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EDITORIAL
Teacher contract negotiations
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The excitement and optimism of the first day of school Monday was a welcome distraction from the Clark County School District's labor problems.
The union that represents the district's teachers has declared an impasse in negotiations, and the union that represents support employees also hasn't agreed to a deal.
Together, the bargaining groups cover about 29,000 employees, the vast majority of the school district's work force. They're being asked to cover almost $52 million of the district's $56 million budget hole. Administrators, professional-technical workers and police already have struck deals to erase about $3.5 million from the shortfall.
Support staff have been asked to give up all pay raises and increase their pension contributions. The school district wants teachers to agree to terms similar to those covering administrators and police: the elimination of raises based on experience and graduate school credits; the assumption of half of the increase in the district's pension contributions; the replacement of the teachers' self-governed health trust with a cheaper, for-profit health insurance provider; and making teacher seniority a less-significant consideration in layoffs.
That last demand has been a problem for the teachers union. The administrators union already has agreed to make job performance the primary consideration in layoffs. Administrators who have twice been deemed unsatisfactory would be laid off first. Next to go would be anyone suspended five days or more within the past two years. After that, those with the fewest years on the job would get pink slips.
It's common sense for the school district to keep its top performers, especially considering Gov. Brian Sandoval signed into law this year a requirement that seniority cannot be the only factor in educator layoffs. But that law allows unions to negotiate with school districts to determine the other criteria for layoffs. That stipulation allows the union to demand that seniority remain the prime criterion -- just not the only one.
The union wants a judge to decide teacher concessions through arbitration. Teachers union leaders and loyalists attended Thursday's School Board meeting to press their demands. The School Board, meanwhile, has made it clear that about 500 teachers will be laid off within a month if an agreement isn't reached with the union.
This is an important test for the School Board, which has long done the bidding of the union. New Superintendent Dwight Jones supports eliminating seniority as a factor in teacher layoffs so promising young teachers are not sacrificed to protect ineffective, older ones counting down the days until retirement. And the public might be surprised to know how many teachers favor such a change as well -- the hyperventilation of their union notwithstanding.
The board can't buckle on this issue. Ending "last in, first out" is critical to improving public education.
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Yep, Yep Smaller "green" cars that are death traps in a wreck get good ratings there.....Prius that will NEVER make back it's cost in fuel savings gets a good rating etc...
Thanks Malousnormal. I will investigate Consumer Reports getting in bed with the insane Al Gore type of stuff. I did not know this was happening. Too bad if true. I've relied on that private system for decades. Should have been paying closer attention. Makes sense, government does mess up everything eventually.
Don't trust anyone....David my cars both got poor ratings from Consumer reports because while they are totally safe and get usable mileage they are not green enough for the consumer reports of today which uses the crazy liberal scale to judge cars final ratings now....which is why I cancelled my subscription to the magazine as it appears to have subscribed to Al Gore's sad failed religion...crazy liberal setting is on my dishwasher and it consists of routine double the soap and the longest hottest cycle possible to compensate for the liberal crazies in govt who now mandate dishwashers be ineffective to do their designed job....another crazy liberal setting is the toilet that needs to be flushed two to three times to do the job it was designed not to do....(today's toilet tanks are deliberately designed too small to conserve, which ends up not conserving anything).
@Troutslayer. And I am glad my vehicle got a great rating from Consumer Reports. Now which one do I trust more? Your doctor's government approval or my Consumer Reports rating? Remember that guy that was reusing needles here in the Valley also past the Medical Board and got a government license too.
Still unskilled for teachers. All you mentioned is the hoops a potential government teacher has to jump through to be a government approved teacher. The actual learning how to mentor can be picked up over a couple of weekends. Kids pretty much learn on their own and will do so naturally until incarcerated in government (John Dewey created) schools which tend to squash such impulses. One really only tend to nudge them in the right direction and provide assistance when asked. Unskilled. Anyone can do it.
The complexity of work done determines what makes skilled and unskilled. One must learn a craft, usually over the course of several years, to successfully do skilled labor. Unskilled type of work can be learned in a few days to a couple of weeks. That is all it took me to learn what method education (notice I am not saying "schooling") works for each child and how to implement the method.
@Troutslayer. There is a difference in school level administrators and the administrators running the performance zones. If you are talking about teachers moving into deans or assistant principal positions that is very different than moving people into academic managers positions. The people that are moving into academic managers were senior people in the old areas who had their old positions abolished. People moving into dean's and assistant principals right now are replacing those who have left. Actually, they may be saving the district money by the difference in pay.
David, I am GLAD my doctor passed the Medical Board. Lawyers pass a bar exam, Teachers have 5 exams they have pass and pay for themselves at several hundred $ each, before they are licensed. That is besides their 5 years of college - minimum. Unskilled my as*....
@David. So what is your definition of skilled and unskilled work? What makes a doctor and a dentist skilled and a teacher unskilled?
Tank -@ at BHS alone. They are teachers promoted to Admin. beside 2 teachers that were promoted to admin at other schools, so there's 4 just a 1 school. please... Jone is rearranging the seats on the titanic and adding more, hoping no one notices....