Happy to See Mediation Begins

Like me, you may have gotten this press release--I'm quite happy to see it!

Ann Arbor Public Schools

and  

Ann Arbor Education Association:

The Ann Arbor Public Schools and Ann Arbor Education Association have agreed to enter into conversations with a mediator from the Michigan Employment Relations Commission regarding the current dispute.  This was based upon the recommendation of the administrative law judge and state labor mediator. During this time, the parties have agreed to maintain confidentiality and will not be making public statements. In support of the spirit of mediation, we are requesting that the public and press and all stakeholders stand down and refrain from further comments to allow the process to proceed. We appreciate the opportunity the mediation process affords and look forward to a successful outcome.

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Guest Post: This is How Our Public Schools Die

Occasionally someone volunteers to write a guest post! I think this post, by Steve Norton, the Executive Director of Michigan Parents for Schools (written in his capacity as a parent, but with the knowledge he brings from MIPFS), is worth your time! He calls it a "companion piece" to the parent letter that was sent to the Ann Arbor school board and teachers' union. (See this post.)

The little embedded video--all of 11 seconds long--is from the movie Independence Day--a movie I've never seen. This holiday should remind us all of our rights and responsibilities as Americans, and that's really what Steve's post is about! (And that's why I've got the text colors set up in red and blue!) --Ruth


By Steve Norton




Everyone who cares about education in our community ought to be paying attention to what is happening right now between the leaders of our school district and the union which represents Ann Arbor teachers. Not to take sides, or to point fingers, but to understand the awful consequences of policies crafted over many years by "think tanks" and lobbying groups who hold tremendous power in Lansing. What we are seeing here today was scripted long ago, by those who hold community governance of education in contempt. Should we continue to follow their script, or should we start writing our own?

As a concerned parent, I definitely want a strong and stable school district which can offer great programs, maintain reasonable class sizes, and avoid constant crises. But as an involved parent, I also know that what matters most for my children is their everyday interaction with the teachers and other professionals who educate and care for them. School is not a place where we send our children to download "facts" and memorize algorithms. A quality education helps teach our children how to think, how to ask the right questions, and how to understand those different from themselves. Together, parents and schools prepare our children to grow into thoughtful citizens and productive members of our community. That's not something which can happen without talented, committed professionals at every level, most especially in the classroom.

So what has our state done to help make this possible? More than twenty years ago, we placed the fate of our local schools largely in the hands of the state legislature, because we gave them control over the funding for our schools. Money isn't everything, but schools are dark and cold without electricity and gas, buses don't run without fuel, and programs don't exist without the people to implement them.

Since that time, districts like Ann Arbor have seen their per-pupil funding lag behind inflation nearly every year, to the point where the real spending power of our funding is  over 21% below where it was in 1995, even before retirement costs are subtracted. Overall state spending on K-12 education has stagnated over the last decade and more, and when the mandatory payments to the state retirement system are taken out, real state per-pupil spending is down 21% since 2002. Perhaps more important, the share of our state's economic product that we use to pay for education has gone steadily down over the last decade: in good times or bad, we are committing less and less of our income to support K-12 schools.

In response, local school districts have been cutting programs, laying off teachers, insisting on pay concessions from employees, and privatizing any services which can legally be contracted out. Class sizes have risen, offerings have narrowed, and teachers have not only had their pay cut but their resources slashed. The rise of high-stakes testing has pushed quality education aside for the sake of test prep. The system, and everyone it it, has been under more and more stress as the years pass by. For background on how this has played out in Ann Arbor, please see the presentation here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3W0G8KNKLfLempCX1BoUTJVMUU/view?usp=sharing

Make no mistake: this was intentional. Having restricted itself to a funding bucket that was no longer adequate for our schools, our Legislature alternated between years when they pompously announced that we "need to live within our resources" and others where they patted themselves on the back for increases which were really illusions. But the consequences of these choices, and the pain, played out at the local rather than state level as school boards were forced to oversee the dismantling of their local schools.

To add fuel to the fire, our elected state officials passed laws to ensure greater conflict at the local level. Starting in 2011, the Legislature made topics which had traditionally been worked out between teachers and school boards into "prohibited subjects" that could not be subject to bargaining and instead are under the sole control of the school board. Sensitive matters to teachers, such as staffing and placement, evaluation, layoff and rehiring priority, and the minimum standards for firing, were handed to beleaguered school boards as a replacement for adequate funding. "You won't get any more funding, but you can use these as leverage to whip things into shape." Already backed into a corner, is it any wonder that school boards were willing to use those new powers?

Furthermore, faced with constant pressure for financial concessions, rising health insurance and retirement costs, and now a real threat to their working conditions, is it any wonder that many teachers and their unions chose to fight back?

But why set this in motion? Well, if you believe - as many influentials in Lansing currently do - that "government" can never to anything as well as the private sector, and that it should be as small as possible, you want "public" education to be placed into private hands. The easiest way to do this is to get families to vote with their feet, and abandon local public schools rather than try to save them. The money follows the children - all of it. After all, who wants to stay on a sinking ship?

It is not necessary to get into the details of what has happened in Ann Arbor to recognize the pattern (for more, see the Parent Letter here [http://a2schoolsmuse.blogspot.com/2015/07/parents-ask-aaps-board-teachers-union.html]). We are being forced to fight over a shrinking pie. As the pressure continues, and the fights accumulate, our local public schools will be undermined, public confidence in them eroded, and talented educators driven away. This is how our community-governed public schools will die.

When you are in the middle of the fight, it can be hard to step back and look at the big picture. But for our community, it is essential. These kinds of battles will lead nowhere good - and the people who set the stage for this struggle know that. It's time we took it to heart ourselves.

Our school leaders and educators need to set aside their legal weaponry, and quite literally beat their swords into plowshares. All the resources being used to further this standoff, the legal and organizational effort involved, would be better used to secure a settlement among stakeholders locally and to find allies across the state for political action. Those of us on the outside, parents and members of the community, have a job to do as well: we need to do what we can to plug the financial holes for now, and add our energies to the effort to force our lawmakers to do right by our children and our schools. It may seem trite to say "Fight Lansing," but if we do not, our future is clear - and it will play out just as they intended.


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Parents Ask AAPS Board, Teachers' Union to Work on Agreement, Consider Mediation or Other Alternatives

Ann Arbor parent Steve Norton and a small work group have written a letter to the Ann Arbor Public Schools Board and to the Ann Arbor Education Association. It has been signed by a number of Ann Arbor parents--including me! I'm sure when you read it, you will agree with me that if more people had known about it, many more would have signed it.

*If you find yourself agreeing with the letter, but you didn't sign it, you should feel free to let the Board of Education and the AAEA (teachers' union) know how you feel! [One good way is to email them; another way is to share this on Facebook or Twitter. I'd suggest Instagram but I'm not sure it is all that photogenic...]

Steve wrote this to me in an email this morning:

This letter was the result of several weeks of work by a group of concerned AAPS parents who want to help repair the rupture between our district's leaders and our district's teachers. While the group recognizes the real financial concerns of the school board, it is very concerned that the highly confrontational strategy adopted by the Board is seriously undermining the confidence and morale of the very best teachers in our schools.
Central to the effort is an analysis of the legal situation by two attorney-parents, which shows that both sides would be better off in negotiations than waiting for an uncertain ruling by a court or administrative body. The group wants to offer the assistance of parents to help resume collaborative talks, and to remind both parties that, in the end, the schools need to serve the needs of the children and community.
The letter was delivered on 24 June to AAPS board Trustees, Superintendent Swift, AAEA President Linda Carter, and AAEA Executive Director George Przygodski. The group of signatories has received preliminary responses from a Board member and from AAEA, which give us some hope that we can help the parties resume productive discussions. We delayed publication of the letter as a courtesy to the parties, to allow them to absorb and possibly respond to our letter before it was made public. We are publishing the letter now because we believe this is a conversation which should engage the wider parent and teacher community.

Fair warning: Put some attorneys together and you won't get a short letter! It's long, and the link to the whole thing--including: a) the letter; b) the names of those who signed it; and c) the addendum (more detail)--is below.

Update July 5, 2015, a short note from Steve Norton: The workgroup which drafted the letter was convened by Steve Norton and Linh Song , and included some 20 parents and past parents who wanted to speak out on this issue. The group was assisted in understanding and assessing the current status of the contracts and the law surrounding teacher contracts by parents Vince Wellman, a law professor specializing in contract law, and Jack Panitch, an attorney in private practice with significant public sector experience.

Here is the link to the letter.

Here are a couple of excerpts.

As current school parents, we certainly value financial sustainability for our school district; annual budget crises and a decade of program cuts can and have diminished opportunities for our children, making it harder for our community to serve every child. We are very pleased with the renewed  optimism and opportunity in our school district. On the other hand, what really determines the  quality of our schools, and what means most to us as parents, is the quality, commitment and  dedication of the professionals who teach our children every day. Without their full enthusiasm, patience, and care, our school district would be nothing more than an empty shell—no matter how  stable its finances were.  

Parents are not insisting on any one solution. But we do insist that our schools’ elected officials and educators sit down and begin serious work on an agreement that, as much as possible, ensures that our teachers do not feel intimidated or disrespected while also protecting the stability of our schools  as an institution.  

We have become alarmed at the rupture that has occurred between our district’s leaders and educators. This is not mainly a disagreement over money: many teachers are feeling disrespected, hurt and betrayed. Nor are these feelings simply the product of rhetoric from a teachers’ union  engaged in a contract dispute. Recent steps by the Board of Education and district administrative leadership have done much to undermine hard-won goodwill, and we believe many of these steps are not only based on a false premise but are also profoundly unwise. 

The letter ends like this:

There is no question that our schools, as with all local public schools in Michigan, have been under tremendous financial and regulatory pressure in the last decade or more. We are determined to avoid  having a school district in constant financial peril with repeated increases in class size and cuts in  programming. 

At the same time, we as parents love and support our children’s teachers and react strongly to  anything that threatens to disrupt the countless amazing things that happen in our children’s  classrooms every day. 

Finally, we must all remember that we did not reach this point by accident. Laws, budgets and tax  policies have been crafted at the state level to foster precisely this kind of conflict. By continuing  an internal battle, we serve the interests not of our community but of those who wish to undermine community-governed public education. 

We urge you all, in the strongest possible terms, to step back from your legal maneuvering and begin  discussions about how to meet the needs of our children within the financial and legal constraints we  now face. We would be pleased to help you begin these discussions, and we encourage you to  consider some sort of mediation to foster a collaborative approach to finding solutions. 

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Key Updates--And A Survey

1. Have you liked Monet Tiedeman's live blogging of the school board meetings?
Find her work again tonight (the meeting is at Huron High School, by  the way):

https://annarbivore.wordpress.com/

Bookmark it!

2. Congratulations to Scott Westerman, for getting the Ann Arbor Preschool named after him. Dr. Westerman was Superintendent of the Ann Arbor Public Schools for many years and has stayed active in the community. (Yes, even now! He's still on the AAPS Blue Ribbon Advisory Group.)

3. Regarding the rumor that TAs might be outsourced, the school district would like to put that rumor to rest. Here's a comment from David Comsa, the Deputy Superintendent for Human Resources and Legal Services:

There is no chance of AAPS outsourcing teaching assistants. First, the district is actively bargaining with the Paraeducator unit, which includes teaching assistants. Second, state case law considers most teaching assistants to be protected from outsourcing. 

4. Lieutenant Governor Brian Calley has been doing a lot of work on the needs of kids who qualify for special education services in this state.

He has had meetings around the state, and now he has got a survey going, and he's hoping for a better response.

Find the survey at michigan.gov/calley.

I think most parents who have kids with special education needs have been impressed by Lt. Gov. Calley's work on this issue, so...help him out!

5. Need shots? The Regional Alliance for Healthy Schools is offering free immunizations:

Student Immunization Clinics

Walk-ins available from 9 am - 1 pm     

July 29th, 30th  &  August 5th, 6th, 12th, 13th

RAHS - Scarlett Middle School

You do not need to be a registered student at these schools to receive services. RAHS accepts insured and uninsured patients, regardless of ability to pay.

Washtenaw County Public Health staff bringing in polio vaccines.
In the 1950s. From Old News at the Ann Arbor District Library.

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Support Ann Arbor Teachers Issues Call to Action

I was asked to post this Call to Action from the Support Ann Arbor Teachers group, released this morning, 6/23/2015. Here it is--read on:

(And I am doing this on my phone so I hope I did it right! The formatting might be weird...)

PROBLEM:

The Ann Arbor Public Schools are in a crisis. The board has instituted a series of destructive policies that have alienated parents and teachers. These policies run counter to the values of the Ann Arbor community:

• ●  outsourcing and privatizing multiple departments (and eliminating many union jobs in the process)

• ●  embracing anti-union legislation by removing bargaining provisions from the teachers contract including evaluation, hiring, firing, layoff, recall, and seniority = “the backbone of the contract”

• ●  implementing budget cuts and pay freezes

• ●  increasing standardized testing with no provisions for opting out

• ●  acting in a patronizing, non-collaborative manner with educators, parents and community

  members

  CALL TO ACTION:

  The Ann Arbor community is demanding that the AAPS Board of Education and Superintendent take the following steps immediately.

1. 1)  Revise the agendas for Regular Meetings of the Ann Arbor Public Schools Board of Education so that the agendas place all discussion and voting on issues of high public interest between 6 and 9:30 pm.

2. 2)  Honor the collective bargaining agreement with the AAEA that is already in place.

3. 3)  Delay implementation of all testing measures and policies until January, 2016 so that

   administration, parents, and teachers can collaborate on a response to mandates.

4. 4)  Commit to six public forums in the 2015-16 school year where administration, teachers, and trustees can openly discuss these issues.

Support Ann Arbor Teachers = teachers parents, students, and interested community members trying to help resolve this crisis,

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Grounds Crew Now; Teachers' Aides Next? School Board Meeting Wednesday

You might have noticed this MLive article from June 19, 2015:

Ann Arbor Schools May Privatize Grounds Crew

As noted in the article,

Ann Arbor Public Schools may privatize its grounds crew to save up to $300,000.
The district will have to lay off 13 employees if it hires four local companies to provide grass cutting, snow removal and athletic field care.
The Board of Education on Wednesday, June 17, reviewed a proposal to hire AM Service of Ann Arbor, Great Lakes Environmental Services of Whitmore Lake, JCC Design of Whitmore Lake and Superior Lawn Care & Snow Removal of Ypsilanti to do the work.
"We believe this model of using a number of contractors to deliver services to parts of the district will help meet real time needs and increase agility in keeping grounds in really good shape," said Superintendent Jeanice Swift. (Emphasis added.)

This item will be voted on at Wednesday's (June 24th) board meeting.

Side Note:

Another item on the June 24th agenda will be the "revised" Draft Policy 5060, which addresses parents who refuse to have their children take state tests.

Here is the amended policy--do you think it is better? It does not call out any particular students. But it still maintains that the tests are mandatory, and it says the board may take "any additional actions," which I think is pretty broad.

But back to my other point.

The rumor that I have heard floating around--I have not seen any written documentation (but also I haven't looked for any)--is that the district is looking into outsourcing all of the teachers' aides in the district. Presumably that would mean making it so that another company (possibly PESG, which does the substitute teachers) would hire all of the teachers' aides and supply them to the district.

UPDATED 6/24/2015--response to this rumor from David Comsa, Deputy Superintendent of Human Resources and Legal Services: "There is no chance of AAPS outsourcing teaching assistants. First, the district is actively bargaining with the Paraeducator unit, which includes teaching assistants. Second, state case law considers most teaching assistants to be protected from outsourcing."

Notice the trend? The goal is to make it so that the number of employees the district is directly responsible for is as small as possible. There is a strong financial incentive for this--for all school district employees, the district is responsible for retirement costs (I believe the costs are above 25% of payroll, and the district is unable to control the amount they are required to pay--that is set by the state). It also gives the district a lot more flexibility.

However, there is certainly also a very troubling aspect to this as well. People lose their jobs, and there is no guarantee that they will be re-hired, or that their pay rates will be similar...even if they are, they will lose the opportunity for a state pension. It also distances the district from tough personnel decisions (after the initial layoff)--the district just tells the other company to do X with Y amount of money--if that leads to difficult working conditions or less pay for certain people--it is separated from the decisions of the district itself.

I recognize that the district, per pupil, gets about the same amount of money as we got thirteen years ago--and there-in lies the conundrum. On the other hand--although theoretically the services should not change, in reality I hear people complain all the time about the decline in custodial services, the decline in food service...I don't really know if the decline is real or imagined.

Can you imagine a time where the district outsourced the teachers? (Just. Asking. I have not heard of any plans to do so--and I do not mean to start any panic about that--but that is what some charter schools do.)

If you have feelings about any of this, you should share them with the Board of Education: boe@a2schools.org (note new, shorter, email address!), ideally before the school board meeting on June 24th.



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Unveiled: The MERC Unfair Labor Practices Complaints--Plus a Reception for PERA

At the end of May I wrote about the unfair labor practice complaints that the Ann Arbor Education Association was filing against the Ann Arbor Public Schools, and the Ann Arbor Public Schools complaint that was being filed against the Ann Arbor Education Association. That post can be found here, and primarily addresses the process of unfair labor complaints.

And here are the complaints!

Ann Arbor Education Association (the union) complaint against the Board of Education of the Ann Arbor Public Schools

The complaint lays out a lot of detail. There are attachments that support the AAEA claim.

I'm lazy and it's in pdf form so I would have to retype stuff and...well, just go read it already!

The attorney is Jeffrey Donahue from the firm of White, Schneider, Young & Chiodini, P.C.


Ann Arbor Public Schools Board of Education complaint against the Ann Arbor Education Association

The complaint lays out detail and a timeline, but it does not have a lot of attachments, unlike the other complaint.

Read this one too, it won't take too much of your time.

The attorney is Barbara Ruga from the firm of Clark Hill, but the AAPS representative signing the complaint is David Comsa, who is the legal point person/human resources point person for the school district.


********************

And as it happens, the Public Employment Relations Act (the Act which both sides are alleging the other violated) is having its 50th anniversary this year!  So guess what is on the web site of the state's department of Licensing And Regulatory Affairs (LARA)?  An invitation to an event celebrating the Public Employment Relations Act!

Public Employment Relations Act 50^th Anniversary Open House

Tuesday, July 21, 2015

1-4 PM Strolling Reception

MERC Detroit Office – Cadillac Place

3026 W. Grand Blvd, Ste. 2-750

Detroit, MI 48202

 

Light Snacks -- Photos and Memorabilia -- Public Welcome

RSVPs requested to LARA-MERC-PERA50@michigan.gov 

Hey, the public is welcome! So if you want to go, you should RSVP. 

Yes, folks, that is Republican Governor George Romney signing PERA on July 23, 1965.
How times have changed, eh? Photo taken from the LARA flyer. 

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Live-Blogging the Ann Arbor School Board Meetings

Nope, not me.

Monet Tiedemann has started live blogging Ann Arbor school board meetings. Tonight is the first night! 

For a time, Monet Tiedemann wrote the Ann Arbor Chronicle Ann Arbor school board coverage.

Thanks Monet! Check it out--

https://annarbivore.wordpress.com/2015/06/10/aaps-board-meeting-15-june-2015/


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Please Take the M-STEP Student and Parent Surveys

The Michigan Department of Education has put out parent and student surveys on the M-Step. I understand (at least on the parent survey) there is a comment section where you can put text. Use it!


Take the survey for students by June 12, 2015.

Take the survey for parents by June 19, 2015.



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Letter from an Ann Arbor Teacher: Remembering Our Agreements

I received this as an email from an AAPS high school teacher--who also happens to live in Ann Arbor--so she's a community member and voter--and parent!

Oh, and in case it's not clear--this is clearly a partisan (teacher's) point of view. Just FYI, I thought I would start out by acknowledging that. Also--I described some (not all) of this in a previous post, Confused? Just When Exactly Does the Teachers' Contract End?

From my teacher friend:

Discussions about the Ann Arbor teachers’ contract are confusing: the MOAs (memorandums of agreement), TAs (tentative agreements), durations of agreement, ratifications of agreement. It all sounds agreeable but hard to follow. As an AAPS teacher, I realize that if I’m feeling confused about these agreements, others in our community may be feeling equally—if not more--confused. I decided to go back and look at the agreements that the district and the union signed, and I’ve tried to summarize key elements here. Until 2015 the district and union’s statements and actions seemed to be consistent with the agreements. But in the spring of this year, the district started to issue statements and make decisions that seemed to ignore them. Has the district forgotten the agreements it signed? Do we need a new term: forgetting our agreements (FOA)? Since we may be experiencing this FOA, I’d like to introduce another term: remembering our agreements (ROA). Here is my attempt at ROA.

Since I don’t always trust my memory, I’ve been re-reading the documents. All of these agreements are available on the AAEA website (http://www.a2ea.org/) and on the AAPS district website. I’ve included links to the district website throughout. Quoted language from the various documents is in bold. (I haven’t been able to open these documents on the new AAPS website at a2schools.org so the links are to the old website at www.aaps.k12.mi.us.) I hope you will take my ROA as a starting point and then examine these documents for yourself.

In June 2010, the teachers agreed to loan the district money by deducting 2.2% from each teacher’s contract amount. The district agreed to pay us back using a complicated formula. This is in “AAEA June 10. 2010 Tentative Agreement” (Tentative Agreement between AAEA and AAPS For a Successor Agreement Extending the 2009-2011 Master Agreement June 14, 2010) http://www.aaps.k12.mi.us/hrs.home/files/june_14_aaea_ta.pdf  Basically, as revenues increase, a portion will be shared with the teachers. In the same document, the district agreed upon an expiration date for our contract tied to this sharing of revenue:

SECTION VIII. Duration of Agreement

Where ever the phrase “duration of agreement” is used it refers to June 30 of the school year in which Section II above is satisfied. That is the year in which the shared revenue increases total $4,500,000 or more. That date will be known in November when the official audited report is received. Negotiations for a successor agreement should begin by March 1 of that school year per section 1.223 of the Master Agreement.

This is a clear--though complicated--formula for determining the contract’s expiration date: June 30 of the school year in which the shared revenue increases total $4,500.000 or more.

The district has not paid the teachers back the money specified in 2010. In fact, we have given up more money since that loan was made. In March of 2013, at the district’s request, we voted to take a 3% pay cut. This reduction was for one year. The reality of a pay cut would make it hard for anyone to imagine that the district had paid us back or that the contract could now expire. I remember no such suggestion that either of these things had happened. This agreement is in “AAEA March 18, 2013 Tentative Agreement” (http://www.aaps.k12.mi.us/hrs.home/files/aaea_ta_2013.pdf)

Despite the fact that the 3% pay reduction was scheduled to end in June 2014, teachers voted to continue the pay cut (with step freezes) through the next school year, 2014 - 2015. See “AAEA June 20, 2014 Tentative Agreement.” (http://www.aaps.k12.mi.us/hrs.home/files/aaea_ta_2014.pdf) We took this vote in June 2014 in response to a letter sent to us by the Board of Education, saying they would terminate our contract if we did not vote to continue the 3% cut and step freeze for the next year. The grounds for this was the clause in our contract that says:

In the event there are major (exceeding .5% of projected annual revenue) reductions in local, state or federal revenues, or an unforeseen financial crisis which adversely affects the funding of schools, the Master Agreement shall terminate at the time such changes go into effect, except as the contract is extended by mutual agreement. (from article 10.118 of the Master Agreement (http://www.aaps.k12.mi.us/hrs.home/files/tma_for_printer.pdf)

Teachers voted for the pay freeze rather than lose the protections in our contract. The district’s actions and statements certainly seemed to indicate that they thought this was a valid contract. This agreement also included the following provision: “Problem solving to meet in March 2015 to discuss finances and the impact of 10.118.” Some have suggested that is an expiration date, but I don’t see anything about the contract expiring in that line.

Recently, the district has said that our contract needs updating. In her email of May 4, 2015, the superintendent wrote: “we will need to align the teacher contract with the 2011 and 2012 Michigan school reform legislation.” It is true that, under recent Michigan laws, some of the provisions in our contract are now “prohibited subjects” in new teacher contracts. The prohibited subjects are those items that the union may no longer bargain—items such as teacher evaluations, placement, discipline, and layoffs. The laws do take away the union’s right to have a say in how these important matters are worked out. Unfortunately, that is how “right to work” works. But these laws do not require our district to get rid of the provisions, nor do they dictate how the district handles these matters. The requirement is that the union may not bring them up or have a say.

Michigan law also states that a contract containing those prohibited subjects may remain in place until that contract expires. Remember the loan we made in 2010? The district agreed that our contract would not expire until “June 30 of the school year in which Section II above is satisfied. That is the year in which the shared revenue increases total $4,500,000 or 
more.” It seems to me that according to the agreement signed by the district, the contract has not expired because the district has not shared the agreed upon revenue increases with us.

One more point of confusion is the claim I’ve heard that our contract expires in June 30, 2016. This is a deadline found in “AAEA March 18, 2013 Tentative Agreement” (http://www.aaps.k12.mi.us/hrs.home/files/aaea_ta_2013.pdf). It does not refer to the contract’s expiration; it refers to our Association Rights amendment that “shall continue in effect through June 30, 2016.” This has to do with how the union functions and how dues are collected--not the contract’s expiration.

I am having a hard time understanding how the district interprets any of this to mean that the contract is about to expire or that they must remove protections from the contract. How do they explain this FOA (forgetting our agreements)? One explanation the district has offered is that when we voted to take the 3% pay cut (2013) and the pay freeze (2014) to help the district through the financial crisis, we technically opened up our contract which then caused it to expire. I realize that there are many legal details here that are way beyond my pay grade, but common sense tells me that the district should not use our vote agreeing to take a pay cut and a pay freeze (both at their request) as the grounds for terminating our contract.

When I see the signature of our district representative at the bottom of these agreements, I wonder how they are making sense of their current claims. Even if they now regret those decisions, the signatures attest to their agreement. Apparently, the concessions we have made, working cooperatively with the district to get through difficult financial times, have not been good enough for the superintendent and the Board. They now seem intent on undermining our bargained agreements in order to impose an “agreement” on us.

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Things I'm Reading about the State of Our State's Education

The Best Piece of the Week goes to Lindsey Smith at Michigan Radio.

Reporter’s Notebook: State needs to be more transparent about the schools it’s running is breathtaking, and at the same time damning.

Here is just a snippet:

The Emergency Loan Board is a public body. It should act like one 

Here's the thing about the Emergency Loan Board (ELB).

It has incredible power to keep schools and municipalities out of bankruptcy court. It can lend tens of millions of taxpayer dollars – repeatedly – to schools that are going broke. It even has subpoena power.
Yet there’s very little transparency.
Its three members all head state departments. Each handpicked by the governor.

 ELB members (L-R) Department of Technology, Management and Budget Director David Behen; Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs Director Mike Zimmer; and state Treasurer Nick Khouri. CREDIT STATE OF MICHIGAN

The board has no webpage. Its meetings in Lansing are open to the public, but there is no schedule. Meetings are sporadic.
Meeting minutes aren’t available online, a common practice for public bodies. So you can’t just go somewhere to see what the board has been up to lately.
Meeting notices are sent via email. But there are no agenda or documents attached. If Michigan’s Department of Treasury doesn’t want you to find out ahead of time what it's going to approve, you won’t know.
Any decision the board makes must be unanimous, according to state law. Is that why it functions mostly as a rubber-stamp board?
The decisions the board makes are “vetted” and reviewed by Treasury staff, according to Treasury Department spokesman Terry Stanton.

Read the rest here.

Runner Up: Eclectablog's piece on some state legislators' agenda for schools.

An excellent post at Eclectablog calling out the agenda of some Republicans in our state legislature, for example Rep. Tim Kelly of Saginaw Township, who believes in "publicly-funded education," just not "publicly delivered."

Third Place: A New York Times Article, 'Opt Out' Becomes Potent Political Force.

You might not have seen this article because it is a New York Region article (and I found it courtesy of Diane Ravitch).

Key information:

At least 165,000 children, or one of every six eligible students, sat out at least one of the two standardized tests this year, more than double and possibly triple the number who did so in 2014, according to an analysis by The New York Times.As the vanguard of an anti-testing fervor that has spread across the country, New York’s opt-out movement has become a political force. Just two months ago, lawmakers from both parties, at the behest of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, a Democrat, increased the role of test scores in teacher evaluations and tenure decisions. Those legislators are now tripping over one another to introduce bills that guarantee the right to refuse to take tests.

The maps are really interesting to look at, they show the opt-out movement's growth over time.

Honorable Mention: From the Washington Post, Will Schools Lose Federal Funds if Kids Don't Take Mandated Tests? 

Here's how the article starts:

I’ve recently published a number of posts on the growth and impact of the standardized testing opt-out movement. As more parents choose against allowing their children to sit down for new mandated tests, the pushback from administrators is increasing in many places, with some of them threatening consequences to students who refuse to take the assessments.
Here’s a look at what is true and not true about the consequences attached to opting out from standardized testings. It was written by Monty Neill, executive director of the National Center for Fair and Open Testing, known as  FairTest, a nonprofit organization that works to end the misuses of standardized testing and to ensure that evaluation of students, educators and schools is fair, open, valid and educationally sound.

And I'm re-reading: 

I've gone back to an excellent series of articles by the Detroit Free Press, on how charter schools are not held accountable.



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Ypsilanti Community Schools Superintendent Interviews This Week!

Ypsi's famous landmark. Picture taken from wikimedia,
Creative Commons license. 2007, cmadler.

I know most of my readers are Ann Arborites, but we all know that good schools are key to having a vibrant society. I've been working in Ypsilanti for several years, and I have kind of fallen in love with the place. And the Ypsilanti schools have a very important decision coming up--the choice of a new superintendent!

So here are the list of interviewees, dates, and times--if you live in Ypsilanti, please try to attend!

There are two local candidates: Ben Edmonson, an Ann Arbor principal (he's been principal at Scarlett, Roberto Clemente, and no is co-principal at Pathways, and he's been a candidate for Ann Arbor superintendent in the last go-round), and Sarina Shivers, who is an assistant superintendent at the WISD (she is asst. superintendent of student achievement, and at the WISD I'm not exactly sure what that means--go listen to her interview, and find out!).

POSITION OF YCS SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS

Location: YCS Administration Building; 1885 Packard Rd.; Ypsilanti, MI 48197

Interviews open to students, parents, staff and community members.

Monday: June 8, 2015 @ 7:00 p.m.
Dr. Denise G. Saddler, Assistant Superintendent for Education Services of Berryessa Union School District; San Jose, CA

Tuesday: June 9, 2015 @ 6:30 p.m.
Dr. Benjamin Edmonson, Co-Principal of Pathways to Success Academic Campus; Ann Arbor Public Schools

Tuesday: June 9, 2015 @ 8:15 p.m.
Dr. Josha Talison, Superintendent of Beecher Community Schools; Flint, MI

Wednesday: June 10, 2015 @ 6:30 p.m.
Dr. Sarena M. Shivers, Assistant Superintendent of Student Achievement at the Washtenaw Intermediate School District; Ann Arbor

Wednesday: June 10, 2015 @ 8:15 p.m.
Dr. Terry Barker, Superintendent; Mishawaka, IN

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Ann Arbor’s Move to Punish Opting Out: Even For This Test-Taking Family, It’s Bad Policy

A guest post by Naomi Zikmund-Fisher

If you look at the sidebar on the right of this blog, it asks that we assume that everyone wants the best for schools. There are (and I’m generalizing here) two general ways you can think about what is best for schools:

Philosophy #1: It is best for schools when schools are well funded, everything is going smoothly and achievement is high.

Philosophy #2: It is best for schools when each individual child, as a whole person, is getting what he or she needs.

As you look at those two possibilities, you probably are thinking that you don’t disagree with either of them. But one may seem more the way you look at schools than the other. Parents tend more towards #2 – we want our kids to get what our kids need. School officials tend more towards #1 – we want our schools to get what they need to serve all kids.

In a perfect world, these two views would never conflict. However, this being the real, imperfect world, they sometimes do. Recent issues surrounding Michigan’s standardized test, the MSTEP, have brought those conflicts to the forefront.

On the one hand, the law says that schools have to test the vast majority of children in order to maintain their government funding, which they certainly need. Philosophy #1 dictates that kids take the test. On the other hand, many parents say that this test is bad for children – their individual children and/or children in general, and therefore do not want their children to participate. Philosophy #2 says kids should not take this test.

During this most recent round of testing, much larger numbers of families than in previous years “opted out” of testing as a protest against the test itself and/or testing policy and/or to protect their own children from the effects of prolonged testing. The school district understandably is concerned with the possibility that this trend could cost the schools money they really need.

At last week’s School Board meeting, the Board had a first briefing on a policy to address this issue. It states that:

Failure to participate in all state assessments may result in exclusion and/or removal from any application-based school or program.

In other words, you let your child take the MSTEP or they cannot attend Ann Arbor Open, Ann Arbor STEAM,  Community, the IB Schools, or the Skyline magnets. And where are the opt-out families disproportionately clustered? At the school whose philosophy emphasizes the whole child and de-emphasizes standardized testing: Ann Arbor Open.

I am going to assume, for the sake of argument, that this policy is legal. Someone with more expertise than I can discuss that aspect. But let’s just suppose for the moment that it is legally permissible. Legally permissible is not the same thing as right.

And this is wrong.

Instead of taking a stance that says, “We respect what you’re trying to do but we don’t think it’s the right thing,” the Board said , “Agree with us or we will punish you.” But by “you,” they mean only parents of children in certain programs. If your child goes to a neighborhood school, there is no consequence at all.

What’s more, instead of opening a conversation with parents who are proponents of opting out, or even discussing the policy openly in advance of the meeting, they voted on it late in the evening and without the proposed policy being attached to the Board agenda.

I don’t think any person on the Board or any member of central administration can look me, or you, or anyone else in the eye and honestly say that they believe these tests are good for children. They may not think they’re as bad as some of us do, but they are flawed.

The Board sees this as purely a financial issue, even though no funding has ever been lost for failing to test enough children. Parents who opt out see this as a question of what is right for children. Faced with that conflict, what do we do?  The Board’s answer not only is to go with philosophy #1, but to flatly punish people for going with philosophy #2.

So I’ll say it again. This is wrong. It is a bad policy moved forward using bad process. If you agree with me, I hope you’ll let the Board of Education know.

Author’s note: At this point, you may be asking yourself:  who is writing this and where does she  stand on the testing issue?

Who am I to say this is wrong?

From 2002-2010 I was the Principal of Ann Arbor Open School. There were a handful of test opter-outers every year, and one year it cost us our “Annual Yearly Progress” certification. I do, however, support the idea that schools should not be able to get out of the fact that they are educating some groups of kids much better than others by only testing those who will do well. The emphasis on testing all children does have a point.

My children took the MSTEP this year. They attend Ann Arbor Open and Community. We decided that, while we think that standardized testing is a poor measure of student growth and school and teacher quality, and that draconian policies that require more and more testing diminish the quality of education for all, opting them out would likely not achieve much, and sitting around not taking a test wouldn’t get back the time wasted.

At the same time, I have a lot of respect for those who made the opposite decision. Good people with good intentions have different ideas of what to do, and I can’t fault someone for doing what they believe is right for their child. It is long past time for the Board to honor the real convictions of those who opt their children out by having an open, honest dialog about how to handle this situation in Ann Arbor, and I believe the proposed policy is a drastic step in the wrong direction.

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There's a New Group in Arbor Town; Parents and Teachers are Riled Up!

There is SO much going on these days. And while I was busy with my life, the school world spun madly on...In the last few weeks, the school board has pushed through two very controversial policies at an hour when most of us were sleeping, and without sufficient notice.

I'm talking about the Prohibited Subjects Policy, which I wrote about here, and Draft Policy 5060, which has gone through first briefing. The Prohibited Subjects Policy was first posted in board docs on the day it was voted on, and Draft Policy 5060--which tries to punish families in "application-based programs" who opt their children out of testing--wasn't even posted in board docs until an astute parent asked what that policy on the agenda was.

June 3, 2015 Update: Point of clarification--board policies do not jump unformed to first briefing. This policy, for instance, was discussed at the May 20 Governance Committee, which was a public meeting held at Skyline at 3:30 p.m. FYI, the Governance Committee is where all potential board policies are discussed. [I don't know that the public was there, but the public IS welcome.]

So, long story short, a new policy is not introduced for the first time at a regular BOE meeting; it goes to Governance first. The public is welcome at these meetings. 

And we, parents and teachers and citizens, have been asleep. I know. I--like so many of you--get up early to go to work; and the school board meetings start with almost two hours of presentations, awards, and public commentary. When people do show up at the meetings, they tend to leave after public commentary. Very few people stay around to the bitter end.

How quiet is it? At the last board meeting, Ann Arbor News reporter Lindsay Knake had this tweet:

The next morning, when I woke up, I laughed at this tweet.

This tweet would, of course, be funny--if it weren't so tragic. That means that aside from the school board members and staff required to be there, Lindsay Knake--who has been the education reporter for the Ann Arbor News for less than a year--was probably the only other (awake) observer in the room.

And that, itself, is a failure!

That is not the only failure.

I reject the fact that the board is not following its own, established, policies and procedures. (I'm not entirely sure if the policies were violated in actuality, because I wasn't at the meetings to see what time they discussed certain items, but I'm quite sure they were violated in spirit. Policies 1200 and Policy 1220 were put in place to ensure that items were discussed while people were still awake, and with proper timelines for giving notice to topics.) I wrote about these issues earlier in an Ann Arbor Chronicle article, Good Ideas, Flawed Process. So if I was calling out the board and superintendent on ideas that I thought were good, but the process was bad, you can be sure that I am upset about ideas that I think are bad, where the process is bad.

And I do think that both the Prohibited Subjects Policy and the Draft Policy 5060 are bad. (Look for a post tomorrow on Draft Policy 5060.)

I reject the idea that either policy had to be created or implemented now.

I reject the idea that either policy had to be brought forward without public discussion, sneaked onto the agenda.

I believe that by acting in this way, the school board and superintendent have unnecessarily inflamed passions with both teachers and parents.

It's puzzling to me--and so, so disappointing--that the board and superintendent have turned to poor process on these issues, when they had such a good model of process, and policy development, for the discussions around weapon-free schools. Why not build on that successful process instead?


*********************************

SO--What Next?

Well, there's a new group in town:

Ann Arbor Community for Trust and Transparency in Schools 

(AACTTS! We hope to have lots of AACTTSion).

Ann Arbor Community for Trust and Transparency in Schools is a new community group focused on how we as citizens and constituents can have a voice in shaping local and state educational policies and decision-making processes. We are coming together to understand and address issues that challenge the values that our community holds as partners in educating our kids.

I don't mind saying that the decisions on these two policies have done a lot to galvanize people. I personally feel that trust in the district is at an all-time low. But it doesn't have to be that way.

If you look at the top of this page, you will see that I have added a "page" to the blog for the AACTTS information. You can click on that tab, or you can follow this link.

Right now we are encouraging people to write to/talk to board members, and there are some sample letters on the page. One-on-one contact is good! Let board members know how you feel--about the policies, about the labor negotiations, about the process the board is using...

You can also sign a petition that is focused on Draft Policy 5060.

Sign the petition here.



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