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
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Friday, August 6, 2010
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.
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'.
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'.
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
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.
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.
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
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.
(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.
Monday, August 2, 2010
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).
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.
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.
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"
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"
Sunday, August 1, 2010
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.
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.
A Monster Passes, Dr. Keith Richman Dies--38th Assembly District
Dr. Keith Richman represented the 38th district of the California State Assembly. He is infamous for a VERY expensive website where he does something that in America has always been considered off limits--publicly publishing the retirement salaries of elderly Americans online.
Richman did not pay for the site himself. He found anonymous deep pocket donors for that. His website financing is as unethical and creepy as the website itself.
He was also one of the lockstep Sacramento Republicans who cheerfully voted to bankrupt the state, put a college education out of the financial reach of a majority of California high school students, and cut back services for the least well off Californians--school children, the elderly, the ill, and the poor.
He consistently voted against forcing major corporations, especially the oil industry, to pay their fair share for the running the state.
Even Sarah Palin believed in and signed a major tax on companies pulling oil out of Alaskan soil. Keith Richman refused to allow even a fraction of that tax on the oil companies sucking oil out of our good California soil.
Our state is the third leading oil producing state out of all fifty and the only one where the oil companies get a free pass*, thanks in part to Keith Richman.
As a well paid physician I guess he could not relate to the poor. As a lock step Republican he made the poor, the elderly and the ill even more sorry that they were born. But his true moral monstrosity was the publishing of the retirement income of elderly Californians, who had given the productive part of their lives in service of our fine state.
How many of these elderly will be taken advantage of by confidence men who now know EXACTLY what their incomes are? Richman did not care.
Richman and other monsters (the ones who funded his website) like him would be outraged if their incomes were on-line. They as a group are basically bullies and moral cowards whose currency is hypocrisy. They feel 'righteous' when they abuse those weaker themselves, but are outraged if someone treats them the same way.
California is better off today than it was last Friday. See Richman's obituary here.
*The oil companies get to use our aging California infrastructure of roads, water, etc. as well as benefit from police and fire protection, but pay in taxes less than it cost the state to provide those services to them, let alone the costs of their despoiling of the good California land they leave stained with oil and blighted with broken down oil pumps.
The oil companies dismiss this once beautiful California land as 'oil fields' as though that was all the land was good for.
I have seen beautiful, potentially very productive agricultural land or wild life habitat turned into wasteland. You can to just drive north from Bakersfield on Highway 65.
Outside the desolation of the oil fields that same land, some with topsoil over one hundred feet deep, is the most productive agricultural land in the world. The top soil is so deep and rich because it has been washed down from the Sierra Nevada over thousands of years--layer by layer--one new layer every year.
The east side of the San Joaquin Valley has soil and a climate that is the best in the world. Virtually any fruit or nut tree, or any other crop can be grown there and is, except where the oil fields are. There the soil is destroyed and will stay that way for centuries after the last drop of oil is sucked out.
Richman did not pay for the site himself. He found anonymous deep pocket donors for that. His website financing is as unethical and creepy as the website itself.
He was also one of the lockstep Sacramento Republicans who cheerfully voted to bankrupt the state, put a college education out of the financial reach of a majority of California high school students, and cut back services for the least well off Californians--school children, the elderly, the ill, and the poor.
He consistently voted against forcing major corporations, especially the oil industry, to pay their fair share for the running the state.
Even Sarah Palin believed in and signed a major tax on companies pulling oil out of Alaskan soil. Keith Richman refused to allow even a fraction of that tax on the oil companies sucking oil out of our good California soil.
Our state is the third leading oil producing state out of all fifty and the only one where the oil companies get a free pass*, thanks in part to Keith Richman.
As a well paid physician I guess he could not relate to the poor. As a lock step Republican he made the poor, the elderly and the ill even more sorry that they were born. But his true moral monstrosity was the publishing of the retirement income of elderly Californians, who had given the productive part of their lives in service of our fine state.
How many of these elderly will be taken advantage of by confidence men who now know EXACTLY what their incomes are? Richman did not care.
Richman and other monsters (the ones who funded his website) like him would be outraged if their incomes were on-line. They as a group are basically bullies and moral cowards whose currency is hypocrisy. They feel 'righteous' when they abuse those weaker themselves, but are outraged if someone treats them the same way.
California is better off today than it was last Friday. See Richman's obituary here.
*The oil companies get to use our aging California infrastructure of roads, water, etc. as well as benefit from police and fire protection, but pay in taxes less than it cost the state to provide those services to them, let alone the costs of their despoiling of the good California land they leave stained with oil and blighted with broken down oil pumps.
The oil companies dismiss this once beautiful California land as 'oil fields' as though that was all the land was good for.
I have seen beautiful, potentially very productive agricultural land or wild life habitat turned into wasteland. You can to just drive north from Bakersfield on Highway 65.
Outside the desolation of the oil fields that same land, some with topsoil over one hundred feet deep, is the most productive agricultural land in the world. The top soil is so deep and rich because it has been washed down from the Sierra Nevada over thousands of years--layer by layer--one new layer every year.
The east side of the San Joaquin Valley has soil and a climate that is the best in the world. Virtually any fruit or nut tree, or any other crop can be grown there and is, except where the oil fields are. There the soil is destroyed and will stay that way for centuries after the last drop of oil is sucked out.
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