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WEA to pay teachers for campaign finance violations

Yep, you heard it right! Teachers Union must pay teachers back:

Total settlements now exceed $1 million

OLYMPIA—The Washington Education Association (WEA) has agreed to return $225,000 to teachers after using their wages for the union’s political agenda without their authorization. This settlement ends a nine-year lawsuit that included an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court in which the high court ruled in favor of the teachers, Davenport v. WEA. The suit began when the Evergreen Freedom Foundation (EFF) filed a complaint with the Public Disclosure Commission. To date, the WEA has been ordered or agreed to pay over $1 million for violating teachers’ rights in this case.

Teachers in Washington are generally required to pay for union representation as a condition of employment. Teachers who decline to join the union must also pay union fees, but are given protections in state law to ensure protection of their First Amendment rights. Specifically, RCW 42.17.760 required unions to get permission from nonmembers before using their payments for political activity. (The legislature amended the law in 2007, significantly weakening its free speech protections for union-represented employees.)

In 2000, EFF filed a complaint with the Public Disclosure Commission alleging the WEA had violated RCW 42.17.760. After an investigation, the WEA admitted to “multiple violations” of the law, and then-Attorney General Christine Gregoire filed a lawsuit against the union in October 2000. A Thurston County Superior Court judge found the union had committed intentional violations. The union appealed.

Meanwhile, in March 2001, a group of teachers led by former teacher Gary Davenport filed a separate class-action lawsuit against the WEA in order to recover their improperly-spent dues. The teachers were represented by Steven T. O’Ban of Ellis, Li & McKinstry PLLC and Milton L. Chappell of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, and supported by the Evergreen Freedom Foundation. This case was consolidated with the State’s case against the WEA to determine the constitutionality of the law requiring unions to get permission for political spending.

In 2006 the Washington State Supreme Court ruled the law was unconstitutional. Justice Faith Ireland (retired) wrote that requiring unions to ask permission before spending nonmember dues on political activity was “too heavy an administrative burden.” The State and the Davenport teachers both appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

On June 14, 2007, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously upheld RCW 42.17.760 as constitutional. Justice Antonin Scalia wrote that “unions have no constitutional entitlement to nonmember employees’ fees.” Thus, laws requiring unions to gain permission from employees before using the money to further the union’s political objectives are constitutional.

Both cases were then returned to state court. The State settled its case with the WEA in December 2008. The WEA agreed to pay the State $735,000 and return up to $240,000 to affected teachers. Today’s settlement for an additional $225,000 brings the total the WEA has paid in penalties and restitution to teachers well over $1 million dollars.

“With today’s settlement of the Davenport case, this matter is finally laid to rest,” said Steve O’Ban. “We are pleased that the WEA has been held accountable for its actions. The real victors today are the teachers who fought for nearly a decade to vindicate their rights.”

“This case was about a simple principle,” said Michael Reitz, general counsel of EFF, “to ensure that teachers are not forced to pay for political activity with which they disagree. No one should have to support someone else’s political agenda as a condition of employment.”

State Lawmakers Pass Sweeping Education Reform

State lawmakers passed sweeping education reforms in a race to get hundreds of millions of dollars in federal money. 400-million dollars are up for grabs under President Barack Obama's ‘Race to the Top Competition.' Fewer than half the states are likely to win the money. State lawmakers said this legislation should give Michigan a better chance.

Lawmakers are calling this the biggest education reform in 20 years. They passed five bills to make up this race to the top package. The changes would make it easier to remove poor performing teachers and create a merit-based pay system to reward good performance. The bills also allow for some thirty additional charter schools. The measure also increased the dropout age from 16 to 18. Of course lawmakers hope all of these are things help qualify Michigan for the federal money....

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Florida's Fort Pierce charter school closing?

By James Kirley

ST. LUCIE COUNTY — An injunction that would have kept students in classes and public money flowing to a 14-month-old charter high school has been denied by a circuit court judge, leaving a state hearing as the school’s last chance to survive.

On Friday, Circuit Judge William Roby dismissed a complaint and request for an injunction by The Charter School of Fort Pierce.

Roby said the charter school had failed to show that irreparable harm will result without an injunction.

“On the other hand, after extensive review, it appears that the school board, which is responsible for all public schools and public school students in St. Lucie County, found that deficiencies at the school pose an immediate threat to the educational welfare of students attending the school,” Roby wrote.

The St. Lucie County School Board voted unanimously Nov. 10 to close the school after district officials and a third-party audit indicated the publicly funded, privately run charter school was operating in the red. The charter school filed for an injunction Nov. 19.

Like all public schools, the charter school got state funding based on student enrollment. But it never achieved the enrollment envisioned in its business plan.

The charter school posted the school district’s only “F” when school grades based on results of the 2009 Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test results were released last spring. Charter school officials said their first-ever grade was because many of their students had struggled and performed poorly in traditional public schools in prior years...

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Performance pay works in the Prince George's schools

By William R. Hite Jr. and Donald J. Briscoe

Performance pay is supposed to be the third rail of education reform. But in Prince George's County, we have shown that it doesn't have to be.

Two years ago, we agreed to reward teachers and principals who elevate student achievement in high-need schools. Our program shows that the government can be a catalyst for school reform and that the Obama administration's plans to dramatically expand incentive programs are essential to changing school systems that currently fail, or cannot afford, to reward effective teaching.

It also shows what administrators and teachers can accomplish when we work together. During the 2006-07 school year, Prince George's schools and the unions joined hands to create and implement the district's first pay-for-performance program, supported by a five-year, $17 million grant from the federal government's Teacher Incentive Fund. TIF helps states and school districts develop innovative systems to reward teachers and principals who boost student achievement in high-need schools.

Yes, we had our disagreements as we worked out how to supplement the existing compensation system, which is based largely on seniority and qualifications, not performance. But thanks to the involvement of teachers and administrators selected by the unions, we were able to create a voluntary program that provides up to $10,000 in bonuses for effective teachers in high-need schools and as much as $12,000 for administrators who work to turn around struggling schools. Two committees that included teachers and administrators designed both the cash-incentive structure and the program's professional development system, which helps teachers improve classroom instruction and assists teachers and administrators in earning their bonuses...

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Is Arne Duncan giving up on education reform?

By David Ellison- Oakland Tribune

TO CHARTER OR not to charter? That is the question.

Hamlet pondered whether to battle "the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune" or to just give up. My fear is that, in pushing for more charter schools, Education Secretary Arne Duncan has given up.

Charters never really became laboratories for innovation.

They simply adopted the "new ideas" all public schools would if they had the freedom and the funds: longer school days and years, smaller schools and class sizes, careful selection of motivated, gifted teachers, strict accountability for both students and their parents, site-based management. "...

Charters have such freedom. But their claims to operate with less state funds than most public schools are spurious.

For one, charters usually receive substantial outside support. Even more significant, since salaries account for more than 90 percent of most schools' budgets, charters typically employ younger, far-less expensive faculty, and turn them over after only four years, thus keeping expenses artificially low.

In other words, charters attract our best new teachers but quickly burn them out.

This is reform?

True reform would address the real and enduring problems plaguing public education, such as the fact that the teaching profession generally attracts our least qualified college graduates; that the worst of them too often staff inner-city schools; that schools stand more segregated by race and class than ever; that they follow the same factory model as a century ago.

Many (certainly not all) charters — such as Summit Preparatory High School, which I featured in my last column — offer at least a few of our inner-city children a way out of an obviously broken and shamelessly unjust system of public schools...

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Why Michelle Rhee Has to Play Tough

By Richard Whitmire

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

The forces lined up against D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee -- angry teachers, grumpy D.C. Council members, the nation's top teachers' union leader quarterbacking the opposition -- are essentially asking one question: Why can't you behave more like that nice Arne Duncan?

Indeed, with his aw-shucks humility and his anecdotes about playing b-ball with the president, Duncan has undeniable charm. That charm was honed in Chicago, where he never played in-your-face politics and never publicly suggested there was widespread incompetence among the teaching force, qualities that contributed to President Obama's tapping him to be U.S. secretary of education.

By contrast, Rhee appeared on the cover of Time wielding a broom to symbolically sweep incompetence out of her public schools. Yikes.

But there's a reason Rhee plays hardball: She has no choice...

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New York Mayor Wants More Charter Schools

More charter schools may be coming to the city under a plan proposed Wednesday by Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Speaking at a 10th anniversary celebration of charter schools at the Sisulu-Walker Charter school in Harlem, the mayor said if reelected, he would fight to abolish the cap put on charter schools by Albany.

Bloomberg's plan would double the amount of charter schools in the city to 200. He is proposing that by 2013, almost 10 percent, or 100,000 public school seats will be charter.

"Charter schools like Sisulu have succeeded because they empower teachers and principals to set high expectations," said Bloomberg. "They encourage innovation in the classroom. They create competition among schools for students. But most importantly, they give parents more options in deciding what's best for their children."

In addition, he pledged to raise $100 million in private funds for charter school facilities...

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Will Longer Schoold Days Work?

By Jason Campbell

President Obama thinks that keeping kids in their seats might just be the education reform this country needs.

But at least one Manteca teacher isn’t quite sure that his kids could stand to stay in their seats any longer than they already do.

With that the Commander-in-Chief believes that students today spend too little time in the classroom. Coming this week, those involved in education at the local level who have had to deal with the crippling economic blow that is still digging into coffers, aren’t quite sure that the concept of longer school days and shorter vacations – while maybe a good theoretical idea – is currently feasible.

“We need to prepare our students to be able to compete in a global economy, and that’s just the reality of education in America today,” said Manteca Educators Association President Ken Johnson. “I think that the idea sounds good theoretically, but practically something like that is going to take some serious money and that’s something we just don’t have right now.”

“On the surface it sounds like a good idea, but in reality I’m not so sure that it could immediately work. It might be good rhetoric...

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Newt and Al Making the Rounds

By KATHY MATHESON (AP)

PHILADELPHIA — The Rev. Al Sharpton and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich don't agree on much, but a meeting with a group of inner-city charter school students on Tuesday left them with the same impression: There is hope for improving the U.S. education system.

"We may disagree about other issues, but this is a place where we have a common" goal, Gingrich said outside Mastery Charter School in West Philadelphia. "I take education very, very seriously."

Sharpton, a liberal Democratic, and Gingrich, a conservative Republican, joined Education Secretary Arne Duncan on the first stop of a "listening and learning" tour to find out what school strategies are working and why.

At Mastery, the trio met with about a dozen 11th graders who attended the school four years earlier when it was under district management. At that time, students said, kids ran wild, expectations were low and teachers didn't care about the students — or even about teaching.

"It was horrible," 17-year-old Donnell Clark said.

But since 2006, the school has been run by Mastery Charter Schools, a nonprofit that now has four campuses in Philadelphia serving 2,100 students. The Shoemaker campus visited Tuesday has outperformed some of its more affluent suburban counterparts on state standardized tests.

Clark and others told the education advocates that new teachers and staff made the difference by raising the academic bar, accepting no excuses and simply caring about their students.

"Teachers actually invest their time," Clark said.

Public education in Philadelphia is a mixture of district-run schools, schools operated by private management companies and charter schools, which are public but operate independently from the district.

It is a high-poverty system where only about half the students can read and write at grade level...

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One Person's Opinion: Charter Schools Are not the Answer

By Noel Anderson

"We need more charter schools as a choice for parents". "Charter schools foster innovation!" All we hear is that charter schools are the answer to failing public education. If you recall, charter schools are publicly funded schools that operate outside the governance and policies of a local district in a state.

This charter school hype was literally translated into policy in New Orleans. After Hurricane Katrina in 2005, fewer than 20 of approximately 120 schools in center New Orleans remained usable. Since the hurricane destroyed the state and local tax base, the result was a state takeover of public schools, with more than half of them reopening as charter schools. According to an Urban Institute, New Orleans has become the largest charter school experiment in the country.

But do charter schools live up to the hype? The truth is they don't. Charter schools are given a window of three to five years to produce results or shut down. Yet the results of studies done by the Economic Policy Institute illustrate there is no real distinguishable academic effect on children in charter schools versus ones in traditional public schools.

There are other myths around charters that need dispelling. One myth is that charters foster innovation for public schools. Although there are many charter schools that do innovative things with curricula and have creative names (some are simply strange), they do not help reshape traditional public schools.

In fact, charter schools tend to be in competition with traditional public schools for students rather than becoming conduits for changing the public education system. Ostensibly, public schools should not be competing for students like businesses would compete for customers. Public schools are not businesses, but a fundamental right provided for all....

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Group Asks Parents to Step Up

By Kim Genardo

The group “Parents for Educational Freedom in North Carolina" kicked off a three city tour on the grounds of the State Capitol Monday afternoon.

Group President Darrell Allison said parents will choose the best option for their children and more options will equal student success.

The group is supporting House Bill 856 to modify the cap on charter schools.

A charter school is a publically funded school that parents must find and apply to get in usually through a lottery.

There is no tuition because local, state and federal dollars follow the child to that school.

Charter schools must meet state education guidelines and testing, but often times the schools are themed and have more flexibility with programs.

Representative Marvin Lucas, (D) Cumberland County, who co-sponsored the House bill to expand charter schools, addressed a crowd of 70 parents, students and education advocates.

“We raise the cap by six, but at same time look at existing charter schools, said Lucas. “We place an emphasis on the expansion for those local education associations that don’t have any charter schools,” added Lucas....

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Schools' job starts with what's best for the kids

By B.J. Van Gundy

The charter school movement in the United States started more than 10 years ago but continues to be misunderstood by the general public and even by those that find themselves leading the decision-making processes surrounding them.

The Gwinnett County School Board and administration is no exception, and the misguided approach and posture taken toward Ivy Prep Academy exemplifies their lack of understanding as well as their maligned intentions.

I don't claim to be a neutral party to this discussion. However, my bias, I believe, is well-guided by the question I ask myself concerning all education issues, for my children and others: What is best for the children involved?

There is no other intention that education systems and their administrators should have other than what is best for the children that are put in their care for education and growth on a daily basis.

To be clear, the posture described in the newspaper accounts of the Gwinnett system's lawsuit doesn't appear to me to meet this requirement.

The school board needs to get with the 21st century and understand that charter schools aren't here to compete with, denigrate or hurt the public school system, but are an important piece of the overall education equation. They assure that parents are given the absolute best opportunities to have their children educated in a school that excels rather than just merely exists nearby.

Simply telling parents that their school choices are already made for them based upon local geographical proximity to their house is something that traps parents into sending their kids, in too many cases, to schools that are not ideal or in their children's best interests.

I'm proud of the administrators, teachers and students at Ivy Prep. I have personally spent several hours at the school observing the operations and curriculum - something that I'll bet the five members of the Gwinnett County school board and superintendent couldn't say collectively.

The statement by the superintendent that the money going to Ivy Prep "is the equivalent of the salaries of 20 to 25 teachers" shows that the school board hasn't really thought this through. The fact is the money IS paying for 20 to 25 teachers - those teachers, and the money, just aren't under their control...

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Parents protest outside Harlem Success Academy 2

BY Rachel Monahan AND Meredith Kolodner
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS

Most of the city's 1.1 million students went back to school Wednesday with a mix of excitement and nervousness, but a few hundred kids in Harlem arrived to find protesters outside and furniture stacked inside classrooms.

Frustrated parents at Public School 123 picketed outside the school to protest what they said was preferential treatment for Harlem Success Academy 2 charter school, located in the same building.

"Our school was not ready," said Antoinette Hargrove, the school's Parent Association president. "The same people who got their school ready were supposed to get our school ready. What are we - dogmeat?"

Parents said two classrooms were unusable, after furniture that had been off the third floor to make way for the charter school was shifted down to the floor.

Those classes met in the library, the parents said. One class met in the basement that parents said was overheated and had poor ventilation.

Harlem Success began moving into the 140th Street building in July.

Their floors were waxed, the walls were freshly painted and the bathrooms had been completely renovated in time for opening day.

Eva Moskowitz, who runs Harlem Success, sent out an angry email this morning claiming that "teacher union protesters blocked a group of Harlem 5-year-olds from entering their public school building this morning....

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Understanding President Obama's Speech: A Parent's Guide

CER Press Release
Washington, DC
September 7,2009

Parents should talk to their kids about issues surrounding the President's speech to the nation's school children Tuesday, such the as role of the federal government in education, the state of our nation's education crisis, and how they can elect officials who will make critical changes, according to Making Sense of President Obama's School Speech: 10 Things Parents Should Share with their Kids, released today by the Center for Education Reform.

"Parents are not only the first line of defense when it comes to their family's education, they should be the first line of offense as well," says Jeanne Allen, president of the Center for Education Reform. "Parents can be assertive and effective change agents in improving schools and using this occasion to help their young understand how to right education's wrongs is a big first step to reforming our schools."

The Center for Education Reform has for 16 years helped parents become better advocates for their children, and given policymakers the tools they need to succeed. Thus CER brings its broad and unique expertise to the controversial discussions surrounding the president's speech by offering parents a variety of topics to cover to help educate their children about why President Obama is speaking to them, what his role is, and what other issues this nation faces in bringing excellence to all schools.

"Above all parents should remind their children something that schools often neglect - that they live in the land of opportunity, the best nation on earth, and that along with making sure they receive a great education, they must always seek to learn from history and to advance the principles upon which this country was founded," added Allen.

To download a copy of CER's Making Sense of President Obama's School Speech: 10 Things Parents Should Share with their Kids and to find more valuable resources for parents, click here.

Obama School Address with Lesson Plans

President Obama announced yesterday that at 12:00 p.m. ET. On September 8, 2009 he would address school students across the nation. Since that announcement, controversy has ensued as many parents and school officials wonder if the President is pushing education or politics. The lesson plans found on the Department of Education’s website have also drawn their fair share of controversy.

President Obama has stated that the purpose of the school address is to encourage children to stay in school. President Obama has previously discussed the importance of parents and child care givers in the responsibility of ensuring children set educational goals and are empowered to achieve them. In Tuesday’s school address, he aims at telling children the importance that they play in their own education. Most importantly, setting their own goals and striving to be all that they can be.

Controversy ensued after suggested lesson plan materials, materials on the Department of Education website that would be used to help reinforce the speech, were written as if students would well receive encouragement from President Obama. What became offensive to many was a portion of a lesson plan that read as follows, “Write letters to themselves about what they can do to help the president. These would be collected and redistributed at an appropriate later date by the teacher to make students accountable to their goals.”

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The Big Bad Charter School!

Neighborhood Fights to Keep Charter School Out
Produced by Chip Mitchell on Thursday, August 27, 2009

A building that housed an award-winning neighborhood school in Chicago is now home to a charter school. That’s thanks to a Board of Education vote Wednesday night. School officials say the deal is for one year only. But the way it came together is stoking neighborhood mistrust of the district.

De La Cruz Academy was a middle school in Chicago’s Pilsen neighborhood--and a good one, judging by an academic achievement award in February from the State of Illinois.

But Chicago Public Schools pointed to declining enrollment and closed De La Cruz in June. The district insists the plan was to demolish the building and sell the land.

But the closing created an opportunity.

RANGEL: Octavio Paz, our flagship school, finds itself without a home, just a few weeks before school opening.

Juan Rangel is chief executive officer of UNO, short for the United Neighborhood Organization. UNO works closely with Mayor Richard Daley and runs charter schools on seven campuses in the city.

A $98 million state grant this year will help the group build more but, Rangel says, not fast enough for Octavio Paz. UNO has been housing part of that school in an old Catholic facility near Pilsen.

RANGEL: The building around us has been collapsing. Masonry has been falling on the sidewalks. A canopy had to be erected around the church. It’s a situation that actually has been about a year and a half in the making.

Chicago Public Schools says Rangel didn’t approach the district for help until late July. This month, the district called UNO’s plight an emergency and announced it wouldn’t tear down De La Cruz after all. The new plan? House Octavio Paz in the building for one year, virtually rent-free.

And that’s angering supporters of Pilsen’s neighborhood schools. They point to an UNO charter school that arrived in Pilsen a few years ago. They say it siphons off students and resources and worry a second UNO school will do the same...

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Be wary of charter schools?

Here is an opposing view on charter schools...what do you think?

New Orleans has many, and they are shifting problems elsewhere.

By Larry Carter

We understand that charter schools are part of the educational landscape in New Orleans. The United Teachers of New Orleans supports charter schools that are accountable to the public, ensure educational equity, are open to all students and give their employees a real voice in decisions.

Unfortunately, some charter advocates have used the concept to advance privatization or weaken the benefits and professional rights of teachers. Talks with faculty and staff at local charters give us a solid understanding of the issues and needs these schools face.

Among the most serious:

Charter schools receive public education monies and should be accountable to the public. Yet one charter school management firm — paid $773,000 to operate the school for a year — was ordered to pay a $350,000 arbitration judgment to the school's governing board because the firm failed to follow state standards.

Charter schools don't provide the same insurance and retirement benefits to educators as traditional public schools. That can create a reliance on teachers who rotate in and out of charters, often for two-year stints, denying students the benefit of experienced, seasoned professionals. For traditional schools, that means skyrocketing insurance costs as the pool of employees shrinks....

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Are YOU giving back?

Volunteers are often fresh and excited in the dawn of a new academic calendar. The premise of the year to come and goals set by the administration can bring school spirit to lots of folks.

Savvy group coordinators are well aware of this little fact, and ask families to commit to helping during the magical time called back-to-school, even if the project doesn’t take place until February.

This is a bonus both for the volunteers and the organizers as a little bit of planning goes a long way. Volunteers appreciate knowing in advance when and where they are needed, and the group coordinators find it easier to send out confirmation communication throughout the year instead of constantly scouting additional hands for each project.

If you are new to charter schools, you will quickly find that there is an immense sense of community in the volunteer projects. Since public charter schools receive on average 28% less revenue than non-charter public schools, it is through volunteerism and fund raising that many of your school’s services and necessities have been made possible. Your personal contribution of time and skills is gratefully accepted as it will quickly translate into benefits for your child and a few hundred of his or her best classmate friends.

Requiring family participation in school activities is not unusual in a charter school. At the top of the list of reasons for this is the unwavering philosophy that your child will do better in school if you take an active role in his or her education. This is true all the way through your child's education and not only in the early years...

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New Episode of Skooled: Speechless!