Jim Trageser caught lying, refuses to acknowledge or retract his lies

Our old ANTI propagandist friend, Jim Trageser of the North County Times, is up to his same dirty tricks of making inflammatory and false allegations on the editorial page about good VUSD teachers.

In his opinion piece about VUSD teachers massive show of support at the district office, here is his first false statement: "It's hard not to become angry at the chutzpah of public employee unions that oppose any and all pay or benefit cuts, and who routinely categorize taxpayers as "selfish" for not wanting to fork over even more of our hard-earned dollars." At least four lies in one sentence, can you find them all?

Here are the real facts which disprove Trageser's four lies.

(1)VUSD teachers did take a voluntary pay cut last year to save small class sizes for all of VUSD's first through third grade students. They gave up a full day of pay. One day out of 185 days. This day cost every VUSD teacher a little more than 1/2 of 1% of their yearly pay. Depending on the teacher's yearly salary, the cut was between $400 to $800. Did Jim Trageser donate that much to any school anywhere?

(2)VUSD teachers have also taken massive benefit cuts in our health insurance in terms of out of pocket expense of co-pays and monthly premiums. Last year it cost my wife and I over ten thousand dollars out of pocket to keep our son alive. (He has severe autoimmune disease.) Our family chose the PPO coverage with its expensive monthly premiums to have the best coverage possible for him. Without counting the premium costs, we still were out more than ten thousand dollars for what was the "best" coverage we could get from VUSD. Our anti public education friends like Trageser routinely say we have "Cadillac" insurance at VUSD. Yeah right, Jim.

(3) No one at the VTA has opposed "any and all" pay or benefit cuts in this year's bargaining either. In fact we already took a big benefit cut by moving from Aetna to Health Net on January 1st of 2010. All VTA leadership has asked is that the Bales team institute the cuts recommended by the district budget committee rather than her more draconian cuts, that any percentage cuts in teacher pay be the same for administrators and that the cuts be made temporary until such time as full state funding is restored. (For how that could happen and who is responsible for the current massive California education cuts read here:
http://vistaschools.blogspot.com/2010/02/who-is-responsible-for-california.html

(4)No one has called taxpayers selfish. He has no evidence of this from any article in the NCTimes or opinion piece written by any VUSD teacher. He made that part up just to inflame his readers (both of them).

Read the rest of Trageser's hit piece here: WARNING it takes a strong stomach to read the whole thing.
http://www.nctimes.com/news/opinion/columnists/trageser/article_f6bb9d6f-2c6a-51bb-ba50-cc4d4651da39.html


In the comment section following his propaganda "editorial" hit piece, he has been caught in yet another lie. This one was first made up by ANTI school board trustee, Jim Gibson in 2002. Gibson told audiences then that whether teachers received a bargained raise or not, each and every VUSD teacher still got an annual pay raise because of the step and column salary schedule.

Here is how the documented liar and propagandist, Jim Trageser, restated VUSD board member Jim Gibson's original 2002 lie : "Vista teachers HAVE received annual raises each year - the union's dirty little secret."

On the comment blog, I corrected this new Jim Trageser false statement. Trageser posted a comment after my correction to insist he is right and stands by his false statement. He "knows" he is correct because he claims to have talked to secondary sources that confirm his biased prejudice against good VUSD teachers. However he admits that he refuses to fact check himself by going to primary sources like the VUSD Payroll Department or the VUSD teacher salary schedule on line. He seems only willing to check "hearsay" sources that confirm allow him to still hate the straw men of greedy VUSD teachers that he has created himself out of lies. Great reporter that Jim Trageser is, NOT!

I gave him the web address of the VUSD teacher salary schedule in a previous post. He would not check it himself, instead he said he checked only SECONDARY sources. He first went to Stacy Brandt NCT new education reporter who Trageser claims supported his contention that every teacher gets a raise every year. His other secondary source consisted of two teachers he says he knows who he says confirm "the annual raise every year" lie. But Trageser does not tell us if they are public school teachers. Nor do we even know if they are real people in the universe we inhabit or only made up people in Jim Trageser's own personal universe.

To read the comments after Trageser's hit piece go here:
http://www.nctimes.com/news/opinion/columnists/trageser/article_f6bb9d6f-2c6a-51bb-ba50-cc4d4651da39.html?mode=comments

In my post below I provide him with the phone number of the VUSD payroll office so he can check a PRIMARY source himself. Of course given his track record of fondness for made up inflammatory 'facts' about the good teachers of VUSD, I would be surprised if he checked a PRIMARY source like the Payroll office. His resistance to checking PRIMARY sources allows him to keep his comfortable "angry" facts that he seems to so cherish.


Jim, I just got off the phone with the the VUSD Payroll office. I was told that on an average year, a ball park estimate, of about 70% of VUSD teachers get a step or column increase in pay.

This means that 30% of the VUSD teachers in an average year get no raise of any kind unless there is a bargained raise across the all columns and steps. There have been no bargained raises for more than three years for VUSD teachers.

For the last three years 30% of the VUSD teachers have had NO raise. Meanwhile the cost of living has gone up. Many of their mortgages are now upside down to the value of their homes. And many of their spouses have been laid off.

Gee, is 70% really equal to 100%? I guess your Jim Trageser's pretend world, it is.

Here is the phone number of the district office: (760) 726-2170 the extensions of the payroll office are 2244 or 2209 or 2348 or 2243 or 2264. Now I have done the heavy lifting for you, Jim. Can you pick up the phone and give the payroll office a call? or is that still too tough a job?

Then if you are man enough admit you were wrong when you, Jim Trageser, wrote: "Vista teachers HAVE received annual raises each year - the union's dirty little secret."

(1)The word "annual" is wrong. (2)The implication that every teacher receives a raise is wrong. (3)The use of the singular possessive "union's" is wrong. All California public school system have a similar step and column salary schedule not just the one represented by the Vista Teacher's Association. (4The use of the word “secret” wrong since the salary schedule is online and all school districts have a similar salary schedule. (5) Using a pejorative adjective “dirty” is wrong. Step and column salary schedules are not literally covered with dirt nor are they some kind of smut.

Jim, if you continue to defend your erroneous post I will give you "The Richard Kirk Award" for being the most truth challenged NCTimes writer of the day.

At least on my blog, if I am shown to be factually incorrect, I admit it and correct the error. It is a strange world where an online blog has higher standards the local “news” paper.