Detroit Federation of Teachers agrees to new concessions contract

[Hannah Bell]

The three-year deal was announced Thursday night, and teachers will be presented with the details at a mass meeting at Cobo Hall in downtown Detroit on Sunday. Voting will take place over the following two weeks.

The agreement includes projected savings for the school district of $30-$40 million over three years. The $28 million reduction in health care costs includes the elimination of the Blue Cross/Blue Shield health care plan...

Wages for teachers will be frozen for two years, with a one-percent increase in the third year of the deal...The contract also includes sweeping change pushed by the Obama administration to tie teacher pay to evaluations and “performance” (merit pay).

According to the Detroit News, in a separate measure, the DFT has agreed to “a $250 deduction from paychecks, or $500 a month,” under the so-called Termination Incentive Plan, and the placement of this money in a separate account. The collected sums would only be returned to the teachers when they leave the district. This will allow the district to delay payment on taxes for the deducted sums.

In effect, this is a massive pay cut in terms of what teachers will take home each week. It would have the added intended consequence of forcing many teachers to retire early.

The deal received the enthusiastic endorsement of Michigan’s Democratic governor Jennifer Granholm. “I am deeply thankful to Robert Bobb and Keith Johnson for the extraordinary leadership it took to achieve an agreement that will move the Detroit Public Schools forward, even while we struggle with an ongoing school finance crisis in Michigan,” Granholm said.

Bobb continues to hold out the threat of sending the school district into bankruptcy court, where the contract revisions would be imposed by force, if teachers do not accept the concessions...

All of these cuts have the implicit backing of the Obama administration, which has refused to bail out state and local governments facing unprecedented budget crises, even as it has handed out trillions to the banks and recently announced an escalation of the war in Afghanistan that will cost $30 billion a year. The administration has explicitly endorsed the overhaul being carried out by Bobb, holding up the transformation of the Detroit Public Schools as a model for the entire country.

Obama is also pushing state governments to implement right-wing education policies, including charter schools and merit pay, by withholding the very limited funds for public education made available by the federal government from states that do not carry out such policies. In order to meet these criteria, the Michigan Senate, with the support of the Democrats and Republicans, passed legislation this week expanding the use of charter schools.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/dec2009/teac-d05.shtml

[proud2BlibKansan]

1. Good Lord what is happening to us when we applaud treating teachers like shit?

No health insurance and a $500 a month deduction in take home pay???

And a DEMOCRATIC governor thinks this is good?!?!?!

I am just blown away. Absolutely blown away.

[michreject]

2. What would you suggest as a bonus

for educators of students with a graduation rate of 30%?

[proud2BlibKansan]

3. Why are you implying it is the teachers' fault?

And they deserve to be penalized?

[michreject]

4. I don't advocate rewarding failure

regardless of fault.

The test results indicate that some fault does lie with educators.

I'm not going to get into a bash teachers argument.

[Deja Q]

8. If you added criteria in your first post, we'd believe you.

A one-liner blaming teachers IS bashing. Don't spin it to blame everyone responding to you to make them the aggressors.

[michreject]

11. It's been posted before.

Either you ignored the thread or ignored the data.

http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2008/07/hs-graduation-rate-in-detroit-only-20.html

http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2006-06-20-dropout-rates_x.htm

From above link:

21.7 Detroit

[proud2BlibKansan]

10. Which test results?

Please share your formula for assigning blame to teachers when students fail to score at a particular level on a fill in the bubble standardized test.

Please share your formula for assigning blame to parents.

Please share your formula for assigning blame to school administrators.

Please share your formula for assigning blame to students.

This can be done without bashing teachers.

[michreject]

13. No

You want to inundate someone with useless question that you already know the answers to, go find someone else to play with.

[proud2BlibKansan]

17. No I don't know the answers; that's why I asked

But if you want to play games, that would be your choice I suppose.

[marshall]

39. I'll be happy with whatever formula Obama advocates

Hopefully it will reward success rather than punish perceived lack thereof.

[tonysam]

15. Test results don't mean shit, sorry.

The kids don't take them seriously, so why should the adults?

[michreject]

19. Great attitude nt

[proud2BlibKansan]

46. It's a sad reality though

Kids don't take the tests seriously. One of mine just laid her head down while we were testing last week then she picked up a pencil and randomly filled in bubbles on her answer sheet without opening the test booklet. I called her mother and told her she needed to take the test more seriously and her mother said she didn't care how her child did on "any of those stupid tests".

And if my pay was based on her performance, I would be penalized. Because she CHOSE to blow off the test.

[michreject]

47. I'll admit that I don't have an answer

Living on the Detroit area the DPS has been in the headlines for two years now. None of it positive. There's talk of a state take over.

[proud2BlibKansan]

48. The state took over St Louis

BFD

Nothing much has changed.

The answer is very complex and involves a will I am not sure most people have. Schools belong to communities. If we want them to improve, we must pour resources into them. I think our kids deserve it. But not many agree with me.

But merely holding teachers accountable is not only unfair but also won't solve our problems. We will end up with a bunch of schools full of failing students and fewer teachers willing to work in them.

[Fading Captain]

33. You are clueless

The Teachers Unions have been known to be rather selfish.

But you're a douchebag if you're going to blame teachers for poor graduation rates and test scores in Detroit, which is a black hole of violence, despair, poverty, drug addiction and broken families.

[Deja Q]

7. How do you know it's solely the fault of the teachers?

Lack of parenting (unwilling or, worse, unable), principals without principles, discipline, stopping bullies...

Oh, the teachers have to work within the rules or get lambasted by everybody too...

Oh, the students have to take it upon themselves to learn too, you know...

[michreject]

12. I just posted the facts

Because of ever decreasing test scores and graduation rates, parents are sending their kids to charter schools or private schools. At least those that can afford it.

I gotta tell you that's it's a brilliant idea to give those in a failing system a raise. Why have any motivation or incentive if if will be given to you regardless.

[tonysam]

16. You don't have any facts because you have never worked in schools

and don't have any idea of how they operate. Standardized tests or CRTs are totally meaningless because of the kids who take them. They don't take them seriously, or else they completely freak out taking them.

Teachers have no control over that.

[proud2BlibKansan]

21. We also can't control if the kids come to school

But I suppose some of our resident blame the teacher crowd expects us to make sure they go to bed at an appropriate hour, get out of bed in the morning and get to the bus stop on time.

[tonysam]

22. In Nevada, the kids don't stay in the school long enough to learn anything

Nevada is infamous for having a transient population. Teachers can't control where the students and their families live.

[proud2BlibKansan]

26. We have the same problem here

But even the ones who stay in the community don't always come to school.

In fact the ONLY part of NCLB I approve of is the attendance criteria. Forces our administrators to put pressure on parents to make their kids come to school.

[tonysam]

27. I agree there. The kids can't learn anything if they are not in school.

n/t

[michreject]

24. Try again

I worked for the Detroit Public School district for two years. Became disillusioned and went to work at General Motors.

Because I couldn't view it as just a pay check, I got out.

[proud2BlibKansan]

28. And working for General Motors is more than just a paycheck?

LOL

[michreject]

31. I worked at Design Staff for 30 years

No results, no continuous employment. The concept is pretty simple.

[proud2BlibKansan]

34. And you worked for more than a paycheck?

That was your original claim. Not that it wasn't continuous employment.

[michreject]

41. Yes I did

I enjoyed my work, compensation aside. If I wanted JUST a paycheck, I would have stayed at the Detroit Public School system.

[proud2BlibKansan]

45. Working for more than a paycheck means much more than merely enjoying your work

How does your work make a difference in your community? How is it a better place because you do what you do for a living? That's working for more than a paycheck. Enjoying your work is a reward not unlike a paycheck.

[Deja Q]

9. Seconded. This is a multi-faceted issue.

[Starry Messenger]

5. "The beatings will continue until morale improves"

:(

[blindpig]

6. k&r

Grover Norquist gotta be piss in the pants happy.

[tonysam]

20. Not just Grover, but Gates and Broad, the true villains of this current

privatization mess.

[tonysam]

14. Why am I not surprised?

I think the unions have been seriously co-opted by the privatizers.

It won't be long and there will be revolving door teachers with "careers" of only two or three years.

Sane people will avoid this occupation like the plague.

[Nikki Stone1]

18. $500 less a month makes a big dent over two years. Eliminating Blue Cross/Blue Shield too?

And the Obama administration is culpable here:

"The contract also includes sweeping change pushed by the Obama administration to tie teacher pay to evaluations and “performance” (merit pay)."

[proud2BlibKansan]

23. No health insurance and a $500 cut in monthly take home pay

That'll drive those applicants to teaching positions! I'll bet the line in the HR dept in Detroit is SRO!!

:sarcasm:

[tonysam]

25. It'll be only the nepotisms who will have careers in public education.

As it stands, as long as there are hundreds of applicants for a single teaching job, school districts will continue to treat teachers like shit.

[proud2BlibKansan]

29. For many years my urban district started every year with 100s of vacancies

Yet they still treated us like shit.

[tonysam]

30. I'll bet the nepotisms were treated well, though.

There are problems in public schools, but the public doesn't know the REAL problems, which stem from administrators.

[Fading Captain]

32. Next year, a financial tsunami will wipe out may schools

Schools are facing state funding cuts of $200 to $300 per student, mid-year, this year.

Superintendents are already being warned of massive cuts ($600 to 1,000 per student) next year.
For most districts (not the super-rich districts), this amounts to about $900 to $1,300, per student, annually. That represents about about a 15 percent slash within a year. And districts have already been struggling to pay bills because families are leaving the state. That means a) property tax revenues are falling because property values are in decline. And b) There is less state money, because schools are funded on a per-pupil basis.

I talk to superintendents who are livid that Gov. Granholm, the Democratic House, and Republican Senate, are twiddling their thumbs, fighting political battles with an election approaching. Because of that election, NOBODY is actually leading the way on anything. Serious changes need to made to the ways schools are funded. And that's going to require leadership.

This state doesn't have any real leaders at the moment.

[Nikki Stone1]

35. A planned financial tsunami?

The kind that revolutionizes ways of life?

[Fading Captain]

36. Nope. A real one.

The ARRA money runs out this year. And nothing has changed the structure of school funding.

[Nikki Stone1]

37. ARRA?

?

[Fading Captain]

40. Federal Stimulus money

eom

[Nikki Stone1]

44. Ah. I see.

Are there talks of a second stimulus?

[Fading Captain]

49. It hardly matters

Using stimulus money to cover structural shortfalls only prolongs and perhaps exacerbates the problem.

[tonysam]

42. Most of them don't and most of them are gutting teacher protections

in order to receive Arne's "Race to the Top" blackmail money.

[shadesofgray]

38. Well, THIS puts the lie to Obama caring about health care reform.

Since teachers losing their health insurance has the implicit back of the Obama administration.

This is truly disgusting.

[tonysam]

43. The administration definitely doesn't care about public education.

It's very, very anti-public education, if one follows the antics of Arne and company.