirk, a liar, a fool, or a useful tool?

The North County Times has once again allowed their greatest embarrassment, Richard Kirk, to publish a column that is not founded in fact. In it he falsely accuses the fine teachers of VUSD of using a work slow down last spring during negotiations. As every one knows who is a VUSD teacher or who reads the articles in the North County Times written last spring, there was no work slow down. The work action was what is called a 'work to rule.' Teachers in the district simply stopped working when they were no longer being paid to work.

I believe that Kirk gets his information directly from Jim Gibson. It has the mark of a Gibson tall tale. Gibson as we painfully are aware is a story teller. He loves to make up stuff that makes teachers into villains and usually makes himself look heroic. Apparently Kirk swallowed Gibson's tripe about the work action last spring without any examination or fact checking. Then he wrote this column.

Here is the URL of the Kirk column published by the North County Times:
http://www.nctimes.com/news/opinion/columnists/kirk/article_50f1f441-78b5-563f-b4c9-bc8276d0c58c.html?mode=story


Below are the comments that I left after Kirk's column. I put my comments here as Gibson has an ally in ACE, the person at the North County Times that deletes comments not up to their very biased "standards." I assume my fact based comments will be deleted unlike Kirk's false narrative column which will stay.


Richard Kirk is a liar, a fool or a useful tool. There can be no other explanations for this column today. When a person writes for a reputable newspaper, there is a higher duty to get your facts right. Yet time and time again Kirk, does not.

There was no work “slow down” at any school in VUSD ever, not last spring, not in my thirty year association with the district. That is correct. It never happened at any school in Vista Unified not last spring and not ever. When Kirk says that there was a work ‘slow down’, he is in error (deliberately?) as is usual for him and his columns.

Making things up, creating straw men to tear down seems to give Kirk his raison d'etre judging by the ‘columns’ he makes up for this newspaper.

The only "work action" that VUSD teachers took last spring was to decide to only work the number of hours that the teachers were actually being paid to work each day. For three days, the teachers of the district stopped working and went home when the district stopped paying them. Wow, how novel for workers to stop working when their paid day is done, NOT! Unless, of course, the worker is a public school teacher.

This spring work action by VUSD teachers that Kirk falsely called a “slow down” lasted for less than one week. That’s right less than one week. Big deal, workers for three days went home when they stopped being paid to work. Well I guess that is a big deal for Kirk. Gee I wonder how many hours Kirk works at his job for free with no compensation of any kind like the typical VUSD teacher does each and every school day?

Last spring during the very brief 'work action,' VUSD teachers ran around like crazy trying desperately to cram their nine or ten hour normal working day into only the hours they were actually being paid for. This work action was no work “slow down”. If anything it was a “speed up.”

The average teacher in VUSD works more than an hour each and every day of the week for free with no pay--elementary teachers even more so. That amounts to at least six and in some case up to twenty or more hours of uncompensated time that every VUSD classroom teachers works every single week. That’s close to one extra work day done for free each week. For many teachers the hours add up to a gift to the VUSD community and its children of two or three extra work days per week. (The paid hours for a work day in VUSD are seven and a half hours per day.)

Yet another example of VUSD teachers incredible generosity with THEIR OWN TIME was recently in evidence before the start of the new school year. For the two weeks before the recent school year started, virtually every teacher in every school in the district was in their class room preparing for the new school year, all without pay of any kind. No overtime, no daily pay, no hourly pay--all this time yet another gift to their future students, the parents of those students, and the greater VUSD community.

Richard Kirk could have checked his facts. There are North County Times articles from that period correctly describing the VUSD "work action." He could have called the Vista Teachers Association office and asked for a description of the work action if he felt confused. He could even have called local teachers. But apparently to do Kirk's job at the North County Times requires no research, no checking of facts by himself or others, nothing needed but bile and the willingness to make stuff up. Pathetic.

The Great VUSD Wars ending?

Have the Great VUSD Wars come to an end? There are only two candidates for two openings on the VUSD school board and both are the incumbents--Carol Herrera and Jim Gibson.

What happened to Jim Gibson's fellow traveler waiting in the parking lot until the last minute to file? Why isn't the Gibson Group on the attack trying to unseat Carol Herrera? Hey I don't know. I can make some guesses, but the only thing certain is that the unrelenting war on FACT public based education in our fine Vista Unified School District will have at least a temporary cease fire.

I feel a sense of relief. Yet there remains that bad taste in my mouth that we won't have a chance to get Gibson off our school board. He has cost our district so much money in waste (nearly fifty million dollars) and five years in delays in starting our new third high school Mission Meadows. He has repeatedly done all he can to make our district a laughing stock while trying to gain political glory for himself, Carrie Prejean Day. To have such this self promoter on our board for four more years is really quite sad.

At least he is neutered by the four other board members. None of his self promoting resolutions can pass. He cannot block the acquisition of any new pieces of land or anything else as a minority of one. Only with the help of fellow traveler in educational crimes against our children, Dr. Stephen Guffanti, could he and Guffanti use their votes and obscure California law to stop progress in our district. With Guffanti safely off the board and no chance for a Gibson stoooge taking Carol's seat, we no longer have to worry about Gibson pointless obstructionism.

As to why Gibson did not run one of the stooges he regularly found and ran with in the past, perhaps it is because his support has so dwindled. There were fewer and fewer of folks blogging for him at the North County Times. When they did I was able to show that most of what Jim had told them were lies. To some like Vista Watchdog 1 and Roxy, Jim's lies did not matter; but for many others, they did. Jim also seems to have lost Republican support. As a three time loser in attempts for higher office including a scorched earth take-no-prisoners attack on the eventual winner in the State Assembly seat he ran for, I think his support was growing very thin. I cannot believe that Assembly person, Diane Harkey will soon forgive what he wrote about her, a fellow Republican, on his website of deceit during his campaign for the seat that she eventually won. Being on the Republican State Committee only gets you so far, and Gibson seems to have gone as far as position will ever take him, maybe farther.

I know the Madison Miracle last Spring had a major contribution towards bringing about this cease fire in the Great VUSD Wars. The North County Times stopped their out right support of Jim afterwards. For the first time since the North County Times was created from the wreckage of the Blade Citizen and the Times Advocate, the editorial board stopped their one sided attacks on the teachers and others in VUSD who favored FACT based public education. Again kudos to the Madison Middle School teachers who invited Jim Trageser to their site and who some how made a very positive impression on him. I still have not found out who it was who created the Madison Miracle, but our school district and all the children and parents it serves owes those Madison folk a great deal of thanks. I should acknowledge that Jim Trageser's willingness to visit the site and to listen. He is a bigger man than I thought.

I hope too that my willingness to research, disprove, and publicly correct the lies of the Gibson Group were part of the reason that they faded away. I hope this blog site helped as well.

Wow, I do not have to call a hundreds of voters. I do not have to read the paper each morning with a sense of battle readiness. I do not have to fight the daily blog wars, at least not for a while, perhaps not ever again. Suddenly I have so much free time stretching out in front of me. I have started the process of creating a garden in my back yard. I have broccoli, sugar snap peas, carrot and lettuce seeds ready to go. It's fall planting time in Vista and this year I can plant that garden I have wanted to for so long. Maybe I can get the trim on the house painted. With so much free time stretching out in front of me, the possibilities are endless. Whoopee!

Sorry about the delay in posting this denouement to the Great VUSD Wars. We had our house tented for termites a little over a week ago. If you have never had the pleasure, it takes about a week to ten days to get ready, two more days out of the house in a motel, and then a week to put everything back. Not fun, but let's hope the termites are now as dead as our agapanthus plants next to the garage (from the gas). I also had a medical procedure this week and survive the general anesthesia with no adverse events--which is a bit rare for my immune system. Consequently have had little time for posting over last three weeks.

Of course for those of you who will be back to teaching next week, I do not have to tell you how busy life can suddenly become. The start of the school year, the busiest time for our dedicated public school teachers and the most nerve racking. When will the class lists be in? Will I get enough text books? What new programs will admin spring on us? Lesson plans to prepare, seating charts, etc. Endless jobs, endless frustrations, and yet endless possibilities for new accomplishments with your students this year.

So many of you have been back in the classroom working for free for the last two weeks. It may seem like no one appreciates it, but they do. Even if your students and parents are unaware of all the time you have spent, they are fully aware of how well prepared you are. Yes, I know, no one ever seems to thank you for the time it took to get prepared. They do see that you are ready to go and that must in some deep part of their minds realize it must have taken time to get that way. Just not every one realizes it would be nice to acknowledge your work and dedication. So let me say it for them. Thank you teachers for all your hard work, all the hours and hours and hours you put in above and beyond your duty hours. You are great people, you are public school teachers. I will always be proud that I was once numbered as one among you. Good luck this year.


Here is the story in the North County Times about the 'non-election' this year in VUSD:

http://www.nctimes.com/news/local/vista/article_60848c31-7426-5817-b9a3-3b36b77bec30.html

Steele Canyon Charter High School--cherry picking students

Today we had a front man for a termite inspection company come to our house to tell us about tenting the house to get rid of our termites. He was a very nice fellow and did his job well. We will be tenting the house next week.

Just before he left we discussed schools as my wife mentioned she was a school teacher and I a former school teacher. He was so proud of his daughter's high school, Steele Canyon Charter High School formerly part of the Grossmont school district. *

The front guy bragged that at his daughter's high school, students were not allowed to get C's. If a student did receive a C, the student must get into a tutoring class and bring that grade up within a few months. The student had no choice. There was a long waiting list and if the student could not bring up his or her grade, he was booted out for getting one C in one class. The termite company front guy then said for students getting a "D" or "F", the consequences were even more grave. I do not remember what he said happened to the "D" student, but the student who got an 'F" was given only one month or booted out.

Then this proud parent told us that Steele Canyon was ranked as the second best charter in the county as far as test scores go and that its percentage of graduating seniors going to nationally ranked college was really high. He went on and on. He could not say enough fine things about Steele Canyon Charter High School.

My poor wife was steaming. Imagine if we in public schools could cherry pick our students. Gee if we could just rid our classes of the dumb, the inept, the language learners, the 'energy consumers' and unmotivated, I bet our schools would have the better test scores than Steele Canyon. After all we have better teachers. Poway teachers have never had to deal with the kind of barriers to learning that we face daily in VUSD. We have to be better than Steele Canyon just to survive.

We know we lose teachers every year who just cannot hack the low pay, lack of support, and public attacks on education that Vista Unified teachers face. Imagine a poor Steele Canyon teacher, coming to one our schools and not being able to get rid of any student he/she wanted too. Actually be forced to not only teach the difficult child but to be held accountable for that child's learning.

Steele Canyon teaching experience must be what it would be like at an elite private academy, except at a private academy the parents PAY. At Steele Canyon, we the public are forced to pay for an elitist high school run like a private school for children of snobs.

Yet, Steele Canyon is a ANTI icon is used as an positive example by newspaper editors that hate unions and the middle class jobs that unions provide. Steele Canyon and other elitist charters like it are used "to prove" that all public schools should be ended because charters do a 'better' job.

The sub text of this charter push is to end teachers unions and their union power that enables them to get middle class wages for their members. You see few charters have unions. If a charter teacher tries to organize one, he/she may suddenly need to find another job. Even if one is organized, there are too few charter teachers in a single school to get the economies of scale for the cheapest and best health insurance coverage, so their coverage is shoddy. It is also much harder for a single school union to bargain for reasonable middle class pay. Charters provide a race to the bottom for teachers pay and benefits and anti-union editors and the super rich who hire them know it.

Read what the ANTI union ironically named "Union"-Tribune editor wrote about Steele Canyon eight months ago here.

As some old timer in the area may recall, the U-T broke its own newspaper union twenty years ago. Many if not all union members lost their jobs. Since then the U-T has been lead by editors who write rabidly anti union editorials against the activities of any union. Sound familiar? Yes the UT editor writes editorials very much like the North County Times editorials. I wonder who picks these editors? Who hires them? Oh yes, the filthy rich owners hire them. The same filthy rich who do not believe in sharing or in the community good only in their own personal good. The thing the filthy rich hate most is paying their servants or anyone else middle class wages or providing middle class health benefits. What a coincidence that the editors the filthy rich select always manage to reflect distaste on the editorial pages for middle class wages and benefits, no matter which union is trying to get achieve those wages and benefits.

Below is some of the slobbering praise that the UT editor heaped on Steele Canyon in the December 2009 editorial by the hired gun editor who was hired to write that way by his filthy rich boss and owner:

"The school has registered 20-point gains two years in a row on state tests, after it had slipped the prior two years (as a district school). Steele Canyon now would rank fourth in test scores of the 11 schools in the district it left behind. Enrollment is capped and there is a long waiting list. Eighty percent of students go on to two- or four-year colleges. The dance and choir groups have auditioned and performed eight years running at a Disneyland competition.

“We’re a charter school,” said Principal Craig Rocha, “still on a journey to discover who we are. We are still defining our own DNA.”

The significance of Steele Canyon’s independent status is that it is free to innovate, to lower costs, to provide smaller class sizes and reward an enthusiastic staff. Free even to keep a quarter system a mega-district never could appreciate.

The significance of Steele Canyon and its 86 area companions is that schools no longer are bound to one-size-fits-all or “we’ve always done it this way ... ”

The charter movement is growing – and with good reason."

The only thing true that the UT editor said is the in the last line. But he does not say what the 'good reason' is. We all know. It is called "cherry picking' students, so only the best and brightest and most motivated can attend. Students with learning difficulties, language issues, or family distractions need not apply, certainly if they do and get accepted, they aren't kept long.

Gibson and his angry friends constantly praise charter and voucher schools. They would love to "voucherize" or "charterize" our entire district. Either method would be the end of the power of a unified teachers union covering all our schools. No union, no teacher empowerment. Teachers without power are teachers who can be rigidly controlled. Salaries can be lowered. Benefits cut. Even better for member of the "little god cult" of science deniers that Jim belongs to is that teachers without power would be afraid to teach FACT based science, history, and sex education. Facts are what Jim and his friends fear most.

Let's not allow it to happen here. Fight back against the dawning of the new dark ages of charters schools that Jim envisions. Lets send him packing in November.





*Grossmont is the other district in San Diego County that was taken over by ANTI public education crowd at the same time our district was in the early 1990s.

School Board Election update

As of today there is only one candidate who has filed papers to run for our Vista Unified School Board race this November, Carol Herrera. Congratulations Carol. Thank you for your courage.

Jim Gibson has pulled papers but is not listed as filing them. This does not mean he is out of the race. It could mean he filed them today but too late for the Registrar's office to change the website information. It could also mean that he deliberately is waiting to file to lengthen the filing deadline.

As you may recall from earlier posts, if both incumbents do not file on or before August 6th, then the deadline is extended one week to August 13th.

Jim may be playing the game of delaying as long as possible in order to keep the name of the dupe he has talked into running on the ANTI slate with him kept secret from the public for another week. Filing as late as possible is all part of the 'stealth' strategy that his group has used in the past.

Hey its only a public office, why should the public know who is running? At least that has been the thinking of our angry friends and their anti- FACT based public education agenda.

I can hardly wait until Monday afternoon to find our whether Jim filed late today or didn't file so he could delay the announcement of his 'running mate'.

Ancient news about the 1994 recall, Representative Assembly minutes prove our angry friends have lied about the VTA's part in it.

Now for some ancient news, our angry friend have repeatedly falsely accused the VTA of organizing the 1994 recall on the same November night in 1992 when the three member extremist board was elected. We all knew that to be false. Just one more made up story from the camp of our angry friends.

It was one thing to know that they were lying yet again and re-writing history yet again. It is another to have proof of their lies in hand.

I now have copies of VTA Executive Board and Representative Assembly minutes from 1993-94. The orininals are on file at the Vista Teachers Association office. The minutes of those meetings show that the first mention of the recall by anyone at the VTA happened a full one year and two months after the election.

The record of this very first mention of the already on-going community based recall was in the January 24, 1994, Representative Assembly minutes. This FIRST mention of the community recall was the last item in those minutes. It was mentioned in item VII Information and future action.

The items says:

Recall in Vista. Discussion. Recall drive has started to recall Joyce Lee, John Tyndall, and Diedre Holliday.* What role should teachers play? It's up to individual conscience. Politial activity cannot affect your job.** You are protected by state law.

Of the 1025 certificated employees of this district,only about 450 live inside the district. Some VTA members will work for recall. Some will work against. No money has been spent by the VTA or VTA/PAC for or against.

Recall petitions can be present at schools. They may be signed during duty free lunch or before or after school duty hours. Anyone can wear a button for or against the recall during duty hours.***

School board members phone numbers can be found at the front of the VTA directory if you wish to oppose the recall. Letha McWey's, leader of the recall, phone number is XXX-XXXX , if you wish to support the recall.



This first VTA mention of the existing COMMUNITY inspired recall took no position on the recall, the mention was merely to warn any VTA members who might have gotten involved with the recall to make sure all their personal activities involving recall happened at times that they were not on duty. It is clear from the notes that during the discussion, there were VTA members at the Representative Assembly who OPPOSED the recall. At that time, I was one of those members who opposed the recall.

This first mention of the community recall shows conclusively that in January of 1994 more than a year after the election that the official position of the Representative Assembly, the governing body of the VTA, was studied neutrality. For our angry friends to say anything else is a lie. But it is a lie that some have come to believe.

Here is what Jim Trageser who writes editorials for the North County Times as written about that meeting that he did not attend and the official VTA notes that he clearly did not ask to read. He wrote in the North County Time on August 10, 2008: "In the early 1990s, the VTA was one of the main organizers of a recall drive against two Vista Unified School District board members." On January 24, 2010, he wrote in the North County Times, "Clearly, Tyndall and Lee had had no time to do anything when recall organizers began planning, seeing as they hadn't even been sworn in yet."

Jim Trageser has toned down since he wrote those two editorials, largely thanks to "The Madision Middle School Miracle" that occurred this spring. "The Miracle" happened when Madison teachers invited Jim to their school and to his credit he went. He listened to what they had to say. I do not know what they said to him but ever since he has stopped his baseless, unjustified attacks on the Vista Teachers Association. His change in tone is not quite a Paul on the Road To Damascus epiphany, but it is close. MadisonMiddle School, we are in your debt. We also salute Jim Trageser for being willing to listen and willing to change his mind when counter facts are presented.

However, the point is that people still do care about the 1994 Recall and the factually incorrect stories our angry friends tell do influence uniformed people. We must be ready to counter incorrect information when ever we hear it. Otherwise the story of the those who hate fact based public education will prevail.

As I remember that January 1994 Representative Assembly meeting, the agenda item was discussed because some teacher at some site who did not like the extremists had done something with the recall at his school and gotten in trouble. VTA leadership put the item on the agenda of the meeting to warn anyone else to be careful to only engage in political activity during non-duty hours.

Everything changed two months later. In March of 1994 the extremists majority on the VUSD school board voted to replace a FACT based, state approved, VUSD sex education curriculum with one that was not state approved called Sex Respect. Sex Respect was an abstinence only curriculum with all mention of birth control and other life saving materials taken out. It contains racist diagrams of a black boy trying to talk a white girl into sex. It had silly slogans that the children would have howled at. One I remember was "Pet your dog, not your date."

The ACLU had notified the board that they would be sued if they adopted Sex Respect, the extremist did anyway. According to a Logan Jenkins March 24, 1994 editorial in the Escondido Times Advocate, "Maybe (Deidre) Holliday is correct and the cost of defending Sex Respect will not be huge. But we don't think so." Jenkins adds, "After all the tantrums are over and everyone has gone to sleep, Vista is left with a corrusive residue of unadulterated hate. One wonders how far things must go before Holliday and her supporters pack up and go to private Christian Schools. If the political agenda is to Balkanize the education system, it's working."****

The adoption of Sex Respect which took fact based life saving information out of our classrooms was the action that galvanized the Vista Teacher's Association into joining the community recall effort. At a Special Representative Assembly Meeting convened at 4:13pm on April 4, 1994 the Vista Teachers Association governing body, the Representative Assembly voted to join the recall. This action happened with only a little over two months left to finish gathering enough signatures to qualify the recall for the November 1994 ballot. Barbara Mitchell made the motion. Paul Metivier seconded the motion. There were Representatives from both high schools, all three middle schools, eleven elementary schools, Sierra Vista, and Vista Academy. Two of the Representatives voted no, one abstained; everyone else, including me, voted in favor of the motion.

I changed my mind about supporting the recall because the extremists were reaching into our classroom and taking potentially life saving and life changing, vitally needed information away from our children. Teachers are in the information business, especially when that information can save a life. I would not be a part of information denial.

As a side note, one of our angry friends who was running for VUSD school board in 1996 (Rob Walter) told me regarding sex education that "information once given can never be taken back." (He lost.) Clearly our angry friends have a very different relationship with information and facts than fact based public school teachers do.


I know, I know who cares now. Except that our angry friends are such liars on the North County Times blogs about this issue and so many others. It is nice to have factual information in hand to refute them.
-----------------------------------------
*At that time in January VTA membership were so unaware of the recall and uniformed that the secretary of the Representative Assembly and the rest of us thought that all three extremists were being recalled when actually only two were. The third Deidre Holliday's term was set to expire in November, so there was no need to recall her in November.

**This referred to political activity conducted during non duty hours. At the time as far as most of us knew, we could be fired for being involved in a recall. There had never been one here. We had no idea of the consequences for teachers 'foolish' enough to join in.

***The law allowing buttons during duty hours has since been changed by 'union haters'. It is no longer legal to wear a political button in class. At the time we also could use district mail and district mail boxes to send union materials. A George W. Bush Labor Relations Board ruling took that right away from unions as well. All part of the massive effort to transfer middle class wealth to the super rich by revoking all the rights of the unions to mobilize and defend the middle class.

****Our angry friends and their allies often accuse the Vista Teachers Association's recall of splitting the district. As anyone can read and as Logan Jenkins noted at the time, it was the agenda of the extremists that had already split the district. VUSD was attacked by extremists with an extremist agenda. That attack lead to any and all divisions that may still be present in our fine district.

Carol Herrera has pulled papers for school board!

Carol Herrera went to the Registrar of Voters and took out nominations papers for another term on Monday. Hooray. She is one brave lady. Of course she still has to file in order to be in the race.

(Thanks to Mary Ermis for alerting me about Carol.)

If both Carol and Jim Gibson file on Friday or before, then that is it and Friday becomes the last day of the filing period. There will be no time beyond Friday for other candidates to file. The filing period will only be extended if one or both of the incumbents do not file.

We know from long and bitter experience that Jim Gibson will have someone waiting in the Registrar of Voters parking lot on Friday afternoon to pull and file papers in the last hour of the last day.

Then later Gibson, and the pawn he will manipulate into running against Carol, will announce that they plan to run together as a slate. They will claim that they are the only ones who care about teaching our students to read or lowering the drop out rate. They will falsely claim that the teachers removed the LindaMood Bell program thus depriving students of their only chance to learn to read. Then Gibson and his pawn will tell wild stories about evil school teachers and their evil deeds. All stories made up. All meant to rile up his credulous 'supporters'. Sadly the stories work all too well on the uniformed.

We must be ready to counter with facts at all times. Never take it for granted that Gibson's stories are so outrageous, so over the top that no one could possible believe them, because in the absence of accurate information folks tend to believe what they hear--true or not.

Now will we or will we find another VUSD community member willing to run to replace Gibson? Can we return our board to a time when all five members put our students first? Can we finally be shed of Gibson? All he seems to do on the board is play crass politic games for personal aggrandizement. He gives only lip service to caring about our kids; but his actions are always all about Gibson, not our kids. We ought to easily be able to oust him, but in this district nothing ever is easy.

Let's get ready to fight back against the lies and in favor of FACT based public education.

One more view of Scapegoating of the American Teacher

The following article is found here on line. I have added bold highlights inside the body of the article on points emphasizing particular importance below.

Sacramento Bee Editorials Continue to Attack Teacher Unions in Support of SB 1285
Created 07/07/2010 - 2:46pm

By Duane Campbell

The Sacramento Bee editorial writers again attack teachers unions on July 7, 2010 in their support of SB 1285 to alter seniority rules. Lets look at what they are actually advocating. In low performing schools new teachers, teachers with 1 -3 years of experience would not be laid off. So, more experienced teaches, teachers with 4-6 years of experience would be laid off. There is little gain here.

It is a tragedy that young teachers will be laid off. It will impact their lives, their careers, and the future of the schools. But, what are the Bee editorial writers not saying? They are not saying that the national economic crisis produced a fiscal crisis in the states, and in the last two years California has cut over $16 billion from its schools. The financial crisis caused the lay offs, not seniority.

It is most interesting that writers focus on teachers and seniority. Why would that be? In an excellent editorial, What’s Up with All the Teacher Bashing? in the Summer issue of Rethinking Schools the editors say, “But if these attacks on teachers aren’t about ending the systemic racism that continues to undermine our education system, what is the goal? With forces as seemingly disparate as the Obama administration, the Walton Foundation, the late Milton Friedman, and the New York Times all pushing the same ideas, this is a complicated question, but there are at least two major goals: destroy the power of the teachers’ unions, and turn the public school system from a public trust into a new market for corporate development."

From the time of Reagan, who used his “welfare queen” stories to scapegoat the poor as a basis on which to destroy the welfare system, this has been a tried-and-true approach to privatization: use visceral anecdotes to whip up hysteria that a system is “broken,” argue that only market competition can fix the situation, and then sell off pieces of the public sector to private corporations. This time, teachers are the scapegoats.

So it’s no accident that a major thrust of the media and political campaign has been the elimination of teacher tenure ( or seniority), which is blamed for making it hard to fire “bad” teachers. Everyone—as student, parent, or colleague—has felt the impact of teachers who should not be in the classroom. But don't blame tenure. Tenure is not a guaranteed job for life; it’s the right, which all employees deserve, not to be fired without due process and without just cause.”

A second major function of teacher bashing and union bashing is to encourage readers to not look closely at the economic crisis. It is a populist diversion from the real problems-problems which we could do something about.

California, like 42 other states, has a budget problem Nevada, Arizona, Oklahoma and other non union, low benefit states have similar problems. Editorial writers are not saying that 13 Wall Street banks robbed the banks and the economy. This crisis was created by finance capital and banking, ie. Chase Banks, Bank of America, AIG, and others. Finance capital produced a $ 2 trillion bailout of for themselves, the doubling of US unemployment rate and the loss of over 2 million manufacturing jobs in 2008. Fifteen million people are out of work.

Teachers unions, and other public sector unions are some of the few union jobs remaining. They provide some of the few opportunities for people to work hard and to achieve some dignity at work and a middle class life. The attacks on seniority and union contracts are, in fact, essentially attacks on the teachers’ unions. Despite their problems, teachers’ unions are one of the few remaining bulwarks of organized labor. The corporate agenda is to weaken these unions. If they can weaken public sector unions, then the corporations will have less difficulty establishing their own dominance.

In the last 30 years, the corporate agenda has dominated the US economy leading up to the current economic crisis. Jobs and factories were shifted out of the country—beyond the protections of our business, labor and environmental laws and regulatory protections. Today’s de unionized workplace is characterized by increasing working hours or just workload, high stress, fear of layoffs, low or reduced wages, jobs sent overseas, loss of health care, loss of pensions and a general loss of dignity and security.

It is quite possible for voters to limit this corporate agenda. The current effort to constrain Wall Street is illustrative. As Johnson and Kwak argue in 13 Bankers: The Wall Street Takeover and the Next Financial Meltdown, (2010) we must break up the largest 6 banks in the nation and pass legislation preventing them from re-establishing control or we will lose our democracy.

In the Senate, the Brown-Kaufman Safe Banking bill and the Merkly-Levin bill that would have moved toward a limit on bankers power were blocked by Republican threats to filibuster. They were not allowed to come to a vote. The conference committee bill has some good provisions, but it doesn't end "too big to fail" banks and it doesn't create a Glass-Steagall style firewall between commercial and investment banking. Wall Street should not be allowed to rule and to ruin our country again as they did in 2007-2009. To achieve finance reform we need to return some democracy to our political system.

The Walton Foundation, the late Milton Friedman, and the New York Times, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Olin Foundation, the Broad Foundation, each are pushing the same ideas, the crisis in our schools is caused by union teachers not by the economic crisis in the society. It is this real financial reform that the Bee editors can not see, and the foundations do not wish to discuss. Instead, they prefer to raise misstated issues of teacher unions and teacher seniority.

The Senate votes on a weak version of finance reform within two weeks. The current bill is a start, it is a first step toward finance reform but it does not rein in Casino capitalism. It definitely will not prevent the next economic crisis. The Republican filibuster will not permit such strong reforms.

We are currently in an economic position similar in many ways to the U.S. economy in the Great Depression of 1932.

What should we do? Well, to respond to the economic crisis, the US senate should pass teachers jobs bill by Senator Harkins to employ over 300,000 teachers, police, firefighters around the county- and stimulate the economy. The Senate version has now been reduced to less than 100,000 jobs in an effort to gain the necessary 60 votes. And, the US Senate should pass the needed extension of long term unemployment benefits to provide basic necessities to the millions about to lose their basic benefits. Both of these are blocked by threatened filibusters. (blog editor's note by ONLY REPUBLICANS, who have no answer but yelling no no no to any attempt to pull us from our current crises)

In California, Senator Steinberg, the Bee editors and others could realistically look at sources of revenue. These include, a tax on oil, a fair tax on the very rich, a needed adjustment to eliminate commercial property from the Prop 13, elimination of the special tax breaks given to corporations last year, and other sources of revenue well researched by the California Tax Reform Association and the California Budget Project. Providing adequate revenue for the schools in this time of crisis would do far more than passing Steinberg’s SB1285.

So, why are the foundations and the media, and the Bee editorial board attacking teachers unions rather than responding to the economic crisis and supporting hiring more teachers?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Duane Campbell is a Professor (emeritus) of Bilingual/Multicultural Education at Calif. State University-Sacramento and the author of Choosing Democracy; a practical guide to multicultural education. 4th. edition. (Allyn and Bacon, 2010).

Another View of the Scapegoating of Teachers--Sacramento Bee

The following FACT BASED viewpoint is the kind NEVER heard on the AM radio or FOXnotNews and it is seldom heard on network news, CNN or MSNBC. Don't you wonder why when the facts are on the side of teachers? See my previous post to find out that answer.

Viewpoints: State's teachers are being scapegoated
Special to The Bee
Published Friday, Jun. 18, 2010

Linguist and activist Noam Chomsky once said, "Either you repeat the conventional doctrines everybody is saying, or else you say something true, and it will sound like it's from Neptune." Here are some things that are not conventional wisdom about public schools. They will sound like they're from Neptune, but they are true.


One pernicious assertion about the public schools is that it is exceptionally hard to get rid of "bad teachers" and that teacher "tenure" is a big problem in the state of California. In fact, teachers in the state don't have "tenure"; rather, following a two-year probation, during which they can be fired for any reason or no reason at all, they gain due process rights: the right to a hearing before being fired. A look at the statistics from the U.S. Department of Education's National Center for Educational Statistics shows California releases 1 percent of its probationary teachers, with the national average being 0.7 percent. Permanent teachers are removed at the rate of 2 percent per year, with the national average at 1.4 percent.

In other words, California removes teachers at a greater rate than the rest of the nation, and, in fact, exceeds the rate of states without collective bargaining and due process rights for teachers.

Nearly half of new teachers in California leave the profession voluntarily within their first five years because they are dismayed at barriers to success such as the lack of resources. In other words, California has a bigger problem keeping teachers than getting rid of them. Yet legislation to further restrict teachers' due process rights has been introduced by the governor and anti-union legislators.

The attacks on teachers are grounded in a number of urban myths. One of the most insidious is that we have a school dropout crisis. The U.S. Census Bureau delivered a press release in June of 2004 with the title: "High School Graduation Rates Reach All Time High: Non-Hispanic White and Black Graduates at Record Levels." Black graduation rates had increased by 10 percentage points from 1993 to 2003. Hispanics' rates rose by 11 percent in the same period.

The college graduation rate had also reached another historic high point. The latest numbers from the U.S. Department of Labor (April 2010) reveal the highest percentage ever of new high school graduates were enrolled in colleges last fall.

Although you hear hyperbolic statements about California's dropout rates, the reality, as reported by The Bee, which actually looked at the numbers reported by the California Department of Education, is 18.9 percent; the national average is around 15 percent. This certainly can be improved on, but it doesn't deserve the hysterical reactions it seems to generate.

This picture contradicts the "conventional wisdom"; it sounds like it came from Neptune. It didn't. It came from government sources easily accessed via the Internet.

So why do national and state politicians (and the media, for that matter) ignore the reality and pump up the hysteria, keeping the public's attention focused on a symptom instead of causes?

Perhaps it's because the underlying problems are many, difficult and expensive. This begins with the state's low level of school funding, 46th in the nation on a per pupil basis. An education coalition recently filed a lawsuit calling the current school funding system unconstitutional for denying students the opportunity to master the educational program the state requires. Increasing numbers of students' families, particularly those of minority students, are falling into poverty and homelessness.

The U.S. Education Department reports that the number of schools where at least 75 percent of the students are eligible for free lunch has risen from 12 percent in 2000 to 17 percent in 2008 (prior to the full impact of the recession). The same report indicates that economic segregation of children has increased. Politicians ought to be fixated on these real problems. But it is much more convenient to scapegoat teachers.

© Copyright The Sacramento Bee. All rights reserved.

The Scapegoating of Teachers by the CON machine

In this country there has been a one sided fusillade of abuse directed at public servants, especially teachers, by the hired gun con men on AM radio and FOXnotNews.

Teachers are seen as an easy target to use to focus hate on because they do not fight back.

Teachers are also seen as enemies by certain religious cults because they are usually supporters of rational thought, fact based curriculum. Our little god cult folks who falsely claim to follow Christ virulently hate correct information and facts about science, history and health. They want to write and teach their own made up facts instead.

The problem is that if they succeed in moving all our public school curriculum to fantasy based curriculum, our country and world are in danger. Fantasies kill. Fantasy worldviews kill in massive fashion.

Here are two fantasies that regularly kill. Its safer to drive not wearing seat belts because you could get trapped. Vaccinations for children are more dangerous than the diseases they protect against. Each of these fantasies kill thousands of Americans each year. Fantasy world views are self limiting when they only involve individuals but if they become the view of a nation, like the denial of human caused global warming, massive death will inevitably follow.

School teachers tend to be the largest group of delegates at Democratic Conventions--as many as one in eight delegates at the last one. Daring to have different more compassionate views than the selfish mean spirited views of those that currently control the local, state and national Republican Party also makes teachers a target of the propaganda mills put together by billionaires.

These billionaire boys' propaganda think tanks exist for the sole purpose of making billionaires more wealthy. One key way is to destroy the American middle class created by unions, union wages and union benefits. The less billionaires pay to workers, the more for gold faucets in their multiple mansions.

Here is a partial list of propaganda mills funded anonymously and with tax exempt money by the tiny group of wealthy elites that now run our country--American Enterprise Institute, Heritage Foundation, Hudson Institute, Manhattan Institute, Competitive Enterprise Institute.

These and other propaganda mills run Madison Avenue style focus groups to find phrases that can be used to create false impressions about those like school teachers who want this country to work for the good of all not just multi billionaires. These deceptive talking points are given to "opinion makers" for hire on the AM radio and sent to FOXnotNews.

Hired guns "opinion makers' are paid extremely well to convince the uniformed that these talking points are good for America. Many of those crafted talking points have been aimed at school teachers. The average American hears ten thousand times each of these anti tenure, anti seniority, anti pension, anti union lies for every one allowed on the air to counter them. It is no wonder that Americans are so misinformed about the value of and integrity of public school teachers unions in general and the importance of fact based science when deciding issues of the grave magnitude of global warming.

Who will run?

As of this morning, Monday August 2, at 7:30am, there is only one person who has pulled papers for VUSD school board. That person is incumbent Jim Gibson. So far he has not filed (returned) the papers to the County Registrar of Voters. But no one doubts that he will. We know he can't pass up the chance for getting his name in the paper. Like many former members of the Republican Central Committee, he has long harbored dreams of personal glory at the ballot box.

There are two positions available on the board in this election cycle. Incumbent Carol Herrera's position is the other one. So far she has not pulled papers. It would be a real shame for the children of our district if she did not. We know her long record of selfless work for the children of VUSD--the reading programs, community outreach, and especially her single minded determination to get desperately needed new schools built including our new high school.

You have seen all the new schools around our fine district, right? The person most responsible for them being there is Carol Herrera. She is the person who spearheaded the successful bond election for Prop O that funded the building of those schools. After three previous VUSD school bond failures, Carol had no easy task. Getting a fourth school bond passed seemed an exercise in futility but it was not. She organized it and got it done.

In addition while she has been on the school board she has focused laser like on the most important role of a school board member--the education of our children. She always puts our kids first. They are real people to her. She takes the job of making their education the best possible as her number one priority. Contrast her commitment to our kids to Jim Gibson's goals. He only sees our children as props that can be conveniently used to further his quest for political and personal glory.

If both Jim Gibson and Carol Herrera file papers with the Registrar, then the filing deadline is August 6. There can be no additional candidates (except write ins) other after August 6. However if Carol has grown tired of the travails of being a school board member and does not decide to run again, the deadline will be extended one week to August 13th. For some reason the law extends the filing deadline one extra week if all the incumbents do not file to run again.

We know Jim will run. Dr. Stephen Guffanti, who so damaged our school district, has told Stacy Brandt that he will not run, but from hard experience we know a Guffanti promise is not worth much.

We do know that Jim is an organizer. He has someone waiting in the wings. If not Guffanti then he has charmed and deceived someone into believing the famous Gibson fantasies of evil teachers who do not want to work, need to be fired, and spend their time picking on Gibson's favorite hero, himself. He has used these made up tales to motivate someone to enter the race. No one will know who until the very last hour of the last filing day.

In the past, the Gibson dupe has always been counseled to file in this last hour of the last day that filing is permitted. The dupe is found waiting in the parking lot of the Registrar's office until minutes before the filing period ends. Then the Gibon Group acts and gets dupe into the Registrar's office. The candidacy papers are pulled and filed in a matter of minutes. We expect the same this year.

At the training for extremist board members conducted in the early 1990's done at a 'church' in El Cajon, the late filing strategy was a key part of the overall grand 'stealth' campaign strategy. The extremist strategy was to keep their candidates as hidden as possible from the public. The less time the public and the media had to find out about their candidates and their candidates views the better.

As you may recall from previous elections, the Gibson/Guffanti group's candidates try to avoid public forums. They attend as few as possible. The candidates on the extremist slate are given short, simple, meaningless; but kind of generically good sounding phrases about the importance of education and reading. The extremists repeat the phrases over and over with little or no variation. What they never do is fully answer questions or tell their philosophy for public education. That is verboten. Their rule is 'Never never let folks know who you are or what you really think.' The extremists realize that if the public truly knew them and their views, that they would never get any votes.

I know this grand strategy of stealth, deception and out right hiding sounds like just the opposite of real democracy, but that's what they use. This grand strategy has worked in the past. The extremists took over our board with in 1992. Even after the recall, Jim Gibson and Dr. Stephen Guffanti have been elected several times. These folks stick with what works.

So the question remains, who will run? Who has the courage to face the dirty tricks and the campaign of defamation that Jim Gibson will throw at any challenger who puts our kids first. Will the children of VUSD have a champion who is willing to put up with the dirt to try to improve their futures? Or will Jim be successful in getting not only himself but the crucial second vote against the betterment of our children's futures on our school board again.

With Jim alone on the board in the last two years, he still can grandstand and get quotes in the North County Times after each board meeting; but he is powerless to damage our children's future. However, as we so bitterly found out, when Jim and his extremists have two seats, on our school board, they can thwart the will of the people and waste taxpayer money by the boat load.

Never forget that two selfish men, Gibson and Guffanti, cost this district nearly fifty million dollars by delaying the third high school start of construction by nearly five years. We can never let that happen again. It will take years for our district to recover from this financial catastrophe those two despicable men inflicted.

So who is out there with the courage to face the Gibson slime machine for the good of this district and its children? "The world waits"

Preview of a few lies that Jim Gibson will be using in his coming campaign

I will reprint the lies and misrepresentations of North County Times blogger ironically self-named "Plain Truth"* because he reflects the campaign propaganda being used by members of the Jim Gibson group. He wrote the following incorrect comment today:

THE LIES: "The union took over $500,000 of district funds. They were caught the board asked for about one-third of it back and accepted the union position that they would think about it. If that isn't fiscal irresponsibility what is?"

Others in the Gibson group have repeated variations of this lie many many times in the blogs even though they have been given correct information time and time again.

First to answer the question that Plain Truth asks, Fiscal irresponsibility is the wasting of almost five years to construct the third high school and nearly FIFTY MILLION dollars of taxpayer money in excess expenses caused by Jim Gibson and Dr. Stephen Guffanti due to their repeated refusal to support the immediate building of our third high school when Prop O passed in 2002. Cheap level land was found immediately after the bond passed in March of 2002 by the search committee; however, Gibson and Guffanti neither of whose children attended schools in VUSD, repeatedly refused to be the state required fourth trustee in favor of acquiring the property. Without four trustees in favor, the land could not be acquired.

Funny how the Gibson group does not care a bit about the waste of nearly fifty million dollars. Funny they do not care that for five additional years our high school students were subjected to being crowded into high schools with more than 3000 students which were originally built for a maximum of 1800 students.

In fact for years VUSD had the two largest high schools for total student numbers in California Interscholastic Federation sports competitions in San Diego County. Big campus population numbers might be could for football coaches to recruit from, but they are not great for giving our kids the best opportunities to learn. Gibson and Guffanti did not care. Our crowded schools did not affect their own children who did not attend our great VUSD schools.

As to Plain Truth's second point, no one 'took' any money. The union bargained with the elected representatives of the voters of Vista Unified School District for a release time president. As part of the negotiated agreement the VTA agreed to pay for a replacement teacher in the same manner allowed by labor law legal precedents going back several decades.

The VTA release time president payment to VUSD was done no differently than it has been done in hundreds of other California school districts over the last several decades. The agreement repeatedly passed legal muster a number of times over that same time.

Here is what was written about the former agreement in a VUSD school board document presented to the board on September 8, 2005:
"In March 2003, a legal opinion was provided to the Vista Unified School District regarding the legality of this full release."http://vistaschools.blogspot.com/2009/09/release-time-president-vusd-board.html

Now a brand new 'baby' law firm less than four years old has decide that in its 'considered' legal opinion that decades of labor law was wrong. I, personally, think it is unlikely that their opinion will carry. If it does,it will end collective bargaining for many small school districts.

Why? Because in small districts, associations rather than having a full time release president, their president and bargaining teams are released only during bargaining. They are replaced with substitute teachers on those days. Since the subs make less than the salaries of established teachers, according to this 'baby' law firm's opinion, it follows that the associations for these tiny districts must pay the full price of the president and bargaining teams salaries rather than the traditional required lower cost of a replacement teacher.

Never before in the history of California Collective Bargaining law has any other law firm said this common and customary policy was a violation of labor law.

Look for the opinion to be overturned and look for our school district to actually owe money to the Vista Teachers Association. Why you ask? Because the good folks of the VTA have been paying the full cost of the president's salary since shortly after the 'baby' law firm gave its 'legal' opinion. All of this money for the last six months may very well come back to the VTA when the final decision is in.

Read more here:http://vistaschools.blogspot.com/2010/07/vista-teachers-owe-540000-to-school.html

If against all reason, by some legal fluke, the final decision goes against precedent and against the VTA (and CTA), the statue of limitations reduces any amount owed by the VTA to a MAXIMUM of $128,242 and no more, not one penny more. Not the half million claimed by Gibson supporters like "Palin" Truth. Jim Gibson knows that. His supporter blogger, Plain Truth, knows it. They both also know the matter is years from being settled.

I just hope the process does not go on past the three year limitation for the VTA to recover the excess payment it has made to the district since early this year for the full salary of the president. The VTA was only legally required to pay the much lower amount for a replacement teacher. That was the legal precedent and that was what was bargained and written into our legally binding contract. Nothing more.

In cases like this dispute between the VTA/CTA and VUSD, the money is usually put into an escrow account until the matter is resolved. I would urge VTA leadership to check with CTA counsel and see if using an escrow account is a possibility. Without such an account and if the final decision takes longer than three year statute of limitations than VTA could be lose the money that it has paid in beyond that time.

There is an additional amount of money VUSD may end up owing the VTA depending on how the court case goes.

It is conceivable that the VTA could gain additional money in another way. There could be a substantial difference between what the district actually paid for the replacement teacher over the last fifteen years and the compensation set in the contract that the VTA has paid. The VTA may have paid far more than the district has actually spent on a replacement teacher. Depending on the judge, this excess could be awarded to the VTA.


*Isn't it odd that those who post comments that are the least truthful give themselves blog names so dymatrically opposite of what the comment they write? Other examples of this phenomenon are bloggers who call themselves, "Veritas," "Akamai," "justthefacts" etc.