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Post by doctorwho on Mar 14, 2010 22:25:57 GMT -6
Arch, As you know I keep almost all the teaching staff and many in the administration in high regard. From the primary, junior high, and high school level, I have been extremely satisfied with the teaching my children have received. There has been but one incident in the decade plus that required any real attention. Even that incident (which proved that even educators can have a bad day and misread a situation) was handled within a 48 hour time frame. My point is if you disregard the importance of human capital, you are indeed doomed. To be fired only to be rehired is a "for crap" policy. Teaching is a high stress position that requires much more than many professions. It can be argued that the financial returns are better for the rank and file educator but that is mainly because of how far the private sector has fallen. An educator should be held in much higher esteem than what many are being shown today. A common signmaker can easily make double that of an educator. Tell me who has more impact in molding our most highly prized human capital (our kids). A guy that hangs signs on buildings and trucks or an educator molding the minds of our next generation. I have been fired from a job once in my life, only to be asked to come back 5 months later. My reply after I let the manager buy me a nice steak lunch was sorry, I have found better opportunities. There are many opportunities for well rounded young educators in the private sector, let us keep our guard up that these educators stay in district molding our next generation. The issue is that the current system of rewards/retention for tenured teachers in the country ( not a 204 only issue)- does nothing to reward the best of the best. When the city of NY fires 2 teachers in 10 years because the union is so strong it doesn't allow ratings / comparisons to mean anything- that is when trouble occurs. Stories in California of unreal circumstances involving teachers- still on the job. I agree there are many excellent teachers, however there are some who have been retired on the job for years ( just as there is in private industry, government jobs etc.) - teaching is no different than that. Ask teachers, they will tell you about slackards as well. Newspaper are abounding now with stories of bad teachers and the fact they keep their jobs almost no matter what. IMO here are people in this district that make over $120K in admin in schools that contribute almost zero in their job while another in the same position at a different HS is outstanding. Yet come raise time they are all on an equal footing.. I absolutely agree with you that the structure of 'firing' non tenured teachers only to 'rehire' them back is ridiculous and degrading. No one should have to go through that. |
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Post by steckdad on Mar 15, 2010 9:00:01 GMT -6
The problem IMO is that companies (and school districts) have no middle ground. you are 40 hours full time full benefits or nothing. Municipalities give lifelong jobs and pensions when two part time people could fit the bill. And in this climate you will get 20 interviews to fill one of those PT positions. The other downside is when it is time to tighten the belt, there is no flexibility either. You can't take somebody from 30 hours down to 20 to trim the fat. It is either all or nothing. sorry here is your pink slip. Most would probably like the option of cutting their hours than losing their job. not so sure about the last part -- wasn't it Plainfield ( or was it in Kane County I have to find the article) - the teachers union was asked to pare back the 6% increase they were due next year to save a 10% cut in the workforce..guess what they voted for ? Goodbye 10% of the people. Much like some private colleges that were able to 'un tenure' teachers and have them all re earn it...until the unions are really willing to negotiate, and when pensions /benefots etc . come back to match the real world...the financial problems will continue to grow. I agree on the last part that people will not "take one for the team" my point is that when you have part time workers with no benefits they do not have a choice to take less hours because they are part time. I am not too sure how this would work in a school district setting, but would work fine in city government...etc. |
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Post by steckdad on Mar 15, 2010 9:00:54 GMT -6
Steckdad, I would agree that many would prefer to take a hit for the team to keep the team intact. one would like to think so..however I'll bet the 11 teachers going to be gone in Kaneland thought so too www.dailyherald.com/story/?id=365591"The district asked the union in November to consider renegotiating its contract. Teachers are due to receive a 5.6 percent increase in base pay this fall, in the last year of a three-year contract.But teachers voted "no" in February. The union's president said they were concerned about Kaneland's pay compared to other districts, among other things. Union members also did not like that the district announced its request to the public before announcing it to the union. The news release this week noted all further communication about the matter will be made jointly by the union and the district.
Under the cuts the school board approved Monday, the equivalent of 11 full-time teaching positions will be lost in the fall.
"kaneland lost 11 teachers? they only have 15..... ;D |
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Post by steckdad on Mar 15, 2010 9:02:56 GMT -6
I'm still of the opinion that if you have to let anyone go, let them all go. Then, only hire back the ones who can demonstrate they will truly make a positive difference in the kids' lives. Weed out the burnt out ones who have been there too long coasting through on tenure and recycled (and in a few cases plagiarized) lesson plans the past god-knows how many years. even better let the manager or admin decide who their best coworkers are and let loose the weak links... |
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Post by macrockett on Mar 15, 2010 22:55:04 GMT -6
latimes.com/business/la-fi-calstrs16-2010mar16,0,3375614.story
latimes.com
PENSIONS
For CalSTRS, an investment bet that failed
The state's teachers retirement fund had hoped four years ago that a flourishing bull market would help make up for a big projected shortfall. Now the fund is $43 billion behind as of June.
By Marc Lifsher
March 16, 2010
Reporting from Sacramento
Four years ago, as the California State Teachers' Retirement System still was recovering from the dot-com bust at the turn of the decade, its leaders learned some troubling news. The pension fund was $20 billion short on money needed to pay retirees over the next 30 years.
But rather than hike contributions from teachers and school districts, CalSTRS officials decided, in the words of Chief Executive Jack Ehnes, to "roll the dice" and bet that a flourishing bull market would make their woes disappear. "There was a 40% chance we could invest our way out of it," Ehnes said recently.
It turned out to be a bad bet. Now the state, its schools and teachers, under law, will have to cover the losses.
CalSTRS' $130-billion investment portfolio lost more than a quarter of its value in the recent recession. The projected shortfall at the state's second-largest public pension fund ballooned to $43 billion by last June.
"There's no doubt about it -- we need to come up with a new financial plan," Ehnes said.
The 97-year-old pension plan must ask the state Legislature, the governor and taxpayers for billions of dollars. Getting that money -- even with an expected massive lobbying campaign and a bruising political battle -- is no sure thing.
CalSTRS' board is "delusional if it expects the state to bail them out," said Marcia Fritz, president of the California Foundation for Fiscal Responsibility. The Sacramento group wants to reduce pension benefits for newly hired government workers, another way to reduce the shortfall.
"It will be difficult to attract support" from legislators, let alone the public, Ehnes acknowledged.
After all, few private-sector workers have guaranteed lifetime pension benefits. They're not likely to want to spend more on retired teachers, community college instructors and school administrators if it means additional slashing of budgets for schools, universities, prisons, health programs and social services. Last year, the Legislature and governor slashed $60 billion from the state budget, and they expect to cut $20 billion more this year.
CalSTRS' troubles come at a particularly sensitive time. A political corruption scandal at a large New York state government pension fund has put the spotlight on public pensions as corporate America has been laying off workers, freezing pay and curbing 401(k) fund contributions.
The state's biggest public pension fund, the $200-billion California Public Employees' Retirement System, has opened an internal probe into possible influence peddling by so-called placement agents. Such go-betweens often earn huge commissions by helping private equity and real estate investment funds gain access to retirees' money.
The state attorney general's office and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission also are looking at placement-agent activities at CalPERS, including those by former board member Alfred J.R. Villalobos. He was paid almost $60 million in fees by investment fund managers who did business with the pension fund. The teachers pension has not been tainted by alleged wrongdoing.
Local government pension funds in Los Angeles, San Diego, Orange County and elsewhere have been grappling with finding ways to meet their own expensive obligations.
"It's clearly the case that public-sector pensions across the country are coming under the microscope," said Olivia Mitchell, executive director of the Pension Research Council at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. "The public-sector pensions have discovered what the corporate sector figured out 15 or 20 years ago: Offering defined-benefit plans looks predictable and safe, but there are many perils hidden in the details."
Those perils -- poorly performing investments, growing pension obligations and mounting pressure on state and school-district budgets -- are becoming starkly clear at CalSTRS. Its ratio of expected assets to pension obligations at the beginning of the decade was 110%, meaning CalSTRS had more than enough money to pay all future pensions.
By last June 30, the ratio had fallen to 77%, below the 80% that experts consider to be the minimal secure level. Independent actuaries project that the funding ratio could plunge to 13% by 2039 and to zero in 2045, leaving the state government legally obliged to pay the entire pension bill for the next generation of retiring teachers.
The CalSTRS board wants to raise new money by increasing contributions made by the state, school districts and community colleges to as much as 22% of total payroll, from 8% now, over the next 30 years. It also is considering boosting working teachers' contributions by an undetermined amount, from a current 8.25% of payroll.
And if the shortfall isn't addressed in the next few years, the cost to the state of meeting its century-old obligation would grow proportionately greater until it reaches "a tipping point when things get too expensive," Ehnes warned.
The annual contributions from the state, local school districts and community colleges to CalSTRS, about $3.5 billion for the upcoming fiscal year, would need to be raised by an additional $4 billion in 2011, the fund estimates.
Waiting just five years to raise the contribution level would boost that annual increase to $6 billion, and waiting 10 years would increase the amount to $8 billion, CalSTRS said.
The increases are necessary because CalSTRS' actuaries say the fund would need a return on investments of more than 20% a year over the next five years to make up for recent recessionary losses. Over the last 30 years, CalSTRS' portfolio has increased an average of 8.65% a year.
In an attempt to be more conservative, the board now is considering reducing its assumed annual return to as low as 7.5%. CalPERS also is considering lowering its 7.75% benchmark.
Those assumed numbers are still higher than the 6.9% annual return that investment guru Warren Buffett assumes for investments held by pension funds at units of his Berkshire Hathaway Inc.
"Who are they [CalSTRS] kidding? They should not be assuming more than 6%," said David Crane, a former investment banker and the governor's special advisor for jobs and the economy.
"Unreal assumptions," he warned, "will come out of the pocket" of future generations of Californians.
marc.lifsher@latimes.com
Copyright © 2010, The Los Angeles Times
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Post by macrockett on Mar 17, 2010 22:27:10 GMT -6
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Post by macrockett on Mar 19, 2010 14:08:51 GMT -6
www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/ct-edit-obamaeducation-20100317,0,3335517.story chicagotribune.com The education president 4:54 PM CDT, March 17, 2010 Quantcast Rhode Island's Central Falls High School faces a world of problems. Not quite half of the freshmen class of 2005 went on to graduate last year. A little more than half of the juniors passed a state reading test. In math, just 7 percent passed. Superintendent Frances Gallo asked her teachers to step up, to help her turn around their failing school. She asked them to teach 25 minutes more each day. She asked them to tutor the kids, to eat lunch once a week with the kids, to spend more time learning how to teach effectively. She also offered to increase their pay. Teachers at Central Falls do well: $72,000 to $78,000 a year. Gallo offered them a $3,400 bump. The teachers union said no. So last month, Gallo and the school board fired the entire staff. That shocked the teachers. They were probably even more stunned by the response of President Barack Obama, who was endorsed in 2008 by the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers. Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan stood squarely with Gallo. The superintendent showed "courage," Duncan said. " f a school continues to fail its students year after year after year, if it doesn't show signs of improvement, then there's got to be a sense of accountability. And that's what happened in Rhode Island," Obama said.
Imagine that.
•••
Health care reform has sucked all of the oxygen out of Washington these days. But education could turn out to be the most profoundly successful domestic initiative of the Obama administration.
The president has smartly used sticks and carrots to force change in the sclerotic education establishment.
•He has dangled $4.35 billion, available to states that hike standards, demand accountability for teachers and administrators, and promote innovations such as charter schools. Sixteen states, including Illinois, are finalists for the first grants in Obama's Race to the Top program.
We'd prefer that Washington didn't have to bribe the states to promote such changes. But the competition for Race to the Top challenge grants seems to be prompting change. Question now: will Obama and Duncan draw a tough line on the first round of awards, which will be announced in April."Winning will require excellence," Duncan said, promising that there would be "very few winners."
Watch what happens with finalists New York and North Carolina, which still have strict caps on charter schools, and Kentucky, which doesn't allow charters. If they win, Race to the Top will look more like an aimless federal cash giveaway.
•Obama this week proposed an overhaul of No Child Left Behind, the federal education law. At first blush, it looks like a well-guided attempt to thwart states that have set low bars for student achievement and give schools more flexibility in how they measure progress. The focus would be more intense on the lowest performing schools, and on preparing students for college and work.
If you're keeping score, some business leaders have applauded Obama's plan, while leaders of the NEA and AFT have been critical. That suggests education reform, unlike health care reform, has a chance to draw bipartisan support.
•••
In some cases Obama and Duncan have disappointed. They're squeezing to death a successful program that gives vouchers to poor children in Washington D.C. to attend private schools. The children have done well, but the program is being eliminated. The Senate voted 55-42 on Tuesday against reviving it. That's a mistake.
Overall, though, Obama and Duncan are aggressively promoting innovation and a rapid change in the culture of public education. They're impatient. We hope it is infectious.
That's a credit to Obama, and a challenge for Republicans: Do they want to help?
Copyright © 2010, Chicago Tribune
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Post by macrockett on Mar 23, 2010 11:38:30 GMT -6
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Post by asmodeus on Mar 23, 2010 11:51:14 GMT -6
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Post by macrockett on Mar 24, 2010 8:08:12 GMT -6
www.suntimes.com/news/elections/2119462,CST-NWS-cops24.article# No more State Police on Chicago expressways? March 24, 2010 BY FRAN SPIELMAN AND DAVE McKINNEY Staff Reporters The Chicago Police Department may be forced to assume primary responsibility for patrolling 53 miles of Chicago area expressways -- at a time when police manpower is woefully short -- under Gov. Quinn's proposal to slash the State Police budget and lay off 464 state troopers. State Police have had exclusive control over Chicago area expressways since 1985. In 2001, Chicago Police joined forces with the State Police to help enforce traffic laws on the Eisenhower, Dan Ryan, Stevenson, Kennedy, Edens spur and Bishop Ford to curb rampant speeding. Now, Quinn's sweeping budget cuts are threatening to shift the entire burden to Chicago as early as July 1 -- and it couldn't come at a more difficult time. The Chicago Police Department is 700 officers short of its authorized strength and more than 2,100 officers short each day, counting those on medical rolls and limited duty. That's apparently why Police Supt. Jody Weis is referring to the change as a "worst-case scenario." "I've got my fingers crossed that it will not materialize. It would be a challenge for us," Weis said. ---------------------------------------------------- Another lesson in "resources are finite" (taxes). You can have public sector compensation packages that are out of line with the average private sector employee and taxpayer, but you will eventually also have less public sector employees. You can't have your cake and eat it too.
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Post by macrockett on Mar 24, 2010 10:27:10 GMT -6
voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/education-secretary-duncan/a-disaster-for-teachers-in-flo.htmlDisaster for Florida teachers: Senate Bill 6 Support by President Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan for using student standardized test scores as one measure to evaluate teacher performance gives license for legislators to take that thinking to extremes. That’s what is happening in Florida, where the state Senate is considering legislation, Senate Bill 6, that would, if passed, go a long way toward destroying the teaching profession in the state. It already has been approved by the Senate Ways and Means committee, 15-8, on a party-line vote, and is scheduled to go to the chamber floor this week. The Florida House would then have to approve it. The bill, sponsored by state Sen. John Thrasher, the new head of Florida’s Republican Party, would require that school systems evaluate and pay teachers primarily on the basis of student test scores. What would not factor into teacher pay would be advanced degrees and professional credentials, including National Board Certification, which requires teachers to pass a competitive series of tests that is considered the gold standard for educators. It gets worse: Experience in the classroom wouldn’t matter either. And student test results would determine which teachers get targeted when layoffs are necessary. Thrasher himself calls the bill “the hammer,” which he says is necessary to force the Florida teachers union to end its opposition to merit pay for teachers. His bill includes a demand that end-of course assessments be developed or acquired in all subjects not measured by state assessments or other tests such as Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate. But it doesn’t provide any money to accomplish the task--even if there was research suggesting these kinds of tests would be useful evaluation measures, which there isn’t. There’s a lot of other awful components to the bill: Newly hired teachers would be on probation for five years and then work on annual contracts for the rest of their careers, for example. The reason this is so dangerous is because standardized test scores, as has been said previously on this blog, are in no way a fair representation of how well a teacher has done his or her job--or for that matter how much a student has really learned. Standardized tests used today in schools are nowhere near sophisticated enough -- if indeed any single test can be -- to serve as an important measure of performance. Many students take the test sick, or hungry, or tired, or anxious, or depressed. How can a teacher be held responsible for those conditions? “The point is that on any given day, in any curriculum area measured, dozens of influences could affect the scores of a student or a class,” assessment expert David Berliner wrote in this post. “The scores obtained on any one day may diverge a lot from the scores obtained on another day.” Cognitive scientist Daniel Willingham has also noted here that “growth models yield scores that are unstable.” “Teachers who look pretty good one year might look pretty bad the next. This problem may be inherent in growth scores because fall and spring scores tend to be highly correlated. Once you’ve accounted for fall scores, there may not be much variability left in the spring scores that is not due to error," he wrote. You might think that Florida legislators would think twice about using standardized test scores for high-stakes reasons. A new report by the nonprofit, nonpartisan Center on Education Policy on schools that failed to reach “adequate yearly progress” in the 2008-09 school year (the latest available data) shows that 77 percent of Florida’s public schools did not meet the requirement under No Child Left Behind. Adequate yearly progress, or AYP, is measured exclusively by standardized test scores. Is it possible that 77 percent of the state’s public schools are performing poorly, or is it more likely that the formula for calculating makes no sense? All of this explains why Willingham is correct when he says it is a bad idea to use these test scores as any part of teacher evaluation. Obama and Duncan need to see the havoc that can be wrought from their support of the idea on any level.
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Post by EagleDad on Mar 24, 2010 18:25:52 GMT -6
newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/clout_st/2010/03/illinois-house-passes-major-pension-reforms.htmlIllinois House passes major pension reforms Posted by Ray Long and Michelle Manchir at 5:45 p.m.; updated at 6:10 p.m. with How They Voted SPRINGFIELD --- The Illinois House today passed major pension reforms that would raise the retirement age to 67 for government workers to collect full benefits and put new limits on annual pensions. The idea is to save billions of dollars in the coming decades for taxpayers who will have to dig deep to cover retirement costs for school teachers, lawmakers and public servants in state government, universities, cities, park districts and counties. But the reforms would not apply to anyone who’s currently in the retirement system, only new government hires and state officials elected in the future. Another criticism of the legislation is that it will have little, if any, immediate impact on the worst-in-the-nation pension debt--estimated between $77 billion and $90 billion. But the growth in that pension debt should be reduced considerably and save tens of billions over several decades, budget analysts said. If the reforms are approved, they could give Gov. Pat Quinn and state lawmakers a chance to pick up savings of hundreds of millions of dollars in a new budget year beginning July 1, according to legislative budget forecasters. The bill passed the House 92-17, with seven lawmakers voting present, and now goes to the Senate. To see how lawmakers voted please click here. Quinn issued a statement in favor of the legislation this afternoon. "I am a longtime advocate for pension reform and believe it is crucial for our state to get its public pension costs under control to help save Illinois taxpayers’ money now and in the future. The proposed pension reform will stabilize the system, protect current state employees and provide attractive pension benefits to future state workers," the governor said. The Civic Committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago called the legislation "a step in the right direction," but argued it doesn't begin to address the state's "urgent fiscal problems." That's because the legislation doesn't apply the reforms to current government employees, said R. Eden Martin, the organization's president.
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Post by EagleDad on Mar 24, 2010 18:35:08 GMT -6
They should change this bill to put in place the retirement age and add limits for anyone with less than 10 years of service, or currently under 40 years of age. They should also place a healthcare cost-sharing in place for those who chose to take another source of income in their "retirement" or stack additional pensions from another source. At the same time they should add an optional 401k-style retirement investment with a wide array of more aggressive investment options and a healthy match for the younger workers. Or, maybe in traditional illinois politics style they should just let the unions pick what they want and then give themselves a raise to celebrate  |
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Post by macrockett on Mar 24, 2010 21:10:35 GMT -6
newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/clout_st/2010/03/illinois-house-passes-major-pension-reforms.htmlIllinois House passes major pension reforms Posted by Ray Long and Michelle Manchir at 5:45 p.m.; updated at 6:10 p.m. with How They Voted SPRINGFIELD --- The Illinois House today passed major pension reforms that would raise the retirement age to 67 for government workers to collect full benefits and put new limits on annual pensions. The idea is to save billions of dollars in the coming decades for taxpayers who will have to dig deep to cover retirement costs for school teachers, lawmakers and public servants in state government, universities, cities, park districts and counties. But the reforms would not apply to anyone who’s currently in the retirement system, only new government hires and state officials elected in the future. Another criticism of the legislation is that it will have little, if any, immediate impact on the worst-in-the-nation pension debt--estimated between $77 billion and $90 billion. But the growth in that pension debt should be reduced considerably and save tens of billions over several decades, budget analysts said. If the reforms are approved, they could give Gov. Pat Quinn and state lawmakers a chance to pick up savings of hundreds of millions of dollars in a new budget year beginning July 1, according to legislative budget forecasters. The bill passed the House 92-17, with seven lawmakers voting present, and now goes to the Senate. To see how lawmakers voted please click here. Quinn issued a statement in favor of the legislation this afternoon. "I am a longtime advocate for pension reform and believe it is crucial for our state to get its public pension costs under control to help save Illinois taxpayers’ money now and in the future. The proposed pension reform will stabilize the system, protect current state employees and provide attractive pension benefits to future state workers," the governor said. The Civic Committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago called the legislation "a step in the right direction," but argued it doesn't begin to address the state's "urgent fiscal problems." That's because the legislation doesn't apply the reforms to current government employees, said R. Eden Martin, the organization's president. This bill is a joke. Imo, it isn't even worthy of comment. |
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Post by macrockett on Mar 24, 2010 21:19:53 GMT -6
www.suntimes.com/news/politics/2121329,illinois-house-pension-reform-032410.article# Illinois House passes major pension-reform package March 24, 2010 Staff, Wire Reports The Illinois House overwhelmingly passed a sweeping pension-reform package this afternoon that would elevate the retirement age to 67 and restrict benefits for future state government workers and teachers. The measure would not affect pay-outs to current workers. But future government workers would have to work until age 67 to get full benefits. The legislation sponsored by House Speaker Michael Madigan would allow pensions to be set on a maximum salary of $106,800 with upward adjustments each year. Madigan says the plan would save the state’s pension systems more than $100 billion over the next several decades. State pension systems are underfunded by $80 billion. The legislation affects most municipal retirement programs as well. The plan has Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn’s support.
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