Tag Archives: Teacher Union

News

How teacher unions protect teachers from being fired

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This is from the New York Post.

Excerpt:

At age 75, Roland Pierre is the granddaddy of the rubber room — 13 years in the purgatory of teachers yanked from the classroom for alleged wrongdoing.

But the Department of Education can’t fire Pierre, and he’s stuck around long past the minimum retirement age.

Pierre was permanently removed from the classroom in 1997 after he was accused of sexually molesting a sixth-grade girl at PS 138 in Brooklyn.

But since then, Pierre has continued to receive full pay and fringe benefits, including health, pension and vacation, officials said. He pulls down $97,101 a year.

He’s one of six tenured teachers that Chancellor Joel Klein has refused to return to the classroom, even though any criminal charges were dropped and DOE hearing officers let them off the hook.

Pierre has been “permanently reassigned” the longest of all.

On June 26, 1997, Pierre, then 62, was arrested on felony sex-abuse charges after he allegedly called one of his students into an empty classroom where he taught English as a second language, closed the door and molested her.

[…]Officials would not explain what happened since, but sources said the criminal charges were apparently dismissed, and a DOE disciplinary case was “dropped on a technicality.”

Even if dropped, the arrest and disciplinary case would almost certainly prevent Pierre from ever getting another teaching job, said lawyer Joy Hochstadt, who has represented other teachers.

“Every application asks, ‘Have you ever been brought up on charges?’ ” she said.

The DOE has no required retirement age. Hired in 1986, Pierre could have retired at age 62. At his age, he can collect Social Security as well as his full salary, so his income may be close to $125,000 a year, sources said.

Here’s a worse story.

Excerpt:

The Alabama Department of Education has stopped the pay of a Washington County teacher who was still getting her salary while locked up in federal prison serving a 10-year sentence for child enticement.

Charlene Schmitz was suspended from Leroy High School in August 2007 for inappropriate behavior with a 14-year-old student and was terminated after her February 2008 conviction.

She was the first teacher in Alabama to continue getting paid under the state’s reworked tenure law after being convicted and put behind bars.

Washington County Schools CFO Larry Moss told The Associated Press on Wednesday that Schmitz received her last paycheck on Nov. 30 after a license revocation hearing. He said she had been paid more than $158,000 in salary and retirement benefits since she was first suspended.

If teachers had any concern for students at all, they would support vouchers and a national right to work law. Let the parents have the money, and let them choose their school. We can’t be paying for teachers like this.

This is why teacher unions exist. They want to extract money from taxpayers without having to care whether children learn anything or not. They oppose any alternative to forced attendance in public schools – be it vouchers, homeschooling, private schools. They are in this job for one reason: MONEY. At least this is the way it is in the United States and Canada.

News

Indiana Republicans to introduce right-to-work bill

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From Fox News. (H/T Dad)

Excerpt:

Throngs of union members and supporters gathered in Indianapolis Monday for a protest against a proposed bill in the Indiana House that would restrict collective bargaining rights and make it a misdemeanor to require any employee to join or pay dues to a union.

Republican state Rep. Jerry Torr, the bill’s author, described his proposal as a tool to attract business to Indiana. He told Fox59 in Indianapolis that prospective employers are avoiding the state because they’re worried about its work rules.

“What I’m trying to do is bring jobs to Indiana,” Torr said. “We have lost manufacturing jobs in Indiana because we are not a right-to-work state.”

[…]Currently 22 states have right-to-work laws, according to the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation. Research by the National Conference of State Legislatures shows that several states in New England and in the northern Midwest are now considering right-to-work proposals.

Minnesota state Rep. Keith Downey wants right-to-work language enshrined in his state’s constitution — that’s part of a proposal he’s putting forward that would also slash the state work force and freeze pay.

Michigan’s Legislature is also weighing the idea of letting local jurisdictions create right-to-work zones. New Mexico, Connecticut and Alaska, among other states, have right-to-work bills currently in committee.

In Wisconsin, Walker is casting every component of his plan as critical.

He told “Fox News Sunday” that he’s not willing to hammer out a compromise that leaves collective bargaining rights in place — even if the state Senate Democrats who skipped town in order to prevent a vote agree on raising benefits contributions.

Walker said he wants to give local governments “the tools they need to balance the budget now and in the future” by changing the collective bargaining laws. His office released a fact sheet Monday giving examples of benefits won through collective bargaining, including health insurance that covers Viagara.

Plus, Walker said workers must have the “flexibility” to stay out of a union — and in turn avoid dues payments — if they choose.

“For us, if you want to have democracy, if you want to have the American way, which is allowing people to have a choice, that’s exactly what we’re allowing there,” Walker said. “People see the value, they see the work, they can continue to vote to certify that union and they can continue to voluntarily have those union dues, and write the check out and give it to the union to make their case, but they shouldn’t be forced to be a part of this if that’s not what they want to do.”

Teachers, for example, are really expensive… I am not sure we can afford to pay them as much as we do during a recession. (H/T Tina)

We really need to stop overpaying people with guaranteed jobs all these inflated salaries and benefits during a recession. There just aren’t enough of us out here working on goods and services to support the unions.

Videos

Michele Bachmann and Paul Ryan on the Wisconsin teacher union pensions

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First, Megyn Kelly explains the Wisconsin union crisis.

Michele Bachmann interviewed by Megyn Kelly:

Paul Ryan interviewed by Greta Van Susteren.

Paul Ryan also talks about Obama’s latest budget.

Ladies and gentlemen, the grown-up party.

UPDATE: Here’s a story for those who are Youtube-impaired.

Excerpt:

Two-thirds of the eighth graders in Wisconsin public schools cannot read proficiently according to the U.S. Department of Education, despite the fact that Wisconsin spends more per pupil in its public schools than any other state in the Midwest.

In the National Assessment of Educational Progress tests administered by the U.S. Department of Education in 2009—the latest year available—only 32 percent of Wisconsin public-school eighth graders earned a “proficient” rating while another 2 percent earned an “advanced” rating. The other 66 percent of Wisconsin public-school eighth graders earned ratings below “proficient,” including 44 percent who earned a rating of “basic” and 22 percent who earned a rating of “below basic.”

The test also showed that the reading abilities of Wisconsin public-school eighth graders had not improved at all between 1998 and 2009 despite a significant inflation-adjusted increase in the amount of money Wisconsin public schools spent per pupil each year.

This is an issue we can win on.