Today (November 2), the California Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) unanimously upheld a PERB Administrative Law Judge’s (ALJ) decision that ruled that the Sacramento City Unified School District violated the law and must reimburse SCTA’s attorney fees in defending teachers from SCUSD’s illegal actions. You can view the decisions here.
According to the decision, SCUSD contended that it did not violate the law or the contract, “even if–as the [Sacramento County] Superior Court, arbitrator, and ALJ all found–it violated the CBA when it refused to arbitrate the salary schedule grievance.” This decision now adds the full PERB to that list who have rejected out of hand the SCUSD contention.
The PERB decision is the latest SCUSD legal loss.
This case began when the District backtracked from its agreement to implement a new salary schedule, then took the unprecedented step to sue teachers to try to stop the enforcement of the contract.
PERB has issued more unfair labor practice complaints against SCUSD in the last 3 years than any other school district in California.
PERB includes in its decsion orders that SCUSD must:
“CEASE AND DESIST FROM:”
“Interfering with the right of bargaining unit employees to be represented by their employee organization.”
“Denying SCTA the right to represent bargaining unit employees in their employment relations with the District.”
The decision also requires SCUSD to take other actions, including:
“TAKE THE FOLLOWING AFFIRMATIVE ACTIONS DESIGNED TO EFFECTUATE THE POLICIES OF THE ACT:”
“Make SCTA whole for losses it suffered as a result of the District’s unlawful conduct . . .”
“post at all District locations where notices are customarily posted, copies of [this Notice including] by electronic means customarily uses by the District to regularly communicate with employees in the bargaining unit.”
Well, this was going to happen sooner or later
I used to tell my students that I would teach until I died, and then have my body stuffed and mounted with animatronics while old tapes of my teaching played. Turns out that I didn't do that, but it was still a thing someone could do.
If you think teaching is the act of pouring Knowledge Stuff from one container into another, I guess this makes sense. And I can imagine the administration salivating over the prospect of a "teacher" who requires no pay, no benefits, and no lengthy hiring process to acquire.
The weirdness that the poster talks about is, I think, a residue of the natural inclination we have to think of ourselves as in a relationship with our teachers. Hell, forty-some years later I still have a warm spot in my heart for Julius Sumner Miller and his videos of physics demonstrations which, though we were clearly watching a recording, seemed live and real and for us in 1974. So finding out that a person you think has been, in some way, sort of, really talking to you--well, they're actually dead. That's a little disconcerting, like taking a step backward and having your foot meet air rather than floor.
Practically speaking, why not. Is Khan Academy going to CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: Meet Your Dead Teacher
The Connecticut Mirror wrote a revealing in-depth analysis of Secretary-designate Miguel Cardona’s life, career, and education ideas.
His meteoric rise has been well documented. He grew up in poverty. He started public school in Meriden, Connecticut, not speaking English. He saw education as his route to a better life.
He became a teacher, then a principal, then assistant superintendent of the Meriden district of 8,000 students. From there, he was tapped to become State Commissioner of Schools.
From the outside, the Meriden Public Schools system looks like a network of struggling city schools.
The state has designated it an Alliance District and one of the “lowest-performing districts” since more than one-quarter of the students are multiple grades behind in English, math and science. It is also an economically isolated district that spends 30% less per student than the state average despite three-quarters of its students coming from low-income families. And the school ratings often used in real estate listings don’t look favorably on the district, either.
This is where Miguel Cardona — President-elect Joe CONTINUE READING: Meet Miguel Cardona, Soon to Be Secretary of Education | Diane Ravitch's blog
In July 2020, Eric Gordon head of the Cleveland Metropolitan School District released a report that would alter the 170 year-old institution called the age-graded school (see here and here). The 74 Million website summarized the report July 2, 2020. While there have been previous efforts to alter the age-graded school and such schools exist now (see here, here, and here), they have been largely confined to individual schools. Never a district especially a large urban one. For that reason I offer the proposal here. Because of the pandemic and mostly remote instruction, no implementation of the plan has yet occurred in CMSD.
A bold proposal in Cleveland could set the tone for how schools around the country could restart in the fall, one that takes into account students’ vastly different access to resources and remote learning during the pandemic and lets students learn at their own speed.
Cleveland schools would toss aside teaching many students in traditional grade levels this fall and dramatically expand the “mastery” learning plan it has tested for a few years.
Out would go the usual practice of students advancing a grade each year, an CONTINUE READING: Remodeling the Age Graded School? | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice
I had high hopes for Mrs. Andersen, so high I donated 800 dollars to her campaign. A former educator, I thought she would fight for teachers and against the state. Now people are dying, and she may feel devastated, but it is way past time she did something.
From WJXT,
Board chair Elizabeth Andersen made the announcement Wednesday morning on Facebook.
“I’m sad to report that we have lost more members of the DCPS family. Ms. Martin was a beloved Paraprofessional at Neptune Beach Elementary who passed away from COVID, and a student at Twin Lakes has passed away from MIS-C, an illness thought to be COVID related,” Anderson wrote.
“I’m devastated for these families and school communities,"
You know what her being devastated without action is going to give us? More deaths.
I am devastated, too, as I am sure tens of thousands of people across the state, CONTINUE READING: Education Matters: School Board Chair Andersen says she is devastated about the DCPS deaths, well then how about doing something.
Education Matters: DCPS must just sit around and think of ways to #@&% with people - https://jaxkidsmatter.blogspot.com/2021/01/dcps-must-just-sit-around-and-think-of.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+blogspot/iYxgC+(Education+Matters)
“Remember: The rules, like streets, can only take you to known places.”
― On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous
My buddy Slatsky called me this morning to see if I wanted to grab some lunch. Slat’s family is originally from Chicago, where his grandfather seeped into politics. He’s been here for a couple of years and continually trying to figure out our politics. Conversations with him are always thought-provoking, and enjoyable.
“So what do you say?”, he asked, “Noon at the Teacher’s Hideaway Lounge?”
Upon arriving at the agreed-upon time, I found him already perched on a barstool. Eyes glued to set where scenes from the presidential inauguration played out.
“Something else.”, he remarked as I slid into a barstool next to him, but socially distant, nodding in agreement.
We watched in silence for several minutes, till he broke the silence, “Too bad this isn’t our Governor hopping on the flight out of town as well. A tough-talking sum of a bitch that Lee is.” Slat’s clearly CONTINUE READING: LUNCH WITH MY PAL SLATSKY – Dad Gone Wild
I am not a huge fan of pomp; I recognize the need to mark occasions, especially occasions of great change. There's really only one thing I want to carry away from today, and I'm embedding it here so that I can always find it. Amanda Gorman's presentation of her own poem was simply perfect.
