By: Diane Benjamin
I filed a FOIA request with Unit 5 for information they decided to redact. Transparency at Unit 5 rates close to zero.
One gem was included and not redacted. I hope more teacher’s are choosing to leave the union. I redacted the name, notice this person asked for direction because the union was stonewalling, Unit 5 sent them back to the union head anyway.
This one Unit 5 did redact, the red is mine – all of the black is Unit 5. Same teacher contracted the person Unit 5 said to talk to. You aren’t allowed to know what was said.
How many other teachers have withdrawn?
Teachers can not be forced to pay union dues.
Do teachers know American kids are failing behind the rest of the world in math, science, and reading. This is from 2018, COVID will make it worse since other countries didn’t lock kids out of school for more than a year:
In this day and age, kids should be getting smarter not dumber. Dam place is going to hell in a hand basket.
One school board member she claimed when they brought in PC’s the test scores fell. Quite possibly that could be true. It did seem possible.
Ok, that’s actually better than I expected for the USA to be honest, now, let’s see what sort of dismal scores they would get if History/geography were included or done separately. The world of knowledge is NOT all “math and science”. It is also of zero surprise that it’s all redacted, they like to keep stuff as hush hush and secret as possible these days, just pay those property taxes and be quiet, none of this concerns you.
oh they know the kids are falling behind..they get the test results…but union promises/strong-arming and sweet-heart pension deals are more important. my hats off to this anonymous teacher for the greater good not for themselves.
In my opinion the teachers union, at least in the construct of advocacy for teachers, no longer exists in function. It has become an expression of the administrative elite. It supports pension spiking for that executive level, and for those teacher “union reps” who pretend to represent teachers in matters such as work environment, safety, and compensation. Having some insights in a recent local contract negotiation, I was appalled that teachers had no data, no insight, no actual union support to engage in a meaningful discussion with each other and collectively with school administrators. The result? Settlement actually fell far short of cost of living, resulting in a net salary CUT for teachers And for those teachers who give their all before during and after school, on evenings and weekends its absolutely insulting. If you think kids are falling behind now, just wait. The innovators and educated workforces will increasingly come form overseas while our economy will shift to non-benefitted hourly wages that don’t even pay the rent.
Been there fought that battle with the union. Feelings were mutual because we pretty much hated each other.
At one contract negotiations I tossed out the idea of pay for performance. OMG that wasn’t happening …. ever. You mean let the administration decide who gets a bonus? Not on your life would that ever happen.
The union wants more members not members leaving. In fact we looked at doing duel credits for HS. If a student attended Heartland in a class that we couldn’t offer, example Accounting, they would get college credit and HS credit. Get this, the union wanted to tell Heartland who they could hire/teach that class and that person would be a member of “their” union. It wasn’t about the student(s) at all.
They would start contract negotiations wanting more for support staff (cooks, janitors, etc). In the end they were tossed under the bus so to speak and the top tenured teachers definitely got their cut before anyone else.
What we have in this country is one ****ed up public education system. I don’t get it. We have standardized test to score how well students are being taught yet the liberal mindset of the union is we’ll let the teachers pick the books and teaching methods.
When I left the board I wanted to **** can aka terminate them all to get rid of the union!.
Best advice I’d give this teacher wanting to leave the union…. yeah leave that union and find a private sector job. In the long run they’ll probably find the benefits and pay exceeding what they could ever get under that union.
Yeah sure unions are horrible. As if you would know anything about Teach Unions and how they operate. Collective bargaining is usually the only way teachers get things like class size, teaching standards and basic pay heard by a District or city. Teachers as a whole are hard working and spend untold time educating you kids. Kids are falling behind? Could it be the fault of the parents or the students themselves? I Think so, a teacher can only do so much. Maybe your little darlings aren’t as smart or do not want to put the effort into learning. Apparently teachers have to performed miracles.
One last thought, anyone here would last around 2 minutes as a teacher in a real world classroom full of 12-year-olds.
Did you miss the video a few years ago at a teacher’s convention? Speaker proclaimed teaching isn’t about education, it’s about power.
I was also at seminars where they told us to just let the kids basically run the class, that was like 20 years ago, and don’t ever let anyone higher up say that indoctrination is not included in the “education” package, it might be covert but it’s still there, some teachers might fight it, but it’s still there. Back in the 70s, teaching was one of the fields that all good little aspiring leftists were highly encouraged to get into, that and journalism were two of the main ones that had to be overrun, law was another one. We are now seeing the results of that as it goes into a second and even third generation and the old Marxists are still teaching in the colleges safely tucked away into academia where they are safe.
And I read you Facebook post where you place blame on African Americans and their parents for their perceived inability to comply at traffic stops. Why is it the fault of African Americans and their parents?
You then turn around claiming it’s somehow a teacher’s fault your kid can’t learn? Where’s the personal responsibility for a kid to actually put in an effort to learn? Where is the parent’s responsibility? Apparently that only true for African American not anyone else.
No teacher I know claims that teaching is about “power”. All most all teachers are passionate about passing on their knowledge to children. Teachers often are the one person who can and do reach out to troubled and disaffected students changing their lives for the better. Teaching is a profession that is sometimes underpaid and thankless. You effort to demonize teachers is reprehensible is plain wrong.
Union heads are the problem, teachers merely comply
Been there done that, and yeah, I can last 2 minutes, 2 hours, 2 days, 2 years etc, BUT it would be a LOT easier if I had a little more say in how the day really goes, and had more options for discipline, actual discipline, and had support from a much higher percentage of parents, and didn’t have kids worried if mom was gonna OD again, or dad was gonna kill the cat or beat up mom again, or didn’t have meth addicted mom pimping out her 13 year old daughter 2-3 times a week or more. I have taught school, I left 15 years ago, I won’t say where, but it was in the USA. I actually enjoyed the kids for the most part, but the red tape was too entangling and I saw the writing on the wall and saw it all coming and I got out.
Lack of parental involvement with a lot of the kids especially in some areas IS indeed a big problem, also constant emphasis on college/university is a bit of a problem, oh yes it is, because those kids not “destined for college” are often made to think what’s the use? More practical application type studies would help and also encouragement for those kids whose talents are in making things and not in doing equations.
Go back to REAL teaching and no “packets”, go back to no tablets/laptops, and more human involved learning methods, stop the teaching to the test, and make a sincere effort from Kindergarten on to involve parents/caregivers/responsible parties in their kids education. I used to be appalled to find out that there are homes where money is not the issue where they have none or almost no books in the house, and some kids could not remember ever being read to, things like that need to change – and on/off subject maybe CPS can wake up too and stop leaving kids in horrific situations.
Now back to teachers/teacher’s unions, the way they are acting with this covid nonsense is showing a lot of true colors, they should have been demanding loudly that school return to in person and normal long ago, and in many places it’s still not anywhere NEAR normal, and watch, the back sliding and lack of progress this past year will be swept under the rug as much as possible, and they’ll still want more “stuff” and more pay across the board, now all that said – YES there are still some wonderful teachers who work hard and do their best to educate students, it’s kind of sad that schools are so messed up now along with society that their best efforts often fail. I’m also going to add again, it is NOT all about math and science, and they might find out that schools might improve if it was not all about math and science.
Well Ronin when you want to put your personal health at risk go back and teach that is if you actually ever taught. The 4th wave of COV-19 which is more contagious and deadly is currently infecting younger people and children. The pandemic isn’t over. Children can and do catch the virus and they can a do infect adults at school and at home.
Schools here have been in person, surprise nobody died
It’s almost as if government shouldn’t be in the business of education.
They shouldn’t. They screw up everything they tough. The latest started with federalizing education with Jimmy Carter.
!00% agree with Diane.
There are certainly a lot of wrongs with public education. It seems to me that the bulk of the bad is with administrators (Supt, Princip, etc), boards and government who most certainly are in the power game, and most of whom know little to nothing about education. $$ wasted everywhere on non-value add. For each admin role and their backup, how much in pensions are paid to the prior occupants of each role? Consider that rotational legacy load when asking how much it costs to fill one of those roles in year. It’s a staggering number. There’s your pension problem. It’s not with the teachers. The bulk of the good is that there are a lot of great and committed teachers out there having positive life changing impact on the kids and families they serve. Nobody wants to ask them, the real education experts, how to make things better, what to start doing, what to stop doing, what to change. Nobody wants to advocate for the experts that are so crucial in building a strong America, Teachers well know they can make a lot more in the private sector. But their calling to make a difference is stronger than the dollar. Ultimately though it is collapsing. Teachers with three jobs trying to hold things together, forfeiting Social Security (but paying into it), this is just bad all around. And the “leaders’ .. they are at war with the best chance they have for a legacy themselves. But, I’m not a teacher. Better to ask one of them if you want the truth. The rest of us just know broken when we see it.
What most teachers won’t tell is how are things really going on in your classroom most for fear of being called racist. Talk to some of your substitute teachers let them tell you about that rampant dis-respect and foul language that they experience while in the class rooms. The family union has been deteriorating for years I have said it before so many children regardless of ethnicity see nothing but free stuff most of their lives, free books, free lunch, free snacks,free backpacks every school year and free education,and mom gets link cards for free food and free housing. Most of this is due to the fact that there is no father and mother together in the household providing a solid income. And providing this free stuff is the right thing to do because in America we don’t want our children to suffer. But ask yourselves what happens to these children when they reach the age of 18 and all the free stuff goes away. Unless they are self motivated to be successful they emulate mom if female or male go the illegal route to get your money.But why is this, because so many of these children are coming from single parent homes where they have not one child but many. It is obvious from the way many, not all act disrespectful in the classroom there is no family unit where both father and mother keep these children in line at home as well as in the classroom. The teachers cannot be expected to teach and also be a parent to these children this has to come from a unified family unit at home where both father and mother work together to teach respect and manners to their children and by the way at the same time help them with their school work at home. And yes there are single family house holds where children are raised properly but that is not the norm.
As far as unions go they have outlived their usefulness they neither help the teachers or their students.
Everything you said, is spot on.
Reading the comments, it sounds like the entire problem can be traced directly to modern liberalism. Savage is right. It is a mental disorder that if continued, will eventually kill the USA.
Liberalism is not the problem. Leftism is the problem. Liberalism is NOT Leftism.
Liberalism is about individual rights. Leftism is about power and control.
One tactic of leftism is to eff with the meanings of words so you cannot have a coherent discussion of the issues and one is left with only emotions, which are much more easy to manipulate. Don’t help them.
True, I told someone not long ago who had told me that they were a liberal that no, they weren’t, they might be liberal in their thinking, but that what “liberal” used to be was not what it is now and that the leftists/Marxists have taken that word and corrupted it in order to lure in people such as the person who told me that. Liberalism has a great degree of “live and let live” in the Libertarian mold, but modern leftism is simply big government and more control over every aspect of a person’s life. I told them they might want to take a long hard look at the people they continue to support and vote for.
Karl: Don’t put words in my mouth. You know exactly what I meant. Don’t need any help explaining myself from a former SFer and someone that works at ISU for God’s sake. Concern yourself with running better campaigns and explaining your positions.