[Vision2020] Demonizing Teachers and Their Elected Leaders

[Nicholas Gier]

Dear Visionaries,

As promised my radio commentary/column is on the Luna bills and
Vandersloot's vicious attack ads.  Next week's radio address will cover the
Luna bills in detail, but everything is not included in the full version
attached.

I conclude my column with the observation that the Idaho Federation of
Teachers proposed a Master Teacher plan 30 years before Tom Luna did, but
the SBOE did not even give us the courtesy of a response.

Sue: I asked Penni if the IEA was going to respond to the loss of
membership in the NEA.  In my long version I speculated about one reason:
restrictions in some GOP states on "fair-share" agreements.  I know that
public employee unions have lost thousands of members in Wisconsin because
non-union employees no longer had to pay for the costs of collective
bargaining, usually about 90 percent of unions dues determined by a judge
or labor board.  This is a widely accepted (at least in progressive states)
option to the union shop in the private sector.

This column will be adapted as an add that will run in Idaho major
newspapers after I get a legal opinion about using union dues in this
fashion.  Seems to be a "Go" after Citizens United, right?

Yours for teacher solidarity.

Nick

*DEMONIZING TEACHERS AND THEIR ELECTED LEADERS*

By Nick Gier, President, Idaho Federation of Teachers, AFT/AFL-CIO

            A full page ad entitled “Unions Declare War on Idaho Kids!” has
appeared in many Idaho newspapers.  It was paid for by right-wing agitator
Frank L. Vandersloot, Dutch for “from the ditch,” which describes the
nature of ad quite accurately.


Vandersloot charges that teacher unions “fought Governor Scott Walker’s
educational reforms in Wisconsin. The kids won. The unions lost.” This
conclusion is a tad premature.


On March 30 U.S. District Judge William Conley ruled against a provision of
Walker’s bill that required, just as Idaho now does for teachers, that
public employee unions hold bargaining elections every year.  This is a
burden that no democratic system has ever imposed.


Then on September 14 Dean County Judge Juan Colas ruled that Walker’s bill
deprives public employees of their “rights of free speech, association, and
equal protection.”


            Vandersloot wants us to believe that teachers have finally
realized they have been duped by union “bosses” in Washington, D.C.  A
survey K-12 teachers done by the think-tank Education Sector found that 81%
believed that they “would be vulnerable to school politics or
administrators who abuse their power” without union contracts.



            In a recent appearance in New York City Mitt Romney brushed off
a comment by a parent and school board member, who reported that parents
supported the union by 3-1 over Mayor Michael Bloomberg.  In Chicago
thousands of parents marched with 50,000 union members in support of the
Chicago Federation of Teachers.


A McKeon & Associates poll of registered Chicago voters showed that 47
percent supported the strike while 39 percent opposed. Only 19 percent said
Mayor Rahm Emanuel, Obama’s former Chief of Staff, said that he was doing
an above average job addressing the teachers’ issues.

Vandersloot and his ilk spit out “union bosses” as if they were dictators
with devious control over millions of teachers and school boards. Labor
unions, however, are some of the most democratic organizations in the
nation. All unions gain their right to represent workers by a majority vote
of the bargaining unit.

Instead of dictates from D.C., union members also decide for themselves
whether to withhold their services.  Over the years they have held fewer
and fewer strikes.  The number of work stoppages in the nation’s 16,000
school districts fell from 271 in 1975 to 15 in 2004.

The National Education Association (2.2 million members), the American
Federation of Teachers (1.5 million members), and millions of parents are
not happy with  Obama’s continuation of Bush Era policies, which place far
too much emphasis on  test scores and pit states and schools districts
against one another.

The Washington (D.C.) Teachers’ Union (AFT) has now succeeded in reducing
the percentage that test scores count in teacher evaluation from 50 to 35
percent. The NEA-AFT union in Los Angeles has convinced its board that test
scores will no longer be used in teacher evaluation. In stark contrast
Idaho law now requires that lump sum merit pay appropriations be sent to
school districts solely on the basis of test score improvement.


In 1983 the National Commission on Excellence in Education issued a report
entitled “A Nation at Risk.” As the new president of the Idaho Federation
of Teachers, I went on a state-wide speaking tour and committed my union to
education reform.


The IFT offered a Master Teachers Plan in response to the report’s call for
merit pay. Master Teachers would be responsible for curriculum development
and mentoring new teachers and would receive substantial salary increments
for that work.  The State Board of Education failed to respond to our plan,
even though we introduced the concept of Master Teacher 30 years before
Superintendant Tom Luna did.

I  urge voters to ignore these vicious attacks on teachers and repeal the
Luna Laws by voting “No” on Propositions 1, 2, and 3.

Nick Gier is President of the Idaho Federation of Teachers, AFT/AFL-CIO.
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