Why we must be politically active

With Election Day coming up tomorrow, we are reminded of the constant battles being waged around the country to strip workers of the rights to organize and bargain collectively. We are reminded that there are groups out there who spend millions of dollars on board of education campaigns far away from where they live in an attempt to take private control of  public schools.

Tea Party zealots, the Koch Brothers and Michelle Rhee are continuously attacking the commitment of public school employees and doing everything they can to eradicate our collective voice. Take a look at the articles below. They are prime examples of this.

But there is hope. Our union brothers and sisters and educators in arms are winning battles, while portions of the public are starting to see through it. We have to keep building on this momentum.

Our 2014 local election season is already underway and we can't forget to be visible and vocal now. We need to make sure that we support the people who will support the rights of workers and support our schools.

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/11/koch-group-unions-battle-over-colorado-schools-race-99252.html?hp=l10

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/11/02/heres-how-red-states-are-rolling-back-worker-protections/

http://www.salon.com/2013/11/04/how_bipartisan_antics_could_save_the_next_michelle_rhee_from_humiliation/

Facts Matter

The Washington Post editorial board is entitled to its own opinions but not its own facts.  Their recent  editorial "A lesson in runaway spending" (10-18-12)  ignores the facts to advance the editors’ own agenda.

Buried in the very County Council Report (Table 4-4) that the editorial cites is the straightforward fact that the average annual change in MCPS’ budget over the past decade has been 4.9% and the average annual change in the County Government budget has been --- 4.9%. How can any objective reader blame “runaway spending” in MCPS for the County’s budget woes?

In fact, most of the increase in the school budget has been funded by the state, not by Montgomery County.  The very same report (Table 3-1) reveals that local per-pupil spending by the Montgomery County Council has been cut back to a level lower than it was six years ago – in 2007.

The real question is how long does the Post editorial Board – and most members of the Montgomery County Council – want to freeze local per-pupil spending below 2007 levels? Seven years? Ten years? Fifteen years?

Last Spring, the Council approved a budget increase for non-MCPS spending of 4.7%- more than twice the increase given to MCPS of 2.2%. Had these increases been equal, MCPS could have begun to restore positions cut in previous years. The statement in the editorial that staffing levels were cut for the current school year in order to fund raises is inaccurate- overall hiring is up for the current school year in order to teach the 2,500 new students enrolled for this year.

The Post also repeats the falsehood from the Council report that any increase above the minimum level would be “irreversible”. The legislation passed last year provides for a clearer and faster path to a waiver of the minimum spending requirement, including new criteria providing that a county’s history of exceeding the minimum required spending will now be a factor that must be considered in granting a waiver request.  There is also a provision that if the Executive, Council, and Board of Education agree such a waiver is necessary, as was true in 2010 when the state BOE granted Montgomery County’s request, it is automatic.

Our schools face increasing challenges. The new Common Core standards will raise expectations for all students.  The number of low-income and non-English speaking students, who often need more resources to be successful, is increasing rapidly. MCPS has the highest African-American graduation rate of any major school system in the country, but we have a lot more work to do. Does anyone think we can close the achievement gap if the County continues to freeze local per-pupil spending below 2007 levels?

No one wants to see county services cut. Our children need the health and human services and public safety protections that the county government funds. But this groundless blaming of the school system for the County Government’s budget woes is misguided. It’s about time we worked together to meet the needs of our community and stop this blame game.

Doug Prouty, President, Montgomery County Education Association

BOE passes FY2013 Budget

     Last night the Board of Education officially passed the budget for next school year.  The budget, which falls within the minimum amount of county funding allowed under state's Maintenance of Effort funding law was passed 4-1, with Laura Berthiaume (Dist. 2) casting the lone vote in opposition.  

     Board Member Michael Durso was absent and Board Member Phil Kauffman recused himself from the vote on the MCEA contract because his wife is a teacher and a member of the MCEA bargaining unit. Not only did Mr. Kauffman vote in favor of the other two contracts, he spoke up in support of all three agreements.  In fact, when Ms. Berthiume incorrectly asserted that MCPS employees were getting increases when federal employees were not, it was Mr. Kauffman who corrected this misrepresentation and pointed out that federal employees have actually gotten step increases for the past two years when MCPS employees have had their salaries frozen.

     With this contract, members eligible for a step increase as of July 1 will receive their 2012-13 step. In May 2013, the first make-up step (for the step missed in school year 10-11) will be instituted. Those at the top of the scale who do not receive a step, will receive a 2% increase in their base pay, also effective July 1 2012.

You can read about the proceedings here: http://www.somdnews.com/article/20120614/NEWS/706149748/1022/school-board-member-speaks-out-about-union-contracts-minutes-before&template=gazette

MCEA President Doug Prouty responds to The Washington Post

MCEA President Doug Prouty submitted the following response to The Washington Post regarding their recent editorial about the proposed contract settlement between MCEA and the BOE:

The Post’s editorial “Teachers over Students” (5/25/12) displays the Post Editorial Board’s antiquated thinking about two important aspects of the Montgomery County Public Schools, its budget, and the work of the system and its employees:  the first erroneous thought is that unions and management cannot work together productively to increase student achievement and the second is that short term budget gimmicks are preferable to realistic long term planning.

The fact is that the three employee unions and the school system work together on all important matters.  The collaboration between the employees and the system is so well regarded by the US Department of Education that we were invited to present to over 300 other systems at a DoEd conference on collaboration for the second year in a row.  The Post itself ran a front page story on this collaboration and the positive effect it has for our students on March 10, 2012.  But the editorial board seems to know better- so much so that they say with absolute certainty how we conduct our bargaining, despite the fact that they have no firsthand knowledge of the bargaining process, or the MCPS budget process.  They don’t even bother to ask.  Their fallback assumption is that the union is bad- especially if it is a teachers’ union.  This is true even when the Montgomery County Education Association is the partner with MCPS in a nationally recognized Peer Assistance and Review program, which has been a successful partnership focusing on the quality of instruction for over 12 years.  How do we know this?  Numerous systems from around the country visit to learn about this program, which provides both specific and timely feedback on practice and structured support to address areas of concern.  The Harvard School of Education website about PAR programs features MCPS and MCEA.  There was also the front page story published by the Post on June 9, 2009.  The story focused on a tenured teacher who improved her craft through hard work and the assistance of the PAR program.

In addition, the editorial board falls all over itself to credit teachers as being hard working, dedicated, and deserving of a raise- but not too much of one, apparently.  The Post editorial board prefers budget gimmicks such as bonuses and furloughs- which just kick the can down the road for a year.  Either the employees of MCPS and the county government deserve a raise, or they don’t.  If they do, then pretending a onetime bonus is a solution while ignoring the 4.7% increase in the county government budget, as opposed to the 2.2% increase for MCPS, reveals an anti-union and anti-employee bias.  The fact is that increasing the budget, no matter how the money is spent, inherently sets up the following year for either sustaining that spending level or making cuts.  MCPS has, in partnership with its unions, made a commitment to its employees and its students.  Education is a people business and the Superintendent and Board of Education recognized that now is the time to provide stability and a sign of a reciprocal commitment to the people who educate our students, who oversee high achieving schools, who drive the students to school each day, fix their lunches, and keep the schools clean.  If increasing the budget is not affordable, as the editorial board contests, then we should expect to see future editorials blasting the increase in the county budget, in the budget in Fairfax County (an 8% increase for the school system), and the budget in Prince George’s county (a 3.1% increase in the school system budget).  If increased spending is the issue, why single out MCPS?  If paying teachers a decent wage is the issue, we should expect to see an editorial about the starting salaries in the District of Columbia Public schools, which are higher than those in MCPS.

At the end of the day, it is the work the members of the three associations and MCPS have done together for more than a decade that has made the school system one of the best in the country.  The editorial board can go on writing negative editorials about the teachers’ union in Montgomery County- the most recent one makes half a dozen in the past three years- but we will continue to do what is right for the educators, schools, and students in MCPS.

Doug Prouty, Rockville

President, MCEA

Dr. Starr responds to the Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-wisdom-of-rewarding-montgomerys-school-employees/2012/05/27/gJQACEH1uU_print.html

The wisdom of rewarding Montgomery’s school employees

Published: May 27

The Post made the wrongheaded claim that by giving our employees well-deserved compensation increases, Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) is choosing “teachers over students” [editorial, May 25]. What The Post doesn’t understand is that an investment in our employees is an investment in our students.

Smaller class sizes, technology and new resources are important, but anyone who has worked in or around public education knows that it’s the people who make a difference. A well-trained, motivated teacher makes the biggest impact on the quality of education a student receives. An outstanding building leader can turn around a struggling school and make a good school great. An engaged and committed support staff bolsters instruction and makes sure that nothing distracts us from our mission.

Our parents understand the direct connection between the quality of our people and the quality of our school system. During public hearings on the budget, our parents repeatedly asked county leaders to recognize our employees by giving them their first pay increase in two or three years.

In its editorial, The Post ignored some important facts about MCPS.

The piece focused on the size of the salary increase that most of our teachers will receive over two years, yet the average increase for all district employees in that time will be below 5 percent. The Post didn’t mention that a large number of our employees work in supporting services. The hours of thousands of these hardworking people have been cut the past few years, and they earn significantly less than the county’s median income. Consider that our bus operators earn about $30,000 a year, on average. Even with their raises — which for many will be no more than 2 percent — they are far from catching up.

The Post clearly considers the relationship between MCPS, the Board of Education and its employee associations something that hurts our taxpayers and our schools. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Our Professional Growth System, administered by our associations, is held up as a national model for improving performance and eliminating mediocrity. It is our employees that gave up their cost-of-living and step increases in recent years, saving taxpayers more than $140 million. And it is our employees, with our parents, who have helped make difficult budgetary decisions over the past several years. And even as they have had to do more with less, it is our employees — many of them Montgomery County residents and taxpayers — who have still helped our students achieve unprecedented results.

In fact, that achievement was highlighted in The Post itself this month as MCPS placed five schools in the top 100 of the newspaper’s High School Challenge.

You can’t get these types of returns without making investments.

Ultimately, the investment in our employees is about sustaining the future of the county. If you ask people why they moved to Montgomery County, most will tell you it’s because of the high-quality schools. To sustain this national reputation, we must retain the very people who make our schools the signature element of Montgomery County: our teachers, staff and administrators.

Joshua P. Starr, Rockville

The writer is superintendent of the Montgomery County Public Schools.

Could a million teachers be preparing to exit the classroom?

Anthony Cody, in his Ed Week blog, takes a look at the recently released Metlife Survey of the American Teacher and some of its surprising results.  Overall, teachers are less satisfied in their work than they ever have been.  Much of this is due to the challenges the economy has placed on students and the teachers themselves.

One would imagine that the current anti-teacher sentiment in this country contributes to this as well.  With the corporate "reformers" trying to push an agenda of expanded class sizes and faulty value added evaluation measures and the continued fight to secure adequate funding for our public schools,  it is no wonder that more teachers find themselves thinking of doing something else.  And that is a shame.  Educators get into this profession for the love of it and it seems more and more that this test driven, shallow curriculum culture will drive away many talented, creative and dedicated educators in a time when they are needed more than ever.

Statewide Teacher Town Hall 2/27

In partnership with the Marc Steiner Show, MSEA is helping to organize a Teacher Town Hall which will be broadcast live on WEAA 88.9, Delmarva Public Radio, and other outlets. The event will be held at the Governor Calvert House in Annapolis from 5-7 PM on Monday, February 27 and will be moderated by Marc Steiner.

The Town Hall will feature a discussion between educators and a panel of policymakers and elected officials about our schools and priority education issues. It is very important that we fill the room with educators ready to participate and share their stories and viewpoints.

The event should provide for a robust, interesting dialogue and a prime two-hour window when we can communicate our message to legislators and thousands upon thousands of listeners. Please come to the event, and please encourage activists in your school to attend as well. This is a great opportunity, and it’s up to us to make the most of it. Please register to attend the event here: https://marylandeducators.wufoo.com/forms/register-for-the-teacher-town-hall/

Light refreshments and snacks will be served.

The importance of protecting education funding

As we near the start of Maryland's legislative session, we are reminded of the importance of properly funded schools. Today, NPR ran a story chronicling the school budget struggles in Texas where $4 billion has been cut from education this year and there has been over 12,000 educators and support employees laid off.

This is new for Texas. It's the first time in over 60 year that the state has not come through with it's funding promises. Schools are charging for more than lunches:

"In many school districts across Texas, though, parents are footing the bill for things like bus transportation, field trips, athletics and uniforms."

The Governor, Rick Perry, refuses to use money from the states $5 billion "rainy day fund" to help close the spending gaps. This is having a greater impact on the poor:

"Already, the $4.3 billion in school funding cuts seems to have made the disparity between poor and wealthy school districts worse. A poor district now gets $800 less per student from the state than a wealthy district.More than 300 school districts are now suing. They're hoping the courts will declare the cuts and the school funding formula in Texas unconstitutional."

When we look at situations like this, we see all to well the importance of ensuring full funding for our schools at the state and  county levels. That's why we have a Maintenance of Effort law. To ensure that funding does not decrease and force schools to then cut programs and charge for things they shouldn't have to. 

Wage freeze hurts more than employees

If anyone thinks a wage freeze does not hurt students, think again. As wages fall, many will look to jobs in the private sector and many talented and dedicated educators will leave their classrooms. Others who may have considered bringing their talents to the classroom will look elsewhere. As schools fail to recruit and retain effective teachers, students are the ones who suffer. 


Julie Rasicot of Bethesda Magazine writes about Donna Thomas, formerly of Sherwood High School, in her story "MCPS loses a bright star." Ms. Thomas, a computer sciences teacher was part of a winning team of educators at the 2011 Global Innovator Educator Awards sponsored by Microsoft. Rasicot chronicles Ms. Thomas' decision to leave teaching because of effects of another year without a raise and a 2% increase in the contribution to her pension, meaning her salary, like all other MCPS teachers' salary, actually decreased this year.


This is becoming a trend for educators. A recent Ed Week story estimates that nearly 20% of teachers nationwide have additional jobs to make ends meet. In Texas, nearly 40% of teachers moonlight to make ends meet and a 2007 study of North Carolina teachers concluded that 72% of teachers hold additional jobs. 
From Ed Week: "While moonlighting isn't unique to teachers, they do tend to have second or third jobs at a higher rate than other professionals. One researcher estimates their moonlighting rates may be four times higher than those of other full-time, college educated salaried workers."

Teachers around the country have seen their wages frozen and many, like here in Maryland, are making less than they did two years ago. This coupled with the constant attacks on teachers and the profession itself is going to continue to drive our dedicated and effective teachers out of the classroom. This hurts our students.


Let's work to stop this. Come to one of our Town Hall Meetings between December 6 and December 15 to talk to your state legislators about protecting education funding. 

MCEA to host Town Hall meetings in December

MCEA will be hosting eight Town Hall meetings between December 6 and December 15 and there’s one near where you live or work. State delegates and senators have been invited to the meetings in their district and will be appearing and  answering your questions. Please see the schedule below and click on this link to register:http:// www.surveymonkey.com/s/MCEATownhalls

It is important to have a good turn out so that our elected officials see how important protecting education funding is. For more information, go to: http://www.mceanea.org/action/moe.php

MCEA’s EDUCATION FUNDING TOWN HALL MEETINGS

Tuesday, Dec. 6th                  3:30-5:00pm                Churchill HS               Meet with District 15 delegation

Wednesday, Dec. 7th             3:30-5:00pm                B-CC HS                   Meet with District 16 delegation

Thursday, Dec. 8th                 3:30-5:00pm                Wood MS                  Meet with District 17 delegation

Thursday Dec. 8th                  3:30-5:00pm                Einstein HS                 Meet with District 18 delegation

Monday Dec. 12th                 3:30-5:00pm                Blair HS                      Meet with District 20 delegation

Tuesday Dec. 13th                 3:30-5:00pm                Seneca Valley HS       Meet with District 39 delegation

Wednesday Dec. 14th            3:30-5:00pm                Kennedy HS               Meet with District 19 delegation

Thursday Dec. 15th                3:30-5:00pm                Sherwood HS             Meet with District 14 delegation

Union-District collaboration and 21st century bargaining

Over the last few years teacher unions have been blamed for all sorts of problems; the declining economy, the ballooning debt of our municipalities and poor student performance. While public approval remains high for teachers, that is not the case for their unions (ironic, isn't it?). Some see the unions as an impediment to increasing student achievement and improving teacher performance. We know that is not the case. In fact, some research has been done on this issue, making it clear how difficult it is to pin down. 

Some have taken to attacking teachers rights to collectively bargain over their working conditions and benefits (Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana). We all know that if you want good learning conditions, you need good teaching conditions. 

People like to ignore that unions and districts can work together to achieve the goals of  creating good teaching conditions, so teachers can provide great learning conditions. We have been able to work collaboratively here in Montgomery County over the years to do this and other districts around the country are beginning to do so as well. 

Ed Week released a report on collective bargaining and how it is being changed as more unions and districts work more collaboratively rather than adversarially. You can read the report here. 

Do you think you're overpaid? (update)

Last week, we told you about a survey that tried to argue that teachers are overpaid. 

Education Secretary Arne Duncan responded to the study with this editorial in the Huffington Post. He does well in pointing out that while money is not a top reason people come into teaching, it tends to be a top reason they leave it. With an average starting salary of $35k and average top salary of $65k, it's no wonder that there is a nation wide problem recruiting and retaining teachers. 

Nice to see the Secretary of Education have teacher's backs.