President’s
Report to Rep Council
November
5, 2007
Update on the
District
“Expect
Success!” Or Expect Distress? Payroll
problems continue, we’re getting more complaints about the
increase in assessments and paperwork, and substitute teachers are
getting fired, even though they’re hard to come by. Letters to
parents informing them that their student’s teacher is not
“highly qualified” under NCLB will be going out shortly.
Credentialing issues continue to be widespread, with teachers
being held to ever higher standards of accountability with
coursework. Meanwhile, at last week’s Halloween School
Board meeting, the real trick was in the parade of charter school
proponents who all want a piece of the Measure E renewal pie. I
hope all of you saw the October 10 issue of the East Bay
Express, with Robert Gammon’s article “Eli’s
Experiment” featured on the front cover. If not, we have plenty
of copies available. It’s a must read, linking Broad money to
the takeover of our school district.
No Child Left
Behind gets… Left Behind!
NCLB will not be
reformed this year:
The AP
(11/3, Zuckerbrod) reported, "The top two lawmakers on the
Senate Education Committee said Friday they are putting off
consideration of a new No Child Left Behind law until next year.
Sens. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Mike
Enzi (R-Wyo.) have
decided that there's not enough time this year to complete work on
the legislation, which has not yet been formally introduced."
Negotiators from the House of Representatives "have not
decided whether to keep trying to bring a bill to the floor in
what little time is left in this calendar year," but with
many unresolved issues, action seems unlikely. The AP notes that
"it may be even more difficult to pass a rewritten No Child
bill next year because it is a presidential election year,"
when partisan tensions are often at their highest. "Deep
divisions remain over some proposed changes, including merit pay
for teachers and whether schools should be judged based on test
scores in subjects other than reading and math."
Education secretary says NCLB reauthorization may be tough
during election year. The Christian
Science Monitor
(11/3, Cook) added, "There is growing doubt whether Congress
will reauthorize the No Child Left Behind law in the waning days
of the current session. Even Education Secretary Margaret
Spellings is tempered
in her confidence." On Thursday, Spellings said,
"I have worked hard to get a reauthorization. The bad
news is that we are attempting to do it...on the eve of a
presidential election."
Bargaining
Convention
Our first Bargaining
Convention was powerful and productive, even though relatively
small. (The main presentations are included in your packet.)
Strong voices emerged from each of the breakout groups, and the
Bargaining Team will take all of the ideas raised into account
while crafting our sunshine proposal. When you report to your
school sites, please pay special attention to the proposal that we
bargain health care collectively with the other OUSD unions
through the Health Benefits Improvement Committee (HBIC). Get the
sense of your members on this very important proposal.
As your President
and spokesperson, it is my strong opinion that we need to commit
to this process. I am well aware of the concerns, but still
maintain that going forward with this effort will show the
administration that we are united with the other unions, and it
will put us in the best position to fight for the highest level of
health care for ALL OUSD employees.
State Council
Your OEA delegates
submitted a number of New Business Items to State Council in
October, including the one passed by Rep Council last month
calling for statewide demonstrations after school in opposition to
the reauthorization of No Child Left Behind. All were referred to
the CTA Board of Directors.
A very interesting floor
debate erupted over the adoption of CTA’s Educational Change
Work Group report, specifically the section dealing with
alternative forms of compensation. There was great concern on the
part of a number of us that this section could be interpreted as
condoning merit pay based on test scores. Working with members
from San Diego, San Francisco, and others, we were successful in
preventing this section from being adopted. It will be revised and
revisited in January.
Finally, your delegates
made sure that no one left State Council without being aware of
Eli Broad’s hold on Oakland. We took copies of the East Bay
Express, spoke about it from the floor, and had many
conversations with other delegates who are now seeing the
influence of Broad and others in their districts.
Website
I had hoped to be able to
launch the new website at this meeting, but we are still in the
stage of putting on the “final touches.” Keep looking at oaklandea.org
for the launch!
Member
Socials/Seminars/Actions
Our last Member Social
was again well-attended, with a great mix of new and veteran
teachers. Our next social will be in December – stay tuned to
the website for further details!
We had two well-attended
seminars on retirement and plan to host individual meetings with
Bill Britton from STRS in January.
Do many of your newer
colleagues resist being active in OEA? Do they wonder why they
have to pay dues to a union? Invite them to come to an
informational meeting exploring the reasons for belonging to a
union, where the dues go, how the union relates to social justice
issues, etc. On November 15th OEA will participate in a
411 Forum organized by one of our new Reps. (See your packet for
details.)
As many of you know, OEA
endorsed and participated in two anti-war events in October. A
number of OEA members helped to organize the October 20 Labor
Conference Against the War, initiated by the ILWU. Bob Mandel and
I spoke at the conference, along with trade union leaders from
Britain and Japan, a British Member of Parliament, and Cindy
Sheehan. (My remarks are included in your packet.) The following
weekend, OEA members participated in the Day of Action against the
war in San Francisco. If you haven’t yet googled “Cost of
War,” I urge you to do so for an interactive display of how our
tax dollars could be put to better use in preschool, education,
health care and public housing. Since then I have met with Cindy
Sheehan and we are exploring ways to work together on connecting
the cost of war to the desperate need for more funding for
education and other social services.
Vacancy on
Executive Board
We regret to say that Eva
Redd Hornsby has resigned from the Executive Board, so we have
another vacancy. This seat is open to nurses, counselors,
psychologists, and speech therapists. Elections will be held at
the December Rep Council meeting.
We had our first
Leadership Training of the school year October 29th,
and were glad to see a number of younger, newer teachers turning
out. I have recommended five teachers for Minority Incentive
Grants for upcoming CTA conferences.
Thank you again for being
OEA Representatives!
In unity,
Betty Olson-Jones
