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Here's the HB153 comparison document as reported out of the Senate finance committee yesterday. The full senate vote is expected later today. The bill still contains draconian cuts to public education, and provisions to retest teachers in the bottom 10% of schools. However, merit pay and for profit charter provisions, along with 12/12 STRS cost shifting is not included.
Substitute House Bill 153 COMPARISON DOCUMENT As Reported by Senate Finance
Example 86734 that SB5 is not needed comes in the form of news that Delaware teachers, through the collective bargaining process, aggreed to a no-raise contract next year.
Without the pay freeze approved by teachers, six additional positions would have been eliminated, Superintendent Paul Craft said. Already, the district will lose 23 positions as part of $2.5million in cuts the board made final on Monday night. Six of those jobs probably will be cut through layoffs; the rest were through attrition.
"It's a real sacrifice and a real acknowledgment of the challenges that we face, that the teachers were willing to sign a contract to give up what has always been part of the contract," Craft said of the step and education increases.
Example 86735 that teachers continue to demonstrate sacrifice for their communities comes form Worthington
Under the agreement, teachers also would pick up any additional costs of health insurance in 2014. They contribute 14 percent toward their insurance premiums.
If SB5 were to pass and eliminate the ability to collectively bargain, unprecedented deals like this would not be possible. Why break what is clearly proven to be working time and time again, all across the state?
The Plain Dealer reports on big Cleveland business advocating for SB5 provisions in the budget
The merit-based pay system, which mirrored language in Ohio's controversial new collective bargaining law, was included in the budget proposal previously passed in the House of Representatives. But the Senate has removed the merit system from its version of the budget.
"Without a strong education system, we can't find the knowledgeable workers we need," Greater Cleveland Partnership Senior Vice President Carol Caruso said at a Statehouse news conference.
The Greater Cleveland Partnership is the name the Cleveland Chamber of Commerce hides behind. They recently set aside $50,000 for their worker assault. You can see a list of the businesses that want to attack middle class workers who are their customers, here. Companies like:
The lsit goes on and on, and includes banks that received billions in tax payer bailouts, non profits funded by tax dollars, and even local governments.
Rather than attack their own customers, and tax payers who have generously supported their various enterprises, maybe they ought to just say thank you and be on their way.
We know that David Brennan and Michele Rhee hired lobbyists to get their agenda in front of the Republican controlled legislture, and inserted in SB5 and the budget bill. We also know that lawmakers hearing from teachers, and other concerned citizens, got many of the most eggregious provisions removed. But now there's pressure to perform a double-back-flip-U-turn and put these terrible measure back in the budget.
There's still time and opportunity for citizens to lobby their represenatives. If you are a member of OEA, tomorrow is a scheduled lobby day. (Link - bottom, left). If you want to attend, meet at Renaissance Columbus Downtown Hotel at 50 N. 3rd St., Columbus, Ohio – The briefing will start at 9:00 a.m.** (map).
JTF will be coming along, we hope to see you there. Together we'll change some minds!
**If you have a distance to travel, check with your local or regional association. Busing is being provided, along with parking and lunch if needed. Also, vallet parking at the hotel is available and a voucher for it will be given to you when you sign in.
The Dispatch had a wrong headed editorial over the weekend, promoting SB5 provisions. Specifically it chose to cherry pick the sad fact that good teachers are losing their jobs because of the reckless budget. But make no mistake, it's budget cuts, not lay-off policies that are causing job lossses, as the Dispatch itself reported back in January.
This editorial promoted a lot of reaction from teachers, this example from a Dublin teacher we thought should be highlighted
Our governor has assured that your own district cannot afford to hire the best, highest qualified, most experienced teacher in the job market today. Don’t take my word for it, ask your school administrator or take a look at who gets the job open within your district.
On the same day as this wrong headed Dispatch editorial was published, the Akron Beacon Journal chose to look at facts instead of rhetoric, and compared public schools in Akron to Charter schools and found
Why would these charters suffer such terrible results, year after year? The answer is incredibly simple, and obvious to anyone who takes the time to examine the data
Teachers at the city's public high schools averaged at least 15 years of experience, according to the report card data. Ellet High School posted the highest average of 19 years' experience.
One Akron Life Skills school reported an average of 13 years' experience, but the other two had a much greener staff, averaging only two and six years experience.
In addition to more years on the job, teachers at traditional schools also are more likely to have a master's degree. Two-thirds of Akron Public Schools teachers, across all grade levels, have more than a four-year degree, according to the state data.
That compares to a high of 31 percent at one of Brennan's Life Skills schools, 9 percent at another and none at the third.
Better qualified, more experienced teachers produce better results. Yes, when lay-offs do happen some great teachers lose their jobs because they lack seniority. But in the aggregate it's exposure young teachers gain from experienced mentors that makes them great. The data clearly demonstrates that experience and qualifications matter most. If we were to start firing experienced teachers, using some half-baked student testing regime, to save money - from whom would junior teachers learn from in order to become great?
The Dispatch article fails to answer this question, instead, like a Brennan charter school it simply wants to race to the bottom and ignore the facts, by punishing experience.
The Buckeye Institute just released a tool to compare salaries. The only trouble with this hackish tool is they don't understand how anyone is paid apparently.
In their effort to make public sector workers appear over compensated, they add vacation and sick pay to salaries, without understanding sick and vacation pay is paid instead of salary, and therefore can't be added to create a juicy big total salary they can get all indignant about.
What kind of a "think tank" doesn't understand the basic principles of employee compensation?