ACLU wins their appeal against teachers union. L. A. teachers lose seniority rights in layoffs.

[madfloridian]

I never thought I would see the ACLU filing an anti-union appeal. This is a real victory for new teacher projects like TFA and TNTP, and a real loss for teachers' unions.

I guess even the ACLU fell for the lie that tenured teachers are not worthy. In fact there is a waiting period of several years before that job security can be granted. In Florida it is 3 years, and even then a teacher can be fired for cause.

To me the fact that this is upheld, that Los Angeles teachers have lost that right in a layoff...shows that the anti-union rhetoric is working very well against teachers.

Appeals court allows LA teacher layoffs to go on

LOS ANGELES—A state appeals court has refused to delay a settlement that would protect 45 of the lowest performing schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District from layoffs.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California says the Second District Court of Appeal denied the teachers union's request Monday.

ACLU attorney Mark Rosenbaum says the decision is a victory for students at the troubled schools, which traditionally have high turnover of teachers. A last-hired, first-fired layoff policy has caused many untenured teachers at those schools to be the first to receive pink slips.

The union is going to appeal to the state supreme court.

I had a hard time finding much about this. I finally found something at Truth Dig, but the article sounds like it is lecturing the unions for allowing such rights as tenure.

Divided on unions

In Los Angeles, Mayor Villaraigosa and the American Civil Liberties Union have taken on the teachers union—the United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA)—over the seniority issue and the union’s insistence on a provision that last hired is first fired when layoffs are made during budget cuts. The school district, citing seniority rules in the UTLA contract, fired large numbers of young teachers at schools in impoverished South Los Angeles, where the students are overwhelmingly African-American and Latinos.

The language in this article is very skewed against unions.

The young teachers had volunteered to teach in those schools and by all accounts generally were doing a good job. But seniority rules in the union contract mandated that they be fired, and the young teachers had to take their energy and skill to the unemployment line. The ACLU maintained they were replaced by less talented veterans, including large number of substitutes. Siding with the civil liberties union, a judge ruled that the school district can’t fire new teachers in schools in poor areas because the high faculty turnover hurts students.

Let me paraphrase what that article just said.

SO...in effect the experienced tenured teachers "had to take their energy and skill to the unemployment line."

Then the article at Truth Dig goes even more into excusing this union busting by saying it is not. BTW Mayor Villaraigosa makes no secret that he is one of the main reformers of education, a strong supporter of charter schools. This paragraph defends Obama and Villaraigosa and says they are not going against unions.

By resisting such changes, the teachers unions are playing into the hands of Republican conservatives such as Govs. Scott Walker of Wisconsin and Chris Christie of New Jersey and their campaigns against public employee unions.

The changes championed by Mayor Villaraigosa and President Obama are not union busting. They are not a return to the pre-union days, when teachers were fired for their politics during the McCarthy era or dumped for no good reason by principals who didn’t like them. What the liberal reformers want is an end to union contracts that impose dubious paperwork and seniority rules and too-easy tenure requirements. They want more charter schools—privately run, publicly financed institutions that make their own rules within state and district standards.

The article closes by warning teachers that if they are perceived as hurting education then parents of all incomes including the poor will punish them.

If the teachers unions are perceived as getting in the way of improving education, parents of all income levels, including the poor, will punish them and vote against candidates who support the unions. And the public workers unions are likely to suffer with them.

Indeed it is union busting. The warning that teachers are playing into the hands of governors like Scott Walker is a low blow and a not-so-veiled threat that we need to be good little teachers.

Amazing that the ACLU is playing this role. And I was surprised at the Truth Dig article. I guess I shouldn't be surprised at anything anymore.

[Hannah Bell]

1. kr. that suit was such a ball of crap.

[madfloridian]

3. They are escalating the movement against teachers' unions now.

I read several anti-union posts at progressive sites yesterday. I will look them up, forgot to save them as they irritated me so much.

The play is on now, and there is no one standing with teachers.

[msanthrope]

63. Your property rights do not override your student's civil rights.

I understand that you have a vested interest in the property right of senority. I understand that senority is an important contractual right.

But your property rights don't allow for the violation of student's rights, as I outlined in my journal.

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/msanthrope

Now, you may claim that the lawsuit is bullshit, and that the right's of the students are non-existent, but I do not think that is a very persuasive legal strategy.

[Jakes Progress]

I call crap.

What rights of students? Where is the law that says students have a right to be taught by younger, less-well-paid teachers? Who says that is a better thing? Why do you avoid logic here?

The more that Democrats fall for the RW propaganda and lies, the easier it will be to pick us off one by one.

[sulphurdunn]

305. You don't know what the hell

you're talking about. I become wearier daily of ignorant, authoritarian fools and trolls parroting corporate talking points about public education. This isn't about students, teacher's or unions. This is about perpetuating the status-quo of urban minorities indefinitely. It's about turning public education into a Wall Street cash cow. After the schools have become standardized testing factories, it will be harder to find people who supported this train wreck than it is to find people who admit they voted for Richard Nixon. Wake up!

[bluestateguy]

2. They defend Limbaugh, Westboro Baptist church, Nazis in Skokie and now they bust unions

But in some weird 14 dimensional chess world we are supposed to believe that the ACLU are our "friends".

This just confirms why I never joined that twisted organization.

[speltwon]

8. The ACLU is not supposed to be the FRIEND of unions, or any other particular group

They are supposed to support civil rights for all, to include minorities. Unions (I am a proud union member myself) are not ALWAYS on the side of the collective good, or individual rights. Unions are supposed to advocate for their constituency (in this case, teachers) above and beyond concerns for any other group, to include students. Similarly, a cop union isn't supposed to advocate for suspect rights (at least not when the suspects aren't cops) or the general good, but for benefits and protections for cops

Given these realities, the ACLU will sometimes be on the side of a union, and sometimes against. I would expect nothing less.

[madfloridian]

11. I have heard that argument before, and I kept donating.

Now in this charged atmosphere of union hate...I have decided they don't need my money anymore. I just wrote them.

[speltwon]

18. I will (shockingly enough) wait until I read the ACTUAL DECISION

before deciding. People here are kneejerking into results analysis. That's fine for policy analysis, but it's always wrong in legal analysis.

[madfloridian]

20. No, there is no knee-jerking. Teachers just lost a right gained by unions.

And the ACLU led the fight.

[speltwon]

22. And was that right supported by the constitution, case law, due process

etc. and did that right conflict with a right deserving of stricter scrutiny? I have no idea. I haven't read the decision. Most cases of this ilk are about the relative merit of conflicting rights and principles. Most cases can be looked at this way - does the right of a defendant to be advised of his rights (nowhere in the constitution I might add.) trump the right of the state to question him w/o advising him, does the right of a union to set first in /first out policies trump other rights, etc.

I suggest reading the decision before coming to a conclusion. That's a blanket rule I apply to all matters of case law that require process analysis.

[madfloridian]

24. I applied my experience as a tenured teacher...

and I came up with the fact that the ACLU just won a big honking anti-union case.

[speltwon]

30. Well, then you are admitting bias

just as I would have with a case limiting the rights of a firefighters union. Great. I will still wait to read the actual decision before kneejerking. Yes, teacher unions lost power due to this decision. If your metric is "if a union loses power (or more specifically a teacher's union), the decision is wrong".

Sorry, but I will read the case. I may agree this decision is wrong. But I see the decision you made as not based on sufficient evidence and analysis.

Many police unions have gained the right where an officer is never subject to on the scene questioning (even for internal/administrative use) and has up to 72 hrs to submit a written statement. I'm not sure I agree with that right, either. Not when the answers are administratively compelled and to be used only administratively not criminally.

[madfloridian]

34. That's enough..

for me to say good bye. I have no patience for union busting anymore.

[speltwon]

45. I have patience for rule of law, the constitution, etc.

Unions are not above or below the law. My union as well

[sulphurdunn]

307. Rule of law, my ass.

Where the hell have you been for the last generation? It would be better called the law of rule. First the Democrats sold out, now the ACLU. The damn nation is being privatized for the benefit of a fraction of the populace at the expense of the majority and you want to argue equality before the law. Grow up.

[Zoeisright]

253. I ignore the right people!

Anyone who is against unions doesn't know history. And doesn't understand how truly evil and greedy the rich are. And is a fool.

[lfairban]

246. There you go making sense again.

Just about then, along comes big brother,
and says "Son, you better get on one side or the other!"

Eagles, Out on the Border

[sulphurdunn]

309. I've been a card carrying member

of the ACLU since it went to bat for the right or Nazis to parade through Jewish neighborhoods. That was tough to swallow, but I understood the concept. This is different, and the timing is suspect. I plan to spend some time reviewing ACLU legal actions over the past decade. The union has relied too much on sugar daddy donors. Some of those have dropped their funding. The only remaining source of big money is Wall Street. Both egregious and suspect to me was the ACLU's support for Citizen's United against the Federal Election Commission.

The ACLU has directly contributed to the unleashing of corporate money in politics under the guise of First Amendment rights. At no time of which I am aware has the ACLU ever questioned the First Amendment legitimacy of corporate personhood. It's becoming harder to be a member of an organization that argues arcane points of constitutional law when the interpretation of the constitution it supports has become the instrument of its own destruction or when it even indirectly champions the privatization of public education.

[msanthrope]

31. The issue was pretty simple--the LAUSD method of layoff was found to have violated the civil

rights of students. I journaled about this suit last year. Some schools had 6% layoffs, some had 50%.


http://journals.democraticunderground.com/msanthrope

[speltwon]

46. Thanks. As I suspected, competing rights

as these cases so often distill down to.

[Matt Shapiro]

301. The case is clearly about competing rights, but

there seems to be an assumption that kids in inner city schools are better served by younger, inexperienced teachers than by experienced ones. If there is a citywide layoff and certain schools lose, say, 50% of their staff because of lack of seniority, doesn't that mean that many of those teachers will be replaced by more experienced teachers who are forced to transfer to the now under-served schools in order to equalize class size requirements? That's the way it worked in NYC when I was a teacher. It was, in fact, contractual.

If I'm right, and of course you should read the case to find out, then, after perhaps a few months of disruption because of lack of continuity, I think the kids would be better off. My experience is that each year I taught, I improved. I taught for 33 years in an inner city school, and my observation is that experienced teachers are much more likely to be more effective, better teachers than those with little experience. It's not a hard and fast rule. Some new teachers are great from day one. But they are very few and very far between.

The seniority rule, aside from being a benefit to the worker who has dedicated her or his life to teaching, helps kids. It gives them better teachers, on average, even if conditions are worse. The alternative is to allow administrators (or, perhaps, politicians) to decide which teachers to fire. Exactly what standards would they use to make such crucial decisions? Friendship? Bribes? Scores on mainly irrelevant standardized tests? Salary (i.e., fire the better, more experienced teachers because they cost more)?

So, yes, read the case. But look for real evidence, not assumptions.

MadFlo is not being prejudiced. She is making judgments based on her real experience.

Finally, I have been a member and supporter of the ACLU for many decades, and I only disagreed with them once (their limited involvement in the Citizens United case). Their involvement in this case is very disconcerting on its face. To me, it would have made more sense to fight the drastic cuts which will inevitably harm the education of our children, regardless of who is teaching whom. The most important right of kids is a quality public education. That can't happen with dramatically higher class size, fewer supplies, fewer innovative programs, etc.

I will read the case.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

67. Classic case of a conflict of rights

This kind of suit addresses the flight of experience from the schools that need it most. It is not the first of its kind.

[msanthrope]

25. I wrote a journal with the original complaint and settlment. I'll try to find you the appeal.

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/msanthrope

[speltwon]

32. I am sure I can find it on one of my legal blogs

I will take a look too.

[msanthrope]

41. I had the link for the January decision, but i can't find it now. Judge's name was Highberger.

Don't know if the Court of appeals commented.

[Yo_Mama]

285. Thank you!

That was what I was looking for.

You just know you aren't going to understand anything from news stories about this.

[Sniper]

311. Yep

I canceled my membership and my monthly donation.

[bluestateguy]

15. Well not to worry

They certainly showed here that they are no friend to unions whatsoever.

And this so called civil liberties group always seems to be strangely silent when the Second Amendment right to bear arms is under attack.

[rdking647]

42. the defend civil right. period....

[Hannah Bell]

116. bullshit. they defend the right of billionaires to union-bust.

[Forkboy]

187. Don't be a member then.

[Hannah Bell]

257. member of what, the non-sequitor club?

[Forkboy]

286. Gee, what group are we discussing in this thread, Hannah?

What are the first four letters in the subject line? Is it really that difficult to follow along?

[rdking647]

214. somehow the worst perfoming schools in la

have become billionaires.. talk about a stretch

[Hannah Bell]

256. lol. villagairosa took those schools under his personal control in 2008.

and fired all the teachers.

the kids' civil rights didn't seem to matter when he did it.

i don't think you know much about this case, or about villagairosa's funders.

[Paradoxical]

209. What you said is complete bullshit.

The ACLU defends without regard to political affiliation. They are one of the last groups left that do so.

Just because they support people with which you disagree does not make them a bad organization.

[WinkyDink]

4. "Energy" = euphemism for "the others are too old."

[hay rick]

174. And if they are older

they are probably also more highly paid.

[VoteProgressive]

5. Proud ACLU member.

[blondeatlast]

7. Are you happy about the decision or not? nt

[VoteProgressive]

10. Not at all in this case. But I think overall the ACLU does good work. But....

in some cases I have wrote them to complain.

[Joe Bacon]

205. Citizens United was good work??????

I resigned my membership with them over their support of Citizens United.

[speltwon]

12. I'm a proud ACLU member AND a proud union member

and I don't expect the ACLU to always advocate for my best interest. Often, the best interest of a given group is going to run contrary to the stance of a union. Note that in Citizens United (another controversial ACLU supported case), unions were amongst those that had rights expanded per the decision.

ACLU is an advocacy group for civil rights, not for union empowerment.

[VoteProgressive]

13. I agree, this seems like a wrong decision!

[speltwon]

I haven't read the decision, so I haven't come to a conclusion either way

Like most cases of this ilk, I suggest it is probably a matter of competing rights. The law is often about such tradeoffs. The ACLU tends to advocate for minority rights against the bigger power.

I will NEVER come to a conclusion about whether a decision is wrong or right, based on an analysis of its results. I need to look at the process and the precedent. This is a legal case , not policy analysis

[speltwon]

6. ACLU has taken on unions before

It's not the "AUU". It's the ACLU.

[blondeatlast]

9. Sickening. If I am forced to choose between supporting labor unions and the ACLU,

I'll choose labor unions.

[speltwon]

14. The ACLU's decision process isn't and shouldn't be

"how does this affect unions"... it is "is this consistent with the constitution, due process, minority rights, etc.?

That's what they are advocates for. Unions are advocates for their members, and just like ANY other interest group, their perceived best interests may run contrary to other concerns that the ACLU would consider.

I am both a ACLU member and a proud union worker. THe issue isn't, is the result "a good result", from the ACLU's standpoint. It's "is the result consistent with constitutional/due process/rights concerns". Sometimes, those conflict.

Cops unions may have opposed Miranda for example. At the time, the vast majority of citizens opposed the ruling too. The ACLU supported it

[madfloridian]

17. It is one more nail in the coffin of union rights.

I have tried many times to understand all the rights that ACLU has taken on, but this one is just too much.

[speltwon]

21. If you are looking to always agree with a civil rights advocacy group

you will probably be eternally dissapointed, especially if you analyze from results instead of process analysis.

As a union member, I am going to generally reflexively support a union position against a management or minority constituent position. But that is hardly the correct legal analysis in every case. The ACLU was on the "wrong side" in the citizens united case too. But that case was framed for them as a matter of speech rights. Recall that prior to that decision, even books and movies could be prohibited based upon the prior case law based on proximity to election and subject matter.

I have not read this decision, so I haven't come to the conclusion as to whether it was correct. That analysis needs to be based on the LAW, not whose side I reflexively support.

[madfloridian]

23. There is no possibility that a union gained right is against the law.

You are simply reaching now.

[speltwon]

27. No, your mind is closed. Cops unions have gained all sorts of rights,

for example. And I have seen numerous times here when people have said "that cop needs to be fired immediately" when such an act would conflict with union gained rights. Hmmm...

Regardless, ANY right is subject to legal review, and in this case, the unions right, the right of a collective, a corporation in fact, was BALANCED with other rights and concerns.

I will do what responsible analysis requires - READ THE CASE before coming to a conclusion. I prefer to hold informed opinions. I am thus not concluding anything about this case yet.

[msanthrope]

28. Your rights at contract simply don't allow you to violate the civil rights of others.

This was an amazingly simple case....you can contract all you want, but if your contract works a civil rights violation on another, including yourself, then it falls.

This is why you cannot contract away certain rights.

[speltwon]

47. Exactly. A lot has to do with framing. Unions are corporation just like

...corporations. The same people who see the SCOTUS etc. always supporting corp's over people won't look at THIS case that way.

[bluestateguy]

26. Many of the ACLU leaders are limousine liberals who do not need unions

nt

[tcaudilllg]

320. Someone should have told the GOP this was a VAMPIRE's coffin. >:( n/t

[blondeatlast]

19. I never said it should. But I'm very unhappy about this development.

BTW, most cops I know favor the Miranda ruling--it protects them.

[speltwon]

48. They favor it NOW

that was not the case when it came out. Opinions change. Most people in general did not support it.

[Hannah Bell]

36. this decision isn't consistent with any of those things.

[speltwon]

49. Have you READ the decision?

I haven't . I reserve judgment.

[Hannah Bell]

81. you're late to this party. i posted on it when the suit first came out.

[speltwon]

93. You are one of the few that I defer to, then.

I am going to get to it tonight

[Hannah Bell]

38. aclu is not the last word on "rights". take a look at who paid for this suit & know the truth.

[speltwon]

50. Nobody said they were

and I repeat. Unless you have read the decision, an opinion that it's bad is not fully informed. I have no conclusion. I;m going to get to the decision later today

[Hannah Bell]

79. read it. talked about this weeks ago. also know where the impetus for the suit

came from; an ed deform group.

[speltwon]

91. Good. I stand corrected, then. I haven't read it and I admit I have no idea

whether it is valid or not. I take issue with people assuming

1) that any decision that goes against unions is automatically a bad one. And yes, people have said that
2) that the validity of a legal decision can be made from a results analysis w/o looking at the reasoning behind it.

Where the impetus came from isn't as important to me. The impetus for the suit against Skokie came from Nazis for pete's sake. And the ACLU took the cause on. The Nazis are fucking scum of the earth. But the cause was just

[rdking647]

39. and ill choose the aclu

[Hannah Bell]

117. you & schwartzenegger and eli broad, civil libertarians all.

http://media.laindependent.com/images/Gov.+at+Markham.JPG..jpg

[readmoreoften]

192. +1. I choose working class unions over the rights of corporate "speech" any day of the week.

Frankly I wish the corporations would STFU.

[provis99]

16. the ACLU can be pretty ironic at times.

The American Civil Liberties UNION keeps a pretty consistent stand against unions. Maybe they should work against themselves, too.

The ACLU is no friend of liberals; it is an extreme libertarian outfit more amenable to the likes of Ron Paul or Harry Browne. They take their cases based not upon upholding constitutional rights, but based upon the libertarian ideology of its officers.

They've falled quite a distance from when they used to be a communist sympathizer organization.

[madfloridian]

29. About Truthdig:

From the About page where I found the anti-union article:

Truthdig - The Site

"Truthdig is a news Web site that provides expert coverage of current affairs as well as a variety of thoughtful, provocative content assembled from a progressive point of view. The site is built around reports by authorities in their fields who conduct in-depth exploration of contemporary topics. To offer frequent change and surprise, the site also presents a diversity of original reporting and aggregated content culled by the site's editors and staff."

http://www.truthdig.com/about/?bn

[lolly]

33. Here's the Problem

Many of the schools in lower-income areas of LA essentially lost their entire faculty.

Teachers w/seniority in LAUSD have more choice of schools, and they DON'T choose those schools. So all or most of the teachers at these schools were vulnerable to layoffs based on seniority.

So, when you lose pretty much ALL of your teachers at a school, and senior teachers don't want to come to those schools, you end up staffing classes with substitutes. The lawsuit was on behalf of the students, not the district, arguing that it was a violation of their rights to have all their classes staffed by substitutes. I would tend to agree.

[Hannah Bell]

35. here's the problem: a lot of those "teachers" were teach-for-america type temps.

not "teachers".

the suit is bullshit.

[msanthrope]

58. Well, that's certainly a novel legal theory--the union should try it!

"Sure, some of our union members aren't really teachers, so although we are collecting their dues, we want all the TFA teachers fired before the 'real' teachers."

I find your defense of a property right over a civil right to be an interesting stance.

[Hannah Bell]

124. i find your non-stop advocacy of school deform interesting as well.

[madfloridian]

37. Yes, that is what the lawsuit said. But that is not what it is about.

Do some research on the goals of LA school under that mayor. Isn't he on the board of a charter school? Anyway, let me know when you read more about it. Look up their goals for 220 schools to given out on bids.

[LoZoccolo]

53. How would you have resolved the original problem from which the suit had arisen?

[dsc]

234. simple

By April 1st you decide how many teachers need to be laid off and draw up a list. By April 15th, schools with open positions (i e too may teachers laid off, are matched with schools with extra teachers. Those teachers are interviewed by say 3 schools or 5 schools or whatever. By May first the schools start offering jobs and by May 15 those teachers say yea or nay. Teachers who say nay are placed on the layoff list. By June 1st you allow schools to staff for the following year. The fact is that much of this problem was caused by repeated firing of principals and then not having schools be staffed at the beginning of the school year.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

70. The suit was brought independent of the district

[Hannah Bell]

274. the suit was brought at the urging of the mayor, on behalf of schools he

took under his personal control in 2008, at which time he fired all their teachers.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

150. The union was wrong on this one.

Retaining your longest-standing teachers rather than the ones you most need is not a good policy.

[rdking647]

40. civil rights not union rights

the aclu is for civil right not union rights.. civil right trumps union rights. period

[speltwon]

52. Correct. nt

[SidDithers]

272. +1...nt

Sid

[LoZoccolo]

43. I didn't read much of the article, but I figure I'd agree with the ACLU more.

[mmonk]

44. What does that have to do with civil liberties?

Are they saying the last hired first fired is discrimination? If so, then it must apply equally to the private sector.

[yawnmaster]

55. The claim is that the civil rights of the students are violated. eom

[msanthrope]

56. No. What they are saying is that effect of the union right is a violation of the

civil rights of students. The senority-based layoff systems tended to have a differential impact--some schools lost 6%, some, over 50% of their workforce. The schools that lost the most workforce tended to be the poorest neighborhoods, and have the most minority students.

It is on this basis that the civil rights of students were violated--they were subject to a differential impact that works a devasatating consequence. Property rights fall when civil rights are violated.

[mmonk]

80. Seems a weak premise. What were the underlying conditions

that made it that way? Why were those schools poor in the first place and how is that the employees fault?

[yawnmaster]

83. They are saying that teachers with senority do not want to work in certain areas...

so those areas get the new, less senior teachers, and thus these areas lose the most teachers when layoffs occur.
Its not a direct result of a school being poor, but a result of people not wanting to work in poor areas, perhaps?
for whatever reason.

[msanthrope]

88. I posted, upthread, a link to the original complaint.

I think it addresses all of your questions.

I don't think it's a question of faulting teachers---it's a question of competing rights.

[mmonk]

118. So teachers determine where they work in that system and not the board?

[msanthrope]

127. Effectively, through the use of transfers. If the board attempts to move a teacher to a school they

don't like, there's a very long grievance procedure that a teacher can file.

Per the Complaint, it's virtually impossible to force teachers, en masse, to transfer to/back to problem schools. So you get disproportionate layoff and the use of subs. It's crazy.

[Hannah Bell]

258. ho ho ho. villagairosa fired the entire staff of the three schools in the suit in 2008.

somehow this "long grievance procedure" didn't apply to that action.

but according to you, if lausd wants to move a teacher to another school when layoffs are in effect, it takes years; no other choice but to violate seniority rules & fire them.

yeah, whatever.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

264. Any documentation for that

Assembly Bill 1381 was blocked in the courts and later declared unconsitutional

[Hannah Bell]

275. yes, in this thread and on the internet. if you're so interested, go look.

[Godhumor]

57. Edit to address private sector issue only

Private sector is a bit different, but the vast majority of companies hire, fire and manage to performance (With all the issues that entails, as well).

[madfloridian]

62. Teachers are put on tenure because they ARE good teachers.

They have to prove themselves first.

If a bad teacher, so-called, has tenure, blame the administrator and the school system.

[speltwon]

66. Would you say the same about cops?

Cops get the functional equivalent of tenure once their year probation is up. Just to apply, they generally are - polygraphed, backgrounded, given multiple psych tests (MMPA, etc.), multiple interviews, physical stress tests, orals, written, then they have a 6 month'ish academy with multiple tests, then 3-5 months of field training, then several supervised (closely) months of solo patrol.

GIVEN that, some mediocre (to put it mildly) cops can make it through. And of course, years on the street can turn some from competent into incompetent or even corrupt.

I see very little support for union won rights when it comes to cops here, vs. teachers. I am referring to , for example, the calls ti immediately fire cops suspected of excessive force, etc. (vs. paid admin leave while the case is adjudicated) and other such protections.

[Joe Fields]

96. That is pure bullshit and you damned well know it.

You are so biased it isn't even funny. You don't argue facts with anyone who may disagree with you. You just dismiss people offhand and say you are done with them, or you put them on ignore.

And for you to say in a serious tone (I can barely keep from laughing at how silly your statement that teachers are put on tenure because they ARE good teachers is) is the height of disingenuous-nous. I, for one, have known numerous bad teachers who were tenured, but the teachers here on DU won't ever admit to that, especially you.

[rpannier]

232. You are so biased it isn't even funny.

Physician Heal Thyself

[Hannah Bell]

245. sure joe, teachers get tenure because they're BAD, that's the way it works.

the entire edifice of public education is devoted to finding BAD teachers, giving them tenure, & paying them exhorbitant salaries so they can destroy childrens' lives.

yah-hah-ha!

[Zoeisright]

252. Ah, so anecdotal evidence is fine for your "arguments", huh?

I know this...

I've heard that...

I know someone who knows someone who...

Where's your evidence for all of these bad tenured teachers? And who, exactly, decides they're "bad"??

Put up or shut up.

[mmonk]

76. Until you hit 50+

[Godhumor]

261. Policy is merit...how it is enforced is something else n/t

[ProgressiveProfessor]

73. Read it...it was about the rights of the students to get a quality education

Not sure I like the legal theory...but it was brought independent of LAUSD

[madfloridian]

74. Read the truthdig article again. It says the mayor teamed with ACLU

[msanthrope]

85. No. The mayor and school district were defendants, They reached a settlement

with the Plaintiffs. Now, the teacher's union, who are not a named defendant, objects.

[Hannah Bell]

126. lol. some "defendant" that writes op-eds for the supposed "other side".

Change the LAUSD Layoff System Now
Antonio Villaraigosa.Mayor of the City of Los Angeles
Posted: May 11, 2010 10:30 PM

Today I stood on the steps of the Los Angeles County Superior Court to call on the courts, state legislature and the Los Angeles school community to change the way teachers are laid-off and to start putting students first.

At my urging and the urging of the Partnership for Los Angeles Schools, the ACLU and Public Counsel filed a lawsuit (Reed v. Smith) on behalf of Markham, Gompers, John Liechty Middle Schools. The lawsuit argues that children's constitutional right to a quality education is being violated because their schools are disproportionately impacted by teachers layoffs


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/antonio-villaraigosa/change-the-lausd-layoff-s_b_572715.html


Hizzoner signed on with the ed deformers many moons ago.

as always, late to the party, msanthrope.

[madfloridian]

135. SO.....Villaraigosa bragged about his role in the lawsuit.

"At my urging and the urging of the Partnership for Los Angeles Schools, the ACLU and Public Counsel filed a lawsuit (Reed v. Smith) on behalf of Markham, Gompers, John Liechty Middle Schools. The lawsuit argues that children's constitutional right to a quality education is being violated because their schools are disproportionately impacted by teachers layoffs"

Gee, that's pretty darn clear.

[msanthrope]

136. So, he did a Prop 8/State of CA 'defense?' Good for him.

I suppose the Teacher's Union could always 'Imperial County' if they wanted to.

[Hannah Bell]

144. your "defendant" was one of the instigators of the suit, notice how you cop to your error.

[Hannah Bell]

254. "At the urging of Mayor Villaraigosa and his Partnership for

Los Angeles Schools, the ACLU and Public Counsel filed a lawsuit"

http://mayor.lacity.org/PressRoom/PressReleases/LACITYP_011958.


So much for your nonsense about Villaraigosa being a DEFENDANT.


Here's how it went down: in 2008, Villaraigosa took over the schools in question & FIRED ALL THE STAFF.

Then he rehired newbie teachers.

Then in 2010, following layoffs, he instigated a suit claiming discrimination at 2 schools under his management because those schools lost too high a percent of teachers in the layoffs.

So let me get that straight. Civil rights of students for stable schools didn't matter when VILLAGAIROSA FIRED ALL THE TEACHERS AT THOSE SCHOOLS.

ok, whatever, you just keep defending this piece of shit.

[madrchsod]

175. which every employer will use to break their union....

[Starry Messenger]

51. This suit was a crock of shit.

UTLA also protested the pink-slipping of the younger teachers, because they WANT THE SCHOOLS TO BE FUNDED and teachers who want to teach in them to teach there. This makes it sound like the union were the bullies. The unions don't UNDERFUND the fucking public education system. The government does.

[Godhumor]

54. Last in, First out was one of the things that drove me absolutely nuts when I was a teacher

Speant 6 years in the classroom before changing professions.

The two biggest issues I have with LIFO are:

- It doesn't matter how well a teacher is rated and performs in class. If he or she is on the bottom of the seniority list for a department than he or she is the first to go. This doesn't just apply to teachers in the first or second year, either. If a department which has not had turn over for a sustained period of time, the least senior person is out, regardless of years worked.

- It creates a waterfall effect for new teachers. One of my friends has started looking for his 4th teaching job in 4 years (9 years total in teaching), because of LIFO. Since he lost his first job due to declining enrollment, he started over as low man on the totem in school two. LIFO hit, so onto school 3. He was just informed in February that LIFO necessitated his dismissal again. As a result, he has not advanced a single year on tenure in NY, has not moved up in salary and has not begun earning seniority.

I still belong to the NEA, but I have no qualms at all about LIFO being removed. New fully certified teachers deserve the chance to earn those jobs, too (Yes, I know the argument is that this will open the door for TFA programs, which is why I included the fully certified language.).

[Hannah Bell]

238. no reason for you to belong to nea or any union. lifo is a basic principle of unionization.

if you don't understand the reason for it, you don't understand the reason for unions.

[Godhumor]

259. Funny that the head of AFT agrees with me then

Of course, I know you've already dismissed the head of a 1.5 million person strong union as a corporate shill.

And, I'm sorry to say that LIFO's purpose of protecting those who earn the highest salary from punitive dismissal in favor of those who earn less does not excuse this. There has to be a middle ground to protect the interests of both those trying to establish their careers and those trying to finish them.

[Hannah Bell]

279. yes, randi weingarten is a shill. anyone who actually pays attention to what she does knows it.

and yeah, the purpose of lifo is "to protect those who earn the highest salary from punitive dismissal in favor of those who earn less". You know why?

Because without such protection all teachers will be "starting" teachers who never stay long enough to make those "highest" salaries.

there is no "middle ground" between union seniority protection & at-will dismissal.

[Godhumor]

299. And no middle ground is one of the reasons that new teachers tend not to stay in the profession

Why would any student desire to go through the 4-6 years of education required to become a fully certified teacher if he or she knows, regardless of effort, that he or she will be the first dismissed? Especially in today's environment with significant drops in enrollment? Yoy honestly don't see how that might be a disincentive or might actually encourage more students to go the Teach for America route (Only a 2 year commitment! Resume builder! Get to help kids and then get a better job!)?

LIFO is a sticky widget. It keeps teachers safe in the best of times and does nothing to help rebuild the ranks in the worst of times.

[joshcryer]

59. Thanks for some balance msanthrope.

I would not have known about that aspect of the case were it not for you. :hi:

[msanthrope]

60. You are welcome. n/t

[SidDithers]

61. A victory for students...

:thumbsup:

Sid

[Xithras]

64. Tough call. Union rights vs. Minority rights.

When union rights cause disproportionate harm to African American and hispanic minority students, while minimizing harm to students in overwhelmingly white and affluent schools, there IS a legitimate reason to challenge them.

[madfloridian]

68. They grade teachers and fire them if their classes don't do well..

so if they make it worth the while of the teachers to go there they would.

This lawsuit benefits TFA teachers, and it has nothing to do with the rights of minorities. That is BS, just like the Truth Dig article.

[jody]

71. I agree, fire them if students' scores are low iff you believe all students are created equal. n/t

[Xithras]

86. Don't give me that. I'm a teacher. My wife is a teacher. I have a dog in this fight.

But that doesn't mean that I always come down on the side of teachers, or the unions. Civil rights trump ALL.

When a minority school is going to lose half of its teachers and see its already problematic teacher retention rates get hammered, while the more affluent schools go largely unscathed, SOMETHING has to give. Contract rights don't trump civil rights.

That said, I don't really agree with either side here. I agree that LAUSD wants to union bust. I also agree that it's improper to fire half the teachers in ANY school, simply because of bumping rights. There were many points where compromises could have been made, but that didn't happen.

The real kicker for me, and the point that puts me on the side of the ACLU, is the fact that the ACLU filed and ran the suit on their own without the encouragement or backing of the school district. They were fighting for the students, not the school district or the Kock brothers. I believe that the rights of minority students trump the rights of the teachers, the state, OR the union. It's sort of like Maslows Pyramid, only the steps are rights. Civil rights are the foundation, and must be attended to before ANY other steps can be addressed.

[msanthrope]

92. FYI--the teacher's union was invited to, but refused to show up to the settlement talks.

They honestly thought they would just get an injunction.

http://blogs.laweekly.com/informer/2010/10/aclu_trashes_utla_seniority.php#

[madfloridian]

121. Ask yourself who is telling them to fire half the teachers in a school?

And you will have your answer.

Also it appears they did not file the suit alone.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=439&topic_id=587633&mesg_id=589257

Please don't talk to me as though I did not have a dog in this fight as well. I was a union teacher with tenure for over 30 years.

Why are they firing half the teachers in a school? Because they want Arne's money.

[msanthrope]

129. Again, you do realize that you not referencing the original lawsuit, right?

You are conflating the Defendants and the Plaintiffs of the original lawsuit with the parties of the objection to settlement filed by the UTLA....the mayor and the ACLU were on opposite sides in the lawsuit, and are now, being sued by the UTLA, who chose to group them together.

What you are posting does not prove that the Mayor and the ACLU were on the same side--it just suggests that the source you are using has no idea how to write about legal matters.

But if the Mayor agrees with the ACLU, then so much the better.

[woo me with science]

211. I think you have described well what I think about this.

It's a tough one, for sure, but I think in the battle of these competing rights, it was necessary to come down the way it did.

Thanks for the thoughtful posts.

[madfloridian]

226. The battle of competing rights? Did you really say that?

[woo me with science]

260. Yup.

I am pro-union, but in this case, the kids' civil rights were being violated. They come first.

[Hannah Bell]

276. the right to be taught by first year new hires?

[jody]

65. If ACLU is dead wrong on this issue then it's dead wrong when opposing the 2nd Amendment. nt

[madfloridian]

69. They came for the teachers....

and we let them.

[LoZoccolo]

75. They came for the students.

[madfloridian]

72. Most unions not just teachers go by seniority. Where are the others standing with us?

[NutmegYankee]

77. I no longer support seniority based systems

I support unions, and the concept of organizing to defend working hours, benefits, vacation time, and so on. But I absolutely will never defend seniority and here's why:

A good friend of mine (a former girlfriend) was a teacher in a school system in this state. When the economy crashed, the school system had to make reductions in staff and she was the one teacher cut at her school. She was highly rated and considered an excellent teacher, but she got "bumped" by another teacher from another school. Several of the teachers that stayed were "slugs" and not known for effective teaching. The argument that a younger or newer teacher can easily find a job was bullshit, and she went on to lose her home to foreclosure and have to move back in with her parents after looking for over 2 years.

It comes down to this: A highly qualified teacher was fired to protect less effective teachers, but more senior teachers, and lost her home and independence because of it.



On the good side, she has finally found a new teaching position just last fall, but she remains highly terrified that she will once again be cut and thrown into the waste basket of this economy.

[madfloridian]

78. How did those "slugs" get tenure? Ask yourself who gave the "slugs" tenure?

And it was NOT the teachers' union.

[NutmegYankee]

82. They got seniority, not tenure.

They got seniority only because the economy and tax supply never got so bad as to need to fire teachers when they were young. They were senior merely by longevity.

[WinkyDink]

87. And guess what? SHE WILL AGE, and will face being laid off as a middle-aged woman. HAHA!

Since she hates "seniority rights," and all.

[NutmegYankee]

89. Oh yeah, losing your home is real fucking funny

Laugh on!

And she was 38 when laid off. So now she's 41, and starting all over. I guess you call that a success story?

[WinkyDink]

111. I am talking about being GLAD that there is no seniority where she works.

BTW, who are either you OR she to assert the mediocrity of those senior to her, especially since they were from ANOTHER school?

Let me tell you MY anecdote: I was two years from my retirement (at the time, unbeknownst to me), when my dept acquired teachers from another district. Not young, but younger. We were told we "could learn from them." Really? Well, on my last day, one of them came to me and asked me for any tests, worksheets, hand-outs, blah, blah I could give her, since she was teaching "my" courses the next year. This, the person I "could learn from." I informed her that I had thrown all MY notes, MY research, MY creativity, MY 30 YEARS OF LEARNING, OUT. Hey, she was younger and smarter, right?
She was, shall we say, displeased.

So yeah, I'm a BIG fan of both seniority and Karma.

[NutmegYankee]

113. The school she works at does have seniority.

Just like the last two she worked at. She moved systems when a RIF was going to get her back in her late 20s. She found stability for 9 years in the other and then got RIF'd based on seniority. I heard she was the last one to get the ax.

There is no KARMA here. What the fuck is wrong with you? She has been axed twice based on nothing more than she was lower in time in grade, and now she may be cut again because she is still the lower person.

I guess you support making her a permanent underclass?

[NutmegYankee]

114. Try using reply rather than editing your post

to answer who the hell am I? Perhaps my friends colleagues, who made the comment?

As for your story, at what age did you retire? Do you still have a retirement? Do you still have a house?


And you have yet to explain how my friend got KARMA. She supported her unions - and they fucked her over and over again. She still supports unions, and I do too. But the seniority (one element) screws over so many talented people and ruins them. I just can't support that one element.

[dionysus]

262. i don't understand your post. you were mean to the new teacher just because they were new?

what did they do to you?

and what do you mean about karma? that lady deserved to get fired because she had the least seniority?

[WinkyDink]

322. I am in agreement with the OP. Period. End of my discussion.

[proud2BlibKansan]

139. +1

[NutmegYankee]

143. The post you just added +1 to...

Was laughing at my friends misfortune and calling it KARMA (now deleted). My friend was not anti-seniority (another error from WinkyDink). So WinkyDink just finds it funny that my friend gets RIF'd over and over again because she can never stay long enough to get "seniority" and has lost her home based solely on MY opinion.

And you just said +1, that's pretty funny HAHA.

But hey, whatever floats your boat.

On a serious note - I have actually ordered in Pizzas for the protesters in WI, and I support collective bargaining, and would do anything to fight for working class rights. I merely expressed an opinion on one little piece of unions (which only some have) based on the suffering of a good friend. I never expected this kind of response.

[proud2BlibKansan]

184. Oh good grief

I was agreeing with this part:

"And guess what? SHE WILL AGE, and will face being laid off as a middle-aged woman. HAHA!"

As a middle aged woman being pressured to retire so the 22-22* plan can save our schools financially, I liked this comment. Live with it. I stand by my plus mark.

*The 22-22 plan is hiring 22 year olds and paying them $22K a year.

[madrchsod]

171. seniority rights is one of the foundations of unionism

[Hannah Bell]

281. if you don't support seniority, you don't support unions or understand unionism.

[NutmegYankee]

303. I disagree.

I'll admit that I'm not that familiar with unions. I'm a white collar professional (Mechanical Engineer) and my field is basically never unionized. That said, our benefits and working conditions are fairly good and we have never needed it based on the substantial autonomy that engineers receive in the workplace. You and two other posters asserted that seniority is everything in a union. Explain why?

At this point - stating that I don't support unions is basically calling me a Republican. No where have I indicated that I oppose collectively bargaining on pay, vacation, hours or the like. So if I'm just uninformed, please tell me why seniority is so critical.

[Hannah Bell]

321. disagree all you like, you're wrong on the facts.

[madfloridian]

84. A commenter as shocked as I was to see TruthDig post propaganda....

Direct link to the comment:

Good for them.

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/divided_on_unions_20110301/#387546

"More uninformed criticism from Bill Boyarsky, noted blowhard and self styled “expert” on all national issues of import. I live in LA, and know this story, UTLA is the only reason that class sizes haven’t been increased to 60, that teachers have some control over their class rooms and that Administrators haven’t destroyed LAUSD. Let’s talk about the millions wasted on school buiding projects that are both over budget and over schedule, let’s talk about the lack of sufficient books, supplies and support materials for the teachers and students, let’s talk about the impact of “main streaming” students with significant physical, emotional and cultural/language challenges into classrooms already over crowded, while making teachers cope with no assistance for these problems.

Let’s talk about the safety and security of the school campuses where “LA School Police”, are allowed to roam unmonitored and unsupervised on campus while assaults, vandalism and theft rise every year and gang activity goes unchecked in the general area after school. One campus cop in LA shot himself two weeks ago and tried to blame it on a gang related drive by shooting.

Villaraigosa is an unprincipled and corrupt politician who thought he could use the school issue in LA to boost him to state wide office and then onto the national political scene as a “serious” Democratic voice. This ambitious plan for political self-promotion might have worked, if he could have kept “it” in his pants and not publicly betrayed his wife and family.

Arne Duncan is as effective in “Education Reform” as Larry Summers and Tim Geithner were in “Wall Street Reform”. To call Obama a liberal of any stripe is just not borne out by his actions."

There's more...many interesting comments.

I trusted Truth Dig to give me the truth. Not corporate spin like this.

[Starry Messenger]

97. This story makes me so angry.

UTLA organized a hunger strike to address the layoffs, which they wanted stemmed by the stimulus money. http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/06/hunger-strike.html I guess they are just "slugs".


http://laist.com/2009/06/01/teachers_on_day_6_of_hunger_stike_w.php


This is an open letter from Jose Lara so hopefully it is ok to post the whole thing:

" Dear Board Members Garcia, Flores-Aguilar, and Vladovic:

We write to you today to ask for your support. We have counted on it
before and you have been there for us in the past. You have been there to
push for A-G classes, small schools, decentralizing LAUSD, sending QEIA
funds to schools with the greatest need. But now when the need is
greatest, you have chosen not to fight for our children and instead you
have given in to fear and hopelessness.

This budget crisis is enormous, none of us doubt that. It is clearly too
large, in fact, to balance by cutting and cutting. We need to find new
sources of funds and that means fighting against those who would choose
the politically easiest path to balance the budget: taking from the most
vulnerable, our children. But instead of leading this fight, your choice
to unnecessarily cut our children’s classrooms has distracted and divided
us, leading even to calls for your recall.

We have begun this hunger strike to remind you of your purpose and your
obligation to the communities that gave you your office. It is your
responsibility to stand up for our children. Cesar Chavez once said that
to teach our children what it means to be fully man or woman requires each
of us to use our lives to show the way. We begin this hunger strike to
demonstrate what that means through our personal sacrifice. It is our
hope that you will join us by taking action.

We urge you to spend whatever stimulus money is needed to stop any class
size increases and rescind all layoff notices to teachers. Beyond that,
we urge you to abandon the impossible task of saving our schools by
cutting our classrooms and we urge you to lead us in the struggle to find
new sources of funds so that our children are among the last to suffer
under this economic crisis and not among the first.

We look forward to your leadership.

Sincerely,
The participants in the Hungry for a Better Education fast"

[madfloridian]

108. Teachers and their rights are being abandoned. Applauded at a Dem forum.

What does that tell us about our country?

[msanthrope]

110. You have no right in discrimination. And I'm glad a Dem forum champions Equal Protection

over a PROPERTY right.

Because that is what you are fighting for--a PROPERTY right, and at no point have you ever, once, been able to articulate how the court got it wrong--

At no point have you been able to demonstrate why the court's equal protection analysis is faulty.

[joshcryer]

115. Just baseless smears. I gave up following this hours ago.

It keeps getting bumped every now and again with more baseless smears.

[msanthrope]

120. True, but I think it is important to counter them.

Particularly when you have a lawsuit such as this one.

[Hannah Bell]

277. yes, it certainly is important to counter baseless smears & misinformation.

that's why i do it.

[Starry Messenger]

128. Nothing good.

Interesting in light of the recent Wisconsin union lovefest we've seen around here lately. I wonder if the reaction would be different if it were a Republican mayor pushing this. People applauding this have no fucking clue what the issue is and are just making stuff up.

[joshcryer]

132. I spent an hour and a half digesting the court documents.

I'm not sure I have the energy to debate this here because I don't want to hurt the feelings of good posters I do respect highly.

[a2liberal]

236. Let me ask you a question:

Do you honestly believe that either the ACLU or the posters here supporting their position wouldn't prefer it if NONE of the teachers were fired? This is a disagreement about how the firings that did happen were structured. Do you think the teachers and other union members here supporting the ACLU position are just trolling?

Don't get me wrong, I do believe teachers are unfortunately scapegoated way too much. I believe Arne wants to destroy the teacher unions and public education. I've shared MANY of _your_ OPs on Facebook, and told people about the downsides of TFA in person. It is sad that you believe in this case that anybody who agrees with the ACLU that the civil rights of the students were violated by the way the union wanted the downsizing structured just wants to kill the unions. Yes, the result probably does hurt the union (though I'm not 100% sure of that). That doesn't mean that it isn't still the right thing. Even if others with different goals support it for very different (bad) reasons.

Again, please don't get me wrong. I really respect you and understand the plight of teachers today; I just wish you were willing to look at this from all sides.

[madfloridian]

90. Hannah Bell said look at who filed the lawsuit with the ACLU....Lookee here.

Hannah was right.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/feb2011/teac-f02.shtml

"ACLU to deny teachers’ seniority rights
By John Andrews
2 February 2011

On January 21, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge William Highberger stripped teachers employed by the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) of certain seniority rights, allegedly to stanch the loss of young, quality teachers at inner-city schools. If the order is upheld on appeal, the LAUSD can lay off higher paid veteran teachers without regard to their years of service, in violation of collective bargaining provisions that have been in effect for decades.

The anti-seniority provision is the key to a settlement agreement in a class-action lawsuit filed against the LAUSD by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Southern California and Public Counsel. Also representing the plaintiffs are lawyers from the California-based law firm of Morrison & Foerster LLP, which has deep ties to liberal politics and the Democratic Party. The Partnership for Los Angeles Schools, a non-profit corporation controlled by Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, is another party to the settlement agreement."

The ACLU backed by the ed reform mayor and a "liberal" law firm with ties to teh Democratic Party.

How about that?

[msanthrope]

95. Um, you do realize that the Mayor and the District were Defendants, right?

Which means they were on OPPOSITE sides of the ACLU and the Plaintiffs....I don't expect the Socialist Worker's Party (your source) to get that BUT I would expect a teacher to know the difference between the Plaintiffs and the Defendants...

Then they agreed to settlement.

That's when the teacher's union finally got off its ass and took EVERYONE to court.

You should read the article a little more carefully--being a 'party' to a suit doesn't mean you are in collusion with either the Defendant or the Plaintiff.

But, if you can prove collusion, you go right ahead.

[Hannah Bell]

278. The suit was filed "at the urging of mayor Villagairosa". That's how credible your reporting is.

"At the urging of Mayor Villaraigosa and his Partnership for Los Angeles Schools, the ACLU and Public Counsel filed a lawsuit"

http://mayor.lacity.org/PressRoom/PressReleases/LACITYP... .


So much for your nonsense about Villaraigosa being a DEFENDANT.


Here's how it went down: in 2008, Villaraigosa took over the schools in question & FIRED ALL THE STAFF.

Then he rehired newbie teachers.

Then in 2010, following layoffs, he instigated a suit claiming discrimination at 2 schools under his management because those schools lost too high a percent of teachers in the layoffs.

[Hannah Bell]

98. the was also some kind of involvement by the "parent trigger/parent revolution" astroturf outfit.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704462704575609781273579228.html

with phoney "concerned citizens" in the pay of ed deformers.

[msanthrope]

100. Good! I like parent trigger lawsuits. I suspect you've read about the Topeka 13?

You know, those radicals---

http://supreme.justia.com/us/347/483/case.html


That astro-turfer Thurgood Marshall!!!!!!

[Hannah Bell]

101. personally, i don't give a damn what you like. anyone who compares brown with

the present abortion called "school reform" is terribly confused.

or brown with the billionaire-funded "parent revolution".

[msanthrope]

104. You are the one who brought up 'trigger parents.' I merely cited history.

Now, how many people do you think, below the Mason-Dixon, and above it, too, to be fair, heard about the Brown decision, and questioned the legitimacy of it?

Do you think the detractors claimed that the ACLU, the NAACP and Thurgood Marshall were the ones REALLY behind the suit? Do you think that the detractors tried to prove far-flung conspiracies that were the 'impetus' for these 'trigger parents?'

Even the laziest poster can use the google. If you have a problem with parents and their children suing for better schools, then I respectfully suggest to you that you are on the wrong side of history.

[Hannah Bell]

105. no, i brought up the "parent trigger" & the "parent revolution" = an astroturf outfit

funded by billionaires to take down unions & privatize schools.

who had a hand in this lawsuit.

which protects white ivy league temps in order to lay off experienced minority teachers.

[madfloridian]

106. Parent revolution formed by head of Green Dot charters.

Yep, it is definitely not a grassroots group.

[msanthrope]

109. Which Plaintiff was from Green Dot Charter? Can you name them? n/t

[Hannah Bell]

119. please show me where someone claimed a "plaintiff" was "from green dot charter" first.

[madfloridian]

122. Neither you nor I said that.

[Hannah Bell]

125. i know. telling, isn't it?

[joshcryer]

130. I assume they interpreted "had a hand in this" to mean they were actually involved in the case.

[msanthrope]

138. Well, again, I'm just asking for the connection of Green Dot to this case---

if they aren't connected, then why were they brought up, at all???

[Hannah Bell]

146. because there is a relationship between parent revolution & green dot.

just as there's a relationship between parent revolution & the clinton administration.

that wouldn't make most people leap to the assumption the clinton admin was a plaintiff in the suit.

unless they were disingenuous types.

[msanthrope]

157. But what do they have to do with this lawsuit? Or why bring them up, then? n/t

[Hannah Bell]

145. there's a long history here, & i assure you, you're wrong.

[joshcryer]

148. Provide the information. How are their "hands involved"?

It's a really shitty allegation in my experience to bash the ACLU on those grounds.

[msanthrope]

153. You aren't going to get the information, because the standard on the 'edumacation'

threads is to smear, name vague connections, suggest vast conspiracies and then claim that the person asking for 'proof' is in league with the 'deformers.'

Posters who ask perfectly legitimate questions are either scorned, or otherwise told to go read opinion journals....

It's frustrating, but standard.

[joshcryer]

160. It's interesting because I tend to falsify whatever claims are made.

For instance, I can say with absolute certainty now that the original suit has no evil involved. Going to vet the appeals/counter-suit now. What sucks is it's a fuckton harder to falsify negative claims because you have to do all the research, but it can lead to absolute statements like "The original ACLU filing had no involvement of any interests but the ACLU as it pertains to equality rights."

What's unfortunate to me is that if the budget crisis wasn't happening I really don't think anyone would care about this. But then again they probably would not have had RIFs and subs replacing teachers, either.

[msanthrope]

164. Well, the insinuation is that minority parents were unduly influenced

by various evil forces into filing this suit---that they simply weren't smart enough to realize the 'real' people behind this lawsuit.

It's a fucking ugly smear, and I think that when one makes an accusation accusing Plaintiffs of perfidy, one should back it up.

[joshcryer]

165. Yeah, I had an opinion on that...

...but I didn't want it to get nasty. I respect madfloridian and Hannah Bell a lot (despite that madfloridian and I used to get into huge spats during the primaries and I think I'm still on ignore), given that I'm not going to drag it out there.

Also, undue influence is in the civil code in CA (missing here in CO), it's a real term used in law, if there is evidence of undue influence there is a civil case to be made and those parents that were potentially unduly influenced need to file suit.

[msanthrope]

169. I'm glad I wasn't the only one this occurred to.

I tend to respect posters who back up accusations of legal shenanigans with citations and facts. But that's me.

[Hannah Bell]

280. yeah, like your *fact* about villagairosa being a defendant in the suit when he

*initiated* it?

i didn't notice any citations for that bogus claim.

[SidDithers]

273. i know. telling, isn't it?

Sid

[Hannah Bell]

159. assering that ed deformers were involved in the suit = "bashing the aclu"?

that's a bunch of hoo-hah, josh.

[joshcryer]

161. Please Hannah, one link, get me started.

Jeez.

[Hannah Bell]

251. oh, i'll give you more than one link, josh. but it was a year ago, so

you're going to have to give me a bit of time to retrace the research.

all in good time, my pretty.

[msanthrope]

163. But where is your evidence that Green Dot and astroturf organizations are involved at all?

So far in this thread, you've mentioned Ivy League graduates, billionaires, Green Dot, Eli Broad, and a whole host of other nasties....but whenever you've been pressed, you've backed off and suggested that you 'know' about vast conspiracies...

So again, where is the proof that any of these child defendants are in league with the various forces you've identified?

[msanthrope]

131. I thought one of your re-edited posts did. If Green Dot has nothing to do with this case, why are

they being mentioned at all?

[joshcryer]

134. I'd like to be informed how they had a hand in it.

Yeah, I read all of the court documents on your journal. I'm looking forward to the final piece.

[msanthrope]

137. I'd love to know which billionaires, which Ivy League graduates, and which Green Dot

employees are involved, too....

You see, we get these posts that bring up these tangents, but if you ask for connections, then it's "but I didn't say that."

[joshcryer]

142. As I went over the documents you posted I was looking for key names that might stand out.

Googling names that were being mentioned, even witnesses and the like, principle of one of the schools, trying with earnest to find anyone involved in the case that may have a corrupting influence. I failed in that regard. I'll give it another shot. It's quite an interesting case when you read the ACLU's filing.

[msanthrope]

166. I've posted above--what I find distressing is not the ACLU smear--but the smear of minority parents

and students who are the actual Plaintiffs in interest.

When you get to the bottom of these smears and accusations, if you BELIEVE them, you are faced with two possibilities--either the parents and students who filed are 1) in on the vast conspiracy, or, 2) woefully ignorant of the conspiracy.

Neither supposition is particularly nice, is it?

[joshcryer]

168. Nope.

[Hannah Bell]

237. asserting that ed deformers have a role in the lawsuit = "smearing minority parents"?

you're funny.

speaking of smears.

[Hannah Bell]

219. yes, that's right, ms, i "mentioned" green dot, then edited my post, just to be evil.

pfft.

you two make a nice tag team.

[msanthrope]

107. are you seriously quoting Doug Feith's son as your authority on this???

From Murdoch's Wall Street Journal? (Post 98?)

Okay. Just let me know when the Bilderbergers come into it...but seriously, can you name the Plaintiff in this suit that is in the pay of billionaires?


Again--can you name the Plaintiff in thsi case that is supposedly in the pay of billionaires?

[SidDithers]

170. wsws?...

:rofl:

Sid

[msanthrope]

172. Well, the other source was Doug Feith's son in the WSJ.....the Socialists look

good in comparison....

[Name removed]

213. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Snoutport]

94. Long Term Subs.... another tool against teachers

I saw buried down in the article the mention of hiring subs. Most districts these days have this policy: if they hire after the first day of the year it is a long term sub position. That way they can hire people who don't have the proper credentials to teach. Often they don't pay benefits, or reduced benefits and, in my case, since you didn't teach a full year you also don't move up the pay scale experience wise.

I would bet the districts could very easily have kept the new teachers but they filled up the positions with long term subs instead.

They are so blatant about it that my last year teaching with my old district they had me come in at 10:45 on the first day of school. Because I did not teach the full year they hired me as a temporary teacher which means the job ends the last day of school and that's that. They did that to me three years in a row until I wised up and moved districts.

[madfloridian]

141. Good point about the long term subs.

They save money that way. In our area one year they did not even get health care offered to them. And in our area teachers have to pay for that.

Some way they kept some of them from working full time.

[jp11]

99. Wouldn't a fairer solution have been to

better allocate funding to poorer schools, if issues of equipment/supplies were part of why tenured teachers leave those schools, limit the percentage of teachers who could be tenured in a given school, ie you can't transfer if there are too many tenured teachers at your 'wanted' school because of the impact on students/your old school? How about you use a multiplier for 'troubled schools' where a year there is equal to 1.5yrs at 'better schools' as defined by highest turnover. Maybe have some teachers occasionally 'rotate' to the 'troubled schools' every few years provided they aren't 'unreasonably' far away or the like?

Or if you want to transfer to a 'better' school you lose your seniority and 'start over' at your new school. Those seem more like the fairer way of 'protecting' the civil liberties of students who unfairly lose more teachers because they have more new teachers at their schools.

I don't know the 'right' solution but forcing any employee to lose their job because they didn't perform as well as some other employee when the basis for performance isn't in their hands seems more unfair to me than letting go of purely recently hired workers. It isn't different than a mechanic losing their job because the car they worked on for a race didn't win/place, when nothing went/was wrong with their work on the car it was just the driver didn't win or place in the race.

[msanthrope]

102. I think if you read the settlement (linked in my journal above)

lots of your concerns were addressed. For example, 45 schools who had suffered the most, historically, are now protected and layoffs are to be spread more evenly through the district.

[Hannah Bell]

103. lol. yeah, that certainly addresses the concerns of posters here. not.

[Generic Other]

112. They will keep the cheap new teachers and fire the experienced ones

but not because it is best for the students to have untested, untrained new teachers. It's just cheaper. Half of the new teachers will quit by the 5th year because they are not cut out for the demands of the job no matter what. They don't care though. The older teachers with years of experience and in many cases real skill at their profession will be dumped for two reasons: they are too well paid to want to keep when you can fire them just short of earning a pension and replace them with cheaper new teachers, and the old tenured teachers have rights which make them harder to control by top heavy administration.

[joshcryer]

123. It shields 6% of the schools.

[Generic Other]

133. Tenure is under attack and 100% of the teachers will face it

Make no mistake about it: this is the first skirmish of a new battlefront in an ongoing war of attrition against teachers, their unions, and their pensions.

[joshcryer]

140. Those 6% of schoools will have as much as 70% junior teachers getting the lowest pay.

Thanks to LAUSD layoffs that were disproportionately affecting those poorer schools. Are you telling me that those teachers, who are shielded from being fired, are going to ultimately affect everyone else? Are you advocating firing new teachers because they are in schools that are problematic not even giving them a chance to reform the problem areas in those schools? ("they'll quit after 5 years")

You fire a junior teacher and hire another one, what happens? The pay rate doesn't change! Unless the payscale is a very high sliding scale, it really shouldn't matter that these schools are shielding the teachers. I'll have to look in to the pay scale but I really don't think it goes up significantly for new teachers or first or second year teachers.

These schools deserve a chance to have stability, and the students deserve a chance to have teachers that care and aren't at risk of being booted because the rest of the system sees them as inadequate when they chose to actually work with problem schools.

[Generic Other]

151. I don't think you should fire teachers at all

These schools need both experienced and new teachers--clearly now more than ever.

And they need administrators who are willing to address the needs of students honestly. Easier to pit teachers against each other in some twisted job competition rather than examine the larger societal problems which are really to blame for the students lack of success.

If a contractor deliberately builds substandard houses on the cheap, constantly looking for ways to cut corners, it is not the fault of his carpenters that the walls of the house are not level and the foundation is crumbling.

[joshcryer]

156. But that's precisely what LAUSD did to these schools, fired juniors, hired subs.

One GOPer in CA is even trying to introduce substitute teacher caps, to make it even more evil: http://www.mountain-news.com/news/article_fe8d1f0a-403c-11e0-91c6-001cc4c03286.html

LAUSD was cutting corners with these poorer schools and it was hurting them, please read the ACLU filing, it does not appear to me to be evil at all on the face of things. If it was happening outside of the budget crisis' that the whole country is facing I doubt it would be controversial at all.

[Generic Other]

176. Wrong it would be controversial to teachers who support tenure process

It really means more than not being first riffed. It gives teachers some basic and valuable protection against arbitrary and capricious decisions by higher-ups. Without tenure, the good teachers will disappear, because they are the only ones who ever stick their necks out to do more than kiss an administrator's ass. They challenge when necessary, they provoke, they defend their profession against those who seek to destroy it from within whether through outright fraud or mere incompetence. Those teachers will go first.

Teachers who take risks in the classroom, who teach unpopular ideas, who insist on planning and implementing the curriculum in innovative ways will lose job security if tenure is stripped from them.

It is not just a hiring and firing issue. And it is not an issue of merit either. It is an electorate that will defend the fetus like Mama Grizzlies only to abandon it when it is born. It is an electorate that won't spend an extra dime on students but would gladly spend the same amount of money to incarcerate a prisoner that it costs to send a student to Harvard.

Priorities.

LA teachers should strike over this crap. Because if they don't, we all will be eventually.

[joshcryer]

183. If the process that was happening in those schools was allowed to continue...

...I'm sorry, it would've been utterly wrong from a civil liberties standpoint. You all are arguing that tenured experienced teachers are the best for education while at the same time defending a junior to sub process that will never allow tenured experienced teachers to develop in problem schools. It makes no sense.

[Generic Other]

199. I am arguing that this is a union busting tactic

I assume the subs are other displaced tenured teachers.

[joshcryer]

204. Yep, most likely. But mind you that was happening before the ACLU got involved.

The ACLU wants to keep teachers from getting fired.

[madfloridian]

228. Could you prove that statement to me?

That the ACLU is about keeping teachers from being fired?

[joshcryer]

230. The shield was put in to place to prevent teachers from being fired.

I did not say all teachers. The person I was responding to was talking about the subs. In the case about a quarter of the teachers did return as "full time subs" (ie, a paycut). The UCLA basically said "look these are schools with minorities, don't fire anyone in these schools so that they can have proportional education."

So no more bullshit RIF to sub conversions and rotations.

[blackspade]

147. This is a Fucking travesty!

I am so sick of this public school privatization bullshit it is not even funny.
The attacks on teachers are a national disgrace.

[proud2BlibKansan]

149. My biggest problem with this is the assumption that less experienced is better

That has never been true anywhere I have taught in 31 years. I wouldn't admit it at the time but I didn't know what I was doing till I had about 10 years experience. And I still learn today. In fact, I had to do some quick thinking just this morning to handle a problem that I had not encountered before. The assumption that a teacher with less experience would have had a better outcome is ludicrous and the notion that a brand new teacher can do my job better than me is beyond insulting.

This works both ways, as far as I'm concerned. A lawsuit should be filed on behalf of the children forcing the district to retain the more experienced teachers. Anyone who actually works in education can tell you that greener is not better.

This also has absolutely nothing to do with what's best for kids. It's about what's cheaper for school districts. Don't kid yourselves.

[Generic Other]

152. A young teacher serves an apprenticeship

mentored by older ones. There would be 100% attrition if this was not so.

[proud2BlibKansan]

167. But TFA throws them into classrooms after summer camp

No mentoring is needed for the TFA kids.

[joshcryer]

179. TFA's problem is retention, it's not education. They rank high on studies.

The travesty is that TFA teachers move on to charter schools or just out of education entirely.

[proud2BlibKansan]

181. LOL why do you think they don't retain their teachers?

[joshcryer]

198. This link:

http://www.gse.harvard.edu/news_events/features/2008/05/21_project.php

I think I judged too soon because those are actually pretty decent rates.

[proud2BlibKansan]

215. Compare those numbers to other professions requiring a college degree

35% after 4 years is really not very good.

[joshcryer]

218. OK so I was wrong in thinking I was wrong then?

:P

You laughed at me for my original statement so I had doubts.

[proud2BlibKansan]

222. I don't think those stats are anything to brag about, no.

In all fairness, retention is bad for all teachers, not just TFA.

[joshcryer]

223. Fair enough, I was just impressed with their mathematics scores, from people out of summer camp.

[joshcryer]

154. No one is saying that. The case revolved around firing juniors and replacing with subs.

OK so maybe even a vast majority of the juniors were in fact shitty teachers who would, as another poster wrote, "quit in five years." There would still be diamonds in the cruft, and over time it allows these problem schools to improve. I have no doubts that experienced teachers are better, but something is going on in these schools where experienced teachers apparently don't want to teach there. If they did they wouldn't be problem schools!

[proud2BlibKansan]

173. The problems are community problems

I've taught in many of these kinds of communities. One summer I was at a school where not a day went by that one of the teachers' cars wasn't messed with - about one a week was stolen, we had breakins almost daily and slashed tires were frequent also. (This was before car alarms were common or inexpensive.) I finally began paying another teacher for a ride - her husband was unemployed and he took us both back and forth to school. I loved that school but I was very glad when that summer ended. And no, I would NOT have wanted to work there. You bet I would have used any advantage I had to transfer from there if I was there during the regular school year.

At another school, a local gang began breaking into our cars and the neighborhood set up a watch program for the school. They watched our parking lot and called the police when they saw the gang members anywhere near our cars. I gladly stayed there.

You bet something else is going on. That's a no brainer.

[joshcryer]

177. I live in the ghetto and have had stuff stolen and vandalized regularly.

It's par for the course. So these junior teachers who do go to these places should be encouraged to stay, don't you think? Rather than sent off summarily and replaced with subs when budgets get tight.

edit: TEACHERS I meant teachers.

[proud2BlibKansan]

180. If enrollment supports their jobs, yes

Otherwise, the first ones laid off should be the ones at the bottom of the totem poll. That's the only fair system.

[joshcryer]

185. Even if it disproportionately affects a minority?

[proud2BlibKansan]

217. Last hired, first fired

It's worked well for years and it's the standard in many other professions.

[joshcryer]

221. It clearly didn't work in this situation.

Which is what the big fuss is about.

Rotating substitutes are not a substitute for actual teachers there full time. I don't care what anyone says.

[msanthrope]

155. No assumption like that was made. Or, can you cite where in the Complaint or the Settlement, that

assumption was made?

Specifically?

FYI--there's a way for more experienced teachers to retain their jobs regardless of seniority--they have to transfer to one of 45 protected schools that won't be subject to layoff under the settlement.

[joshcryer]

162. Heh, sad but true.

[NutmegYankee]

158. I doubt that is the assumption.

I work in Engineering, and we wince when one of our colleagues with 40 years of experience retires. That kind of raw knowledge and "been there, done that" experience can never be replaced by new folks.

At the same time, a last hired, first fired policy has led to teachers in parts of the country being fired (RIF'd) every few years. They never get the time in to be safe and so their lives are a wreck constantly wondering when the next downturn and layoff will destroy their savings. I have no doubt it's mostly the fault of the district for constantly firing people as though they are widgets or mere pawn on a chess board. That said, please think about these teachers and their predicament. They receive no benefits from seniority.

[proud2BlibKansan]

178. We've all been there.

I was one of those inexperienced teachers also. I had to wait for two years after finishing college to find a job. Back then, experience mattered and I had none. Then once I was hired, I had to face the potential of a layoff almost every year for about 10 years until I could breathe and feel safe.

I also never earned enough to even have a savings account until I had about 15 years in.

Benefits of seniority come to those of us who are patient and put in the time necessary to earn it. It's a right of passage in this business.

[joshcryer]

188. Were you ever a teacher who chose to work in a problem school...

...only to be fired because that problem school has a habit of hiring juniors and firing them whenever there is a reduction in force?

[proud2BlibKansan]

220. I've spent 31 years working in "problem schools"

Like I said in another reply, I faced a layoff nearly every year for about 10 years. IT'S PART OF THE JOB.

[joshcryer]

225. I don't care so much about these junior teachers getting laid off. I care about the students...

...not getting a proper education because the way the system is set up in our budget crisis the only teachers they had were getting laid off and replaced with rotating substitutes.

[proud2BlibKansan]

231. I don't understand why they laid off teachers and then hired subs

We lay off teachers here when there aren't enough kids to keep the position. If they had the kids (they must have or they wouldn't have hired subs) why did they lay off teachers?

[joshcryer]

233. Subs get less pay, see post #94 (edit).

A lot of the subs were 30 day rotations (CA will not allow you to be a sub for more than 30 days without special privs/permits), a lot of the subs were "full time subs" which are teachers getting messed over. In the end about 50% or so of the teachers were fired (no rehire, no sub position, fired totally). It as a really crappy thing that LAUSAD did. And this was all happening before the ACLU got involved.

edit for cursing too much and I would like to add:

LAUSD probably is trying to push for privitizing the crap out of thing I'm not debating that or defending that, all I'm defending is the ACLU, because after having read the case it's really clear to me that minorities were being disenfranchised by what they did. If anything I think people pushing to privatize maybe even used the UCLA and the minority groups.

[Sniper]

312. TFA Scabs

In my last district there was a huge push to get rid of the teachers who were making more than $40,000 a year, i.e., those with 20 or 30 years experience. Those within five years of retirement were told that they should retire or there would "be consequences." Those who refused to have been getting extremely low evaluations (after years of being ranked proficient and advanced) and are being systematically harassed by admins. The district gets TFA scabs in because they tend to be short-timers with no stake in education. When the scabs can't handle the pressure and quite before the school year is over, they hire long-term subs at low pay.

[madrchsod]

189. when i started working in a forge shop it took me a year before i ...

could put down my broom and shovel and work on a crew. it took me 3 more yrs before i could finally become part of a hammer crew. most if not all union jobs are based on years of service.

[FBaggins]

193. Do you propose moving the tenure line back to ten years?

:)

[Name removed]

182. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[madfloridian]

186. Indeed. Cheering for WI, throwing L.A. teachers and their unions under the bus.

I have been watching this thread evolve, and I am having trouble taking it in.

A Democratic forum is actually happy that the ACLU is pushing anti-union legislation, and a progressive website like Truth Dig is not telling the truth about the situation.

I guess we should have expected it.

[madrchsod]

191. i know but it`s so god dam depressing

[proud2BlibKansan]

190. It's very sad. But not surprising.

The teachers here are used to it.

I can't think of many other professions where the assumption is that experience equals incompetence.

[madfloridian]

195. Good point. "assumption is that experience equals incompetence"

Ain't it amazing.

Yes, I am so used to it here that I stand back in amazement and don't even cry anymore.

[madrchsod]

197. neither can i...

[joshcryer]

196. Rank-and-file unionism exists.

Was quite powerful at one point in time but fell to obscurity with Taft-Hartley effectively mandating an employer-employ relationship (WWII didn't help).

[Generic Other]

200. People with attitudes like yours will bring the unions roaring back

and we won't sit quietly behind your shiny yellow tape waiting for the pink slips.

[madrchsod]

202. that is so apparent in wisconsin....

tractors are coming to madison this week end...the farmers are going to lose their healthcare.

[Starry Messenger]

194. This whole thing revolves around the ed deformers will to ram VAM down the necks of the union.

"Schools in some of the city's poorest areas were disproportionately hurt by the layoffs. Nearly one in 10 teachers in South Los Angeles schools was laid off, nearly twice the rate in other areas. Sixteen schools lost at least a fourth of their teachers, all but one of them in South or Central Los Angeles.

Far fewer teachers would be laid off if the district were to base the cuts on performance rather than seniority. The least experienced teachers also are the lowest-paid, so more must be laid off to meet budgetary targets. An estimated 25% more teachers would have kept their jobs if L.A. Unified had based its cuts on teachers' records in improving test scores.

The Times analysis relied on a statistical approach known as "value-added," which estimates the effectiveness of teachers by crediting them for the gains students make over their performance in previous years on standardized tests in math and English. The approach is controversial because test scores alone are an imperfect measure of a teacher. Unions and some experts say it generates flawed results and encourages instructors to "teach to the test."

But the approach has been embraced by the Obama administration and an increasing number of school districts across the country as one way of bringing objectivity to otherwise subjective evaluations — usually based on brief and infrequent observations by administrators. Even supporters say value-added should be used with other approaches such as reviews by fellow teachers or analyses of student work."



http://articles.latimes.com/2010/dec/04/local/la-me-1205-teachers-seniority-20101204/2


This is the same incredibly flawed RAND VAM "assessment" that Hannah Bell has written about extensively. http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Hannah%20Bell/136


The union was trying to work with the school board on all of the issues discussed in this thread. The board kept nudging in an agenda that had less and less to do with layoffs and more to do with what the board wanted the union to accept in the name of "reform". Then the board started holding its discussions without the presence of the unions at all:

http://articles.latimes.com/2010/oct/14/local/la-me-lausd-layoffs-20101014/2


"The union last attended a negotiation session on July 27, and last provided input in early August. UTLA's attorney, Jesus Quinonez, said the union did not receive notice of any meetings after Aug. 9.

Meanwhile, the other parties in the suit were coalescing around what became the proposed settlement.

One internal e-mail among attorneys for the district and the partnership talks of completing tentative settlement terms and then later presenting the results to UTLA for review.

The month of August marked an aggressive turn in the negotiations. In a September closed-session meeting, board member Yolie Flores urged her colleagues to reject any settlement that did not take on the wider issue of teacher evaluation. And her push was joined by the mayor's team as well as newly arriving Deputy Supt. John Deasy, one of the nation's foremost proponents of efforts to revamp traditional teacher evaluations in his prior job at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

"What good is it to have a stable school if the teachers aren't effective?" Flores said.

pb]She and others were pressing for a value-added analysis, which uses student progress on standardized tests to estimate teacher and school effectiveness. The Times in August published a series of articles that analyzed teacher effectiveness using a value-added model. Critics say it is unreliable as a sole measure to evaluate teachers, but supporters say it brings objectivity to performance reviews. A few school districts throughout the nation use it as part of teacher evaluations, and the Obama administration has partially tied competitive federal grants to states' willingness to employ it.

But UTLA never saw the proposed settlement that the board approved Oct. 5, participants said."


Martha Infante, one of the teachers at the affected schools writes:

http://accomplishedcaliforniateachers.wordpress.com/2010/10/31/784/

"My school was one of many in poor, urban areas of Los Angeles that faced such a harsh reality. Letter writing campaigns, open letters, marches, parent mobilizations, presentations to the school board did nothing to mitigate the eventual fate of our teachers, and the ill-effects their dismissal would have on our schools. Purportedly, it was for this reason that the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit against the LAUSD on behalf of the students at three high-poverty schools whose educational careers were severely impacted by this system of layoffs. When the victory of the lawsuit was recently announced, our staff felt heartened. No more layoffs at those schools and 45 similar ones, like our school, where the total number of teachers dismissed crept into the upper 30’s. This should be a time for celebration, a victory for students.

But it is not that simple.

<snip>

In December 1991, the District (LAUSD) entered into the Rodriguez Consent Decree, a court-monitored compliance agreement, which requires the allocation and expenditure of basic norm resources at school sites according to specified equalization guidelines. This Consent Decree will be in effect through the end of the 2005-06 school year. The purpose of the Consent Decree is to assist schools mitigate the impacts of inexperienced teachers, and all Rodriguez fund allocations must be used for only such purposes. (source: LAUSD)

The consent decree expired in in 2006 and the school district argued against a continuation of it stating, “we have outlived it.“ Apparently not. We have returned to the bad old days when new teachers were frequently left to sink or swim, handed the keys to their classroom, and wished “good luck” from overburdened administrators.

<snip>

At first glance, the ACLU settlement seemed to be a welcome development that would combat these problems. For teachers at my school, it is like being lifted from Death Row, as we knew for certain that one of us would go in the next round of layoffs. But what was supposed to be a victory for students has suddenly become appropriated by the “ed-reform” crowd, who has moved swiftly to take the settlement and inject teacher evaluation language into it focusing on value-added measurement, a controversial evaluation technique."


She goes on to discuss the article I quoted above. Please read the whole thing if you have time.


The whole heart of this that isn't even getting discussed is that layoffs are being used as a gun to the head of the unions--just like Scott Walker's threats of layoffs in WI to intimidate and divide. THERE IS MONEY if the will is there to keep teachers. Stimulus funds could and should have been used to retain as many teachers as possible. It is saddening to me to see that so many have accepted the decimation of the workforce wholesale as a fact of nature. :(

Sorry this is so long, I am a CA teacher. I care passionately about this.

[madrchsod]

201. duncan and daily did the same thing in chicago--the result?

union busting,closed neighborhood schools,and little improvement in grades. i won`t mention the corruption and thief of school property.

[Generic Other]

203. thank you for providing vital background on this!

I fear we (all the teachers on DU) will all march on some future picket line. The time may soon be at hand!

[Starry Messenger]

212. No problem.

UTLA has been fighting on several fronts. I'm up in NorCal, but I follow this as closely as I can. LAUSD seems to be the laboratory for all the bad stuff. :( I think things are going to get heavy for all of us soon. Thank you for reading! And thank you madfloridian for your wonderful threads as always!

[joshcryer]

208. Wow, I finally know where all of these allegations come from.

And amazingly the ACLU was not part and parcel to any of that garbage.

[Hannah Bell]

239. not that simple at all. in fact, the lausd decision is a tool that can be used to

destroy the union, in exactly the same way that the rttt "lowest 5%" does.

this thread is disgusting.

[Starry Messenger]

243. Yes, agreed on all points.

I was just frustrated and wanted to put in some more background. The board took aim and fired heavy artillery at the union.

[Hannah Bell]

244. remember this thread?

http://upload.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x252817

also this item?

Update: Mayor Villaraigosa says the lawsuit was originally filed at his request. Today, he spams out an official reaction to the ruling:

"This decision is a victory for all Los Angeles students. I applaud Judge Highberger for recognizing how devastating these layoffs are and understanding just how difficult it is to find teachers who are up to challenge of teaching in communities long-plagued by drugs, abuse, violence and gangs. All California students have the right to a quality education, no matter their ZIP code or parents' income level. This decision will help keep dedicated and effective teachers where they belong: in the classroom."

http://blogs.laweekly.com/informer/2011/01/aclu_wins_lawsuit_utla_seniori.php


i didn't mean to imply anything negative about your post. i understood your point.

[Starry Messenger]

249. I've been looking for that thread all afternoon!

Thank you! The narrative that experienced teachers did not want to teach in certain schools just because of where they were is bunk. Experienced teachers have been trying to work with a hostile board for at least two years to bring balance to all of this. I saw on another link from LA Times some quotes from the board that they "roll their eyes" at mention of UTLA. http://articles.latimes.com/2011/feb/18/local/la-me-teachers-union-20110217


""There's definitely not a majority of the board that puts UTLA in the middle of every conversation or is concerned about needing to consult with them or get their blessing," said a board member who spoke on condition of anonymity, having no desire to offend even a diminished union. "Most of us roll our eyes when things come up with UTLA because they're less and less influential in the conversations we're having.""


The whole point is to destroy the union.

[Hannah Bell]

250. and remember that the reason the schools in the suit had nearly 100% new

hires is because Hizzoner took over those schools in 2008 & FIRED ALL THE STAFF?

But in 2010 a suit is filed reportedly AT HIS INITIATION stating that laying off the staff at the schools is discriminatory? But HIS FIRING OF 100% OF THE STAFF WASN'T?

Jesus Christ, these people are shameless.

People better believe the whole point is to destroy the union.

8/10 schools taken over gave hizzoner a massive vote of no confidence.

There is a vast contingent of bought-off assholes ready to lie about anything & everything to get their 30 pieces of silver.

It is so disgusting to hear these frauds talking about "civil rights". They don't give A GOOD GODDAMN ABOUT CIVIL RIGHTS. OR CHILDREN.

It's all about their own money & power.

Fucking liars.

[joshcryer]

295. Staff fired for low performance is not the same as staff fired for not being there long enough.

It's really simple, the tenured teachers didn't have a desire to work for those schools, so the schools had no choice but to hire junior teachers.

[joshcryer]

290. Actually, the LAUSD decision can be circumvented trivially. Tenured teachers having proportional...

...representation in all schools. Wow, what a concept!

[madfloridian]

206. Here are links to the unions' side of the issue.

http://www.utla.net/node/3233

If anyone is interested.

[Tatiana]

207. Great. More union-busting. This time with an assist from the ACLU.

At the heart of this suit is not the civil rights of students. I think the LA school district deliberately mismanaged their staffing in order to weaken the union.

The solution to the high turnover was simple. Assign experienced, qualified teaching staff to the worst buildings. That is what was done in the first district I taught at. You were always told your position was with the school district, not a specific building. At times, if there were layoffs, our union negotiated transfers of other teachers to staff hard-to-fill positions in some of the more challenging schools. In fact, those schools NEED the most experienced, veteran staff who know how do deal with a variety of different learning styles and types.

Why would you want to put your most challenging student populations in the hands of new practioners?

And to those who say that teachers refused to work at these schools, the bottom line is that if there are layoffs, a job is a job no matter where as long as one's salary and benefits remain the same, re-assignment should be (and usually is) an option. I can't imagine a teacher facing a layoff refusing a re-assignment. These things are usually negotiated with the union.

It seems that there is a serious breakdown in communication between the mayor/school district and the union.

[Jefferson23]

210. I don't get the ACLU position either...from a legal standpoint there

was a settlement...this case is weird. I'm going to need to read more about this b/c I don't
understand why the second largest public school district in the country which disproportionately
dumped more teachers within 3 districts than you can shake a stick at vs some schools lost zero teachers.

Why were unions the focus of the lawsuit at all. Why wasn't it about HOW the money is spread out overall in the state??

[joshcryer]

216. ACLU sued LAUSD for disproportionate education. LAUSD settled. UTLA sued to reverse settlement.

It's not about money, is about teachers with tenure not really going to problem schools, those problem schools attracting junior teachers, and then those junior teachers being fired when reductions in force were implemented. Because the schools have not been attracting tenured teachers as many as 50% of the faculty in some cases got fired over the "last hire, first fire" policy. This resulted in dozens of substitute teachers being rotated in the classrooms, and students calling upon the ACLU to defend their education.

The root of the issue is simple. Tenured teachers for years showed that they didn't want to teach in these "problem areas."

Junior teachers show willingness that they do want to teach in these "problem areas."

Court found that it would be proportionate to allow certain schools in the lowest rankings to have a "last hire, first fire" shield in place, so that these junior teachers who care about their students can have a chance to actually make a difference.

UTLA then became indignant that they no longer have scapegoat schools to use when they need RIF room to spare.

Defenders of the union in this very thread admit that they wouldn't want to work with "problem schools."

[madfloridian]

227. Our problem school had all tenured teachers. Good ones.

And it was a really tough school. I don't remember one single teacher trying to transfer out.

[joshcryer]

229. That's great. It wasn't that way in this case. If it was there would not have been an issue!

ACLU wouldn't have had a reason to sue if the representation in their school system was proportional!

[madfloridian]

235. Why are they trying to get rid of so many teachers?

Have you wondered about that?

[joshcryer]

297. Budget crisis?

The RIFs were budget-crisis induced and they disproportionately affected schools which were trying to reform.

[Hannah Bell]

240. that's bullshit, josh. sorry.

[Jefferson23]

266. On it's face the problem schools are being addressed through the

method of firing...but that is not the problem and I am still curious why the ACLU approached it that way.

They needed legal grounds as a hook, and maybe that is the best defense they could come up with vs why the hell it is
not challenged that state funds per district rely on their tax base and fed money never makes up enough of the
difference to allow a level playing field. All public schools should be filled with a strong percentage of
experienced teachers, not heavily rely on young inexperienced teachers.

This is nothing new, we have scores of disadvantaged schools both urban and rural across the country that can't possibly fulfill their obligations to their students..large class sizes increase, old deteriorated buildings. With states rights laws, perhaps the legal
challenge would have been impossible to legally address equitable distribution of funds within a state education...I don't know.

But to me, that is where the legal fight should focus their efforts.

The UTLA should be indignant, and if anyone is scapegoating the students, it certainly is not the unions. If we do not
support unions, we will have more failed schools, more inexperienced teachers..more charter schools.

Have you read what Bloomberg is doing in NYC? Billions in surplus and he claims he needs to fire teachers..more bullshit
in order to destroy unions..that is the agenda..not students.

[joshcryer]

288. If the problem schools were being addressed through the "method of firing" they wouldn't...

...be problem schools for over a decade!

The ACLU had no alternate "scheme" here, they simply saw a classic case of minority discrimination and fought back. LAUSD came up with a settlement solution (simply shield those schools from the firing process). ACLU agreed to it. Now what's happening is everyone is complaining that that shield which only covers 6% of schools is going to result in tenured teachers being fired.

OK, fine, go to the shielded schools. The real juniors who "deserve" to be fired will then still be fired. Simple.

The students are being scape goated because we saw a systematic firing of teachers in those schools when times got tough, the budget cuts were directly reflected in the hiring and firing behavior in those schools. It's borderline racist what is happening here.

[Jefferson23]

298. That is some unsubstantiated talking point you have in your first statement.

I read the initial complaint and there are omissions regarding the history, see the links within this thread regarding who was fired by the may
mayor and when. Very telling, the more I read about this case the more concerned I am about this settlement having terrible consequences across
the country.

[joshcryer]

308. The 2008 firing and subsequent difficulty rehiring only showed that the system was broken.

Here you have hundreds of teachers who have failed for a decade to improve their schools (despite major budget increases and various reforms implemented), they get fired, the rest of the tenured teachers under LAUSD refused in a very large way to transfer to those schools.

[Jefferson23]

310. The teachers who were fired before the lawsuit failed the students?

You have any info to link to about this, please post it.

on edit for clarity

[joshcryer]

314. Technically they weren't 'fired' they were sanctioned and let go.

The argument people are making here is that the "2008 shakeup" is the reason for the schools having the junior teacher problem. This article is regularly cited: http://www.educationsector.org/usr_doc/Restructuring.pdf

The article doesn't really prove that, though, it just says:

Markham Middle has already implemented the school turnaround model, and because of the timing of implementation and the district’s hiring practices, the reform is not going very well. On May 27, 2008, L.A. Unified transferred management responsibility for 11 schools including Markham to the Partnership for Los Angeles Schools, an organization created by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to take over and turn around a cluster of the district’s lowest-performing schools. (The Partnership resulted after the mayor’s failed attempt to take control of the entire district.) The Partnership had about three months to take over management of these schools (effectively a medium-sized school district serving 18,000) and start running them. The Partnership made a fresh start, letting all of the existing staff go and then rehiring school staff at the 11 campuses. For the first time in Markham’s decade-plus of school reform, there was a dramatic change in the people on the campus.

But the Partnership got a late start in the hiring process, a major disadvantage in hiring quality applicants for many urban school districts and for L.A. Unified in particular. At Markham, almost half of the new hires were first- and second-year teachers, and many of them were under-qualified.

What's not mentioned here is that these schools were failing to meet federal No Child Left Behind requirements and had to, to meet the law, restructure those schools. There are no real hard numbers about how many of those teachers were tenured, all we know is that clearly the tenured teachers didn't want to come work to the schools.

They usually fail to quote this bit:

The Partnership was also required to pick from the district’s surplus teacher pool (senior teachers who were not wanted by other school principals) when backfilling vacancies. Many of those teachers did not want to teach in troubled schools like Markham, and the school has had difficulty finding candidates that will work in this potentially dangerous environment. As of November 2009, almost three months into the school year, the school still had six teaching positions unfilled. And by March 2010 over halfway through the year, 20 percent of the classes were taught by long-term substitutes because the school was not able to hire permanent staff.21 Markham’s test scores declined in 2008–09, and given the continued staffing difficulties, the prospects for 2009–10 do not look good.

It's made to seem like they fired all the good and awesome tenured teachers and then hired young juniors. Reality is they tried finding more "experienced" teachers but failed to do so.

The article goes on to eviscerate No Child Left Behind:

Change Title I funding “comparability” requirements to ensure Title I schools receive a comparable share of state and local funding. Currently, a loophole in that requirement allows high-poverty, low-performing schools to be staffed with inexperienced low-paid staff, while higher-performing schools maintain more stable and higher paid staff.

All along the LAUSD has been allowing the poorer schools to be raped under NCLB.

[madfloridian]

224. And why are they dumping so many teachers? Why turn 250 schools over to outside companies?

Lots of questions. When your mayor wants to privatize, I guess you do it.

They were turning 250 schools over to outside bidders to run. These are public schools. So why did they do that...privatization.

Up to 250 public schools to be turned over to outside bidders? Called a hostile takeover.

That did not make sense either.

So I think there may be a connection between needing the schools to fail, so they can be turned over to bidders to run.

The L.A. Times even ran an editorial last year begging them to stop it.

L. A. Times says stop handing over L. A. Public Schools to outside operators.

[a2liberal]

241. So then shouldn't the ACLU stopping those schools from failing be a good thing?

Not trying to be snarky, just trying to understand... if the privatizers want the schools to fail so they can take them private, wouldn't disallowing layoffs at those schools prevent/slow that? (My understanding, which may be wrong, is that without the suit, the poorer schools would basically be losing all of their teachers and be staffed with even cheaper subs)

[Hannah Bell]

248. villaraigosa fired all the teachers at the schools in question in may 2008.

that's why they have such a high percentage of new hires.

then in 2010 a lawsuit is filed "at his request".

http://blogs.laweekly.com/informer/2011/01/aclu_wins_lawsuit_utla_seniori.php

villaraigosa used to lead the branch of aclu that brought the suit.

are you starting to smell anything?

[ProgressiveProfessor]

263. How did Villaraigosa fire the teachers at those schools in 2008?

CA Assembly Bill 1381 has been declared unconstitutional

[Hannah Bell]

282. nothing to do with 1381.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=439&topic_id=587633&mesg_id=591560

[joshcryer]

289. They settled and were sued, you're doing it again.

[Jefferson23]

267. Among the obvious in the agenda is control and destruction of unions..

make them obsolite...but who are these people selling this propaganda to? I don't see how
the students are going to benefit..do these charter schools need to meet state standards etc?

Who will define the curriculum...TFA newbies??

It is disturbing to say the least, I have read that only a small fraction of charter schools have
done well by their students. What a horrific trend in politics, I am amazed by the momentum this
alleged reform has taken on.

Thanks for the info!

[joshcryer]

296. It's simple, TFA newbs or tenured teachers.

If the tenured teachers think that they can get the performance up and are willing to work at these shielded schools, then they should request a transfer. Otherwise if they are unwilling to work in these troubled schools, they should let someone who wants to do it, rather than allow the continuation of first hire first fire kick those teachers to the curb before they have a chance to make it work. Until the budget crisis is over this will be an issue.

[snot]

242. Forgive if this is somewhat off-topic, but it does pertain to the ACLU:

I'm a supporter, and although I believe unions are essential in order to defend workers from unfair exploitation, I also want the ACLU to be a neutral defender of all of our civil liberties, even Limbaugh's.

But I haven't been tracking what the ACLU's actually been doing.

Tonight on NPR I heard a brief story about a guy who'd been dressing up as Sasquatch in a park and scaring/entertaining tourists, and the US Park Service or whoever had come down on him saying he hadn't paid the required fee or gotten the required permit, and he was suing them over it. And the reporter mentioned that the ACLU was assisting this guy.

And I'm like, ok, maybe there's a meritorious lawsuit in there somewhere. But really, the ACLU??

Don't they have other things to do, like defending our Fourth Amendment rights against the multiple, gross violations that have been, are being committed against us with the help of AT&T, Facebook, the TSA, etc. etc.???

We know neocons have taken over the American Red Cross.

So I'm just wondering about the ACLU . . . because there have been a lot of impt. violations going on, and I haven't actually heard much about ACLU opposition . . . .

[Hannah Bell]

247. villaigrosa used to lead the office of the aclu (aclu southern california) which brought the suit.

that's mayor villaraigosa:

"Mayor Villaraigosa says the lawsuit was originally filed at his request."

http://blogs.laweekly.com/informer/2011/01/aclu_wins_lawsuit_utla_seniori.php


There's a great deal of background to this story, including the fact that the three schools involved in the original suit were schools that Villaraigosa had taken over & fired all the teachers at. That's the #1 reason they had such a high percent of new hires. That was in mid-2008. This lawsuit was filed in 2010.

On May 27, 2008, L.A. Unified transferred management responsibility for 11 schools including Markham to the Partnership for Los Angeles Schools, an organization created by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to take over and turn around a cluster of the district’s lowest-performing schools. (The Partnership resulted after the mayor’s failed attempt to take control of the entire district.) The Partnership had about three months to take over management of these schools (effectively a medium-sized school district serving 18,000) and start running them. The Partnership made a fresh start, letting all of the existing staff go and then rehiring school staff at the 11 campuses. For the first time in Markham’s decade-plus of school reform, there was a dramatic change in the people on the campus.

But the Partnership got a late start in the hiring process, a major disadvantage in hiring quality applicants for many urban school districts and for L.A. Unified in particular. At Markham, almost half of the new hires were first- and second-year teachers, and many of them were under-qualified.

http://www.quickanded.com/2010/04/the-sad-tale-of-markham-middle.html



He didn't care much about stability then.

There was some discussion about this when the original suit was filed & I'm looking for the original info to work up an OP.

Suffice to say that the public story about "civil rights" elides a great deal of backstory.

[Jefferson23]

268. This is disgusting! When you read the initial class action complaint

there is no mention of the background on this that I can find.

I'm not sure if I have ever read of such a huge error on the part of the ACLU before this case...or I should
say the strong possibility of complicity.

[snot]

269. Wow. That is NOT reassuring.

Thanks for the info!

[Jakes Progress]

265. Like you, this had me going. Could the ACLU be a new neocon takeover?

I have given to the ACLU before. I support what I thought were its principles. Given your story and a few others I have heard, I think I need to consider that the ACLU isn't what it used to be. Heaven knows the Democratic Party isn't what it used to be.

neocons do have a habit of targeting an institution that opposes their interests or in any way shows up their motives or blocks their desires. They target it and then slowly take it over. Consider what they have done with news and the media.

I think I would like to read about what the ACLU is doing now days. Anyone have any suggestions.

Of course it could be that the local connection between the crazy mayor and the local ACLU was to blame? Do ACLU branches act autonomously?

[JDPriestly]

255. I used to be very active in ACLU. No more. The Citizens United decision taught me a thing or two.

[snot]

270. More detailed info would be helpful, if you have anything handy.

[JDPriestly]

302. The ACLU supported permitting corporations to have the right

to spend what they want on election campaigns. In Los Angeles, the ACLU won a case depriving teachers of the right to be laid off according to their seniority.

I am not supporting ACLU any more. I used to work very hard for them.

I understand ACLU's reasons for taking the stand they did in Citizens United. I think they should have remained neutral.

I completely disagree with depriving teachers of their seniority rights. That works hardship on older workers who have a difficult time finding jobs.

It is easier for a younger teacher at the age of 35 to find another job after a lay-off than it is for an older teacher at age 55. If you want highly qualified people to go into teaching, you have to promise to treat them fairly. This is especially true of science and math teachers who can make far more money working in the private sector or in other public sector jobs.

[joshcryer]

306. You are distorting the issue completely. The ACLU shielded 6% of schools from "first hire...

...first fire." The ACLU backed Citizens United because it allowed unions to be politically active, along with non-profit corporations.

Citizens United Allows DemocraticUnderground to be a non-profit organization. (Whether Skinner is going to do that now is anyones guess.)

[joshcryer]

292. It taught you that unions and NGOs can have a say in our political process?

[SidDithers]

271. K&R for students and the ACLU!...nt

Sid

[Rex]

283. I am not surprised the ACLU did this.

[Yo_Mama]

284. My understanding (which may not be correct)

is that the ACLU is trying to prevent these schools from bearing the brunt of the layoffs. It's not against teacher tenure, but the results of these schools having more junior personnel would cause them to lose far more teachers than in the system as a whole (as a result of bumping).

I did read a brief in this case a while ago.

The proposed solution I read about was supposed to segregate these schools so that the bumps from outside them from layoffs don't disproportionately affect them, but it wasn't supposed to attack tenure as a system.

Which, I grant, is no comfort if you are a teacher who would have retained a job in the system by bumping a teacher in one of these schools.

[madfloridian]

287. They did not tell you that many teachers in those schools had already been let go...

because they are turnarounds. Many are already new teachers.

No that is no comfort, because the whole story is not being told.

[joshcryer]

291. You're correct. It doesn't really attack tenure as a system, because all they have to do...

...is proportionally reflect the tenure system in the school system. What they want is their cake and eat it too. They want tenure but the tenured teachers, as evidenced by the case, didn't want to work in these schools, it wouldn't have a decade of systematic turnaround if this was not the case.

[Hannah Bell]

293. bullshit. villagairosa fired all the tenured teachers at the schools in the suit in 2008

& replaced them with young newbies.

[joshcryer]

294. Yes, he fired the teachers to get those schools to perform. Your own link verifies what I said:

The Partnership was also required to pick from the district’s surplus teacher pool (senior teachers who were not wanted by other school principals) when backfilling vacancies. Many of those teachers did not want to teach in troubled schools like Markham, and the school has had difficulty finding candidates that will work in this potentially dangerous environment. As of November 2009, almost three months into the school year, the school still had six teaching positions unfilled. And by March 2010 over halfway through the year, 20 percent of the classes were taught by long-term substitutes because the school was not able to hire permanent staff.

http://www.quickanded.com/2010/04/the-sad-tale-of-markham-middle.html

[madfloridian]

300. Now he is going to fire experienced teachers. His solution is to fire, fire,fire.

And you seem to agree. Bye for now.

[joshcryer]

304. Nope, experienced teachers can transfer to the shielded schools.

The people fired otherwise will not change.

What needs to be addressed if the firing and the budget crisis, not the conspiracy talk.

Assuming that the shield was not in place LAUSD is still going to be firing thousands of teachers in hudreds of schools.

All the shield does is protect 6% of those school.

Put tenured teachers in those schools and they won't be fired.

The shield issue is a distraction from the bigger issue. CA can afford their school system, the non-progressive tax that the wealthiest enjoy is what's making CAs budget crisis worse. Rather than fight over this stupid shield issue which was intended to help and which may or may not help.

[Hannah Bell]

313. that's bullshit josh.

[joshcryer]

315. That's unsubstantiated, Hannah.

[BzaDem]

316. Josh, thank you for so clearly exposing what's actually going on here.

Those taking an absolutist position here clearly don't know how to respond when their arguments fall apart.

[Hannah Bell]

318. plain for all to see, josh.

[glinda]

317. Perfect example of how people are ignorant in understanding the bigger picture.

[tcaudilllg]

319. The ACLU has been taken over by extremists. If you want them out, go outside their offices & picket.

[NuclearDem]

323. The ACLU is a civil liberties advocacy group, not a liberal political organization

We find ourselves on the side of the ACLU more often than not, but we have to remember they exist to defend the civil rights of everyone, not just causes we support.

Look, you won't find somebody more pissed over this decision or CU as me, but the ACLU really is a force for good. For every CU there are ten Engels, Tinkers, Roes, and Hamdis.