Dear Visionaries,<div><br></div><div>As promised my radio commentary/column is on the Luna bills and Vandersloot's vicious attack ads. Next week's radio address will cover the Luna bills in detail, but everything is not included in the full version attached.</div>
<div><br></div><div>I conclude my column with the observation that the Idaho Federation of Teachers proposed a Master Teacher plan 30 years before Tom Luna did, but the SBOE did not even give us the courtesy of a response.</div>
<div><br></div><div>Sue: I asked Penni if the IEA was going to respond to the loss of membership in the NEA. In my long version I speculated about one reason: restrictions in some GOP states on "fair-share" agreements. I know that public employee unions have lost thousands of members in Wisconsin because non-union employees no longer had to pay for the costs of collective bargaining, usually about 90 percent of unions dues determined by a judge or labor board. This is a widely accepted (at least in progressive states) option to the union shop in the private sector.</div>
<div><br></div><div>This column will be adapted as an add that will run in Idaho major newspapers after I get a legal opinion about using union dues in this fashion. Seems to be a "Go" after Citizens United, right?</div>
<div><br></div><div>Yours for teacher solidarity.</div><div><br></div><div>Nick</div><div><br></div><div><p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center"><b><span style="line-height:115%;font-family:Georgia,serif">DEMONIZING TEACHERS AND THEIR ELECTED LEADERS</span></b></p>
<p align="center" style="margin-top:3.95pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:12.0pt;margin-left:0in;text-align:center;line-height:115%;vertical-align:baseline"><span style="font-family:Georgia,serif">By Nick
Gier, President, Idaho Federation of Teachers, AFT/AFL-CIO</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height:115%;font-family:Georgia,serif"> A full page ad entitled “Unions Declare War on Idaho
Kids!” has appeared in many Idaho newspapers.
It was paid for by right-wing agitator Frank L. Vandersloot, Dutch for
“from the ditch,” which describes the nature of ad quite accurately. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height:115%;font-family:Georgia,serif"><br></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"><span style="line-height:115%;font-family:Georgia,serif">Vandersloot
charges that teacher unions “fought Governor Scott Walker’s educational reforms
in Wisconsin. The kids won. The unions lost.” This conclusion is a tad
premature. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"><span style="line-height:115%;font-family:Georgia,serif"><br></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="line-height:115%;font-family:Georgia,serif;background-color:white">On
March 30 U.S. District Judge William Conley ruled against a provision of
Walker’s bill that required, just as Idaho now does for teachers, that public
employee unions hold bargaining elections every year. This is a burden that no democratic system has
ever imposed.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="line-height:115%;font-family:Georgia,serif;background-color:white"><br></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="line-height:115%;font-family:Georgia,serif;background-color:white">Then
on September 14 Dean County Judge Juan Colas ruled that Walker’s bill deprives
public employees of their “rights of free speech, association, and equal
protection.” </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="line-height:115%;font-family:Georgia,serif;background-color:white"><br></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="line-height:115%;font-family:Georgia,serif;background-color:white"> Vandersloot wants us to believe that
teachers have finally realized they have been duped by union “bosses” in
Washington, D.C. A survey K-12 teachers
done by the think-tank Education Sector</span></span><span style="line-height:115%;font-family:Georgia,serif;background-color:white"> found that 81% believed
that they “would be vulnerable to school politics or administrators who abuse
their power” without union contracts.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height:115%;font-family:Georgia,serif;background-color:white"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height:115%;font-family:Georgia,serif;background-color:white"> In a recent
appearance in New York City Mitt Romney brushed off a comment by a parent and
school board member, who reported that parents supported the union by 3-1 over
Mayor Michael Bloomberg. In Chicago thousands
of parents marched with 50,000 union members in support of the Chicago
Federation of Teachers.</span><span style="line-height:115%;font-family:Georgia,serif"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"><span style="line-height:115%;font-family:Georgia,serif"><br></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"><span style="line-height:115%;font-family:Georgia,serif">A
McKeon & Associates poll of registered Chicago voters showed that 47
percent supported the strike while 39 percent opposed. Only 19 percent said Mayor
Rahm Emanuel, Obama’s former Chief of Staff, said that he was doing an above
average job addressing the teachers’ issues.
</span></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText2" align="left" style="text-indent:0.5in;line-height:115%"><span style="line-height:115%;font-family:Georgia,serif">Vandersloot and his ilk
spit out “union bosses” as if they were dictators with devious control over
millions of teachers and school boards. Labor unions, however, are some of the
most democratic organizations in the nation. All unions gain their right to
represent workers by a majority vote of the bargaining unit. </span></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText2" align="left" style="text-indent:0.5in;line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Georgia,serif;line-height:115%;text-indent:0.5in">Instead of dictates from
D.C., union members also decide for themselves whether to withhold their
services.</span><span style="font-family:Georgia,serif;line-height:115%;text-indent:0.5in"> </span><span style="font-family:Georgia,serif;line-height:115%;text-indent:0.5in">Over the years they have held
fewer and fewer strikes. </span><span style="font-family:Georgia,serif;line-height:115%;text-indent:0.5in"> </span><span style="font-family:Georgia,serif;line-height:115%;text-indent:0.5in">The number of work
stoppages in the nation’s 16,000 school districts fell from 271 in 1975 to 15
in 2004.</span><span style="font-family:Georgia,serif;line-height:115%;text-indent:0.5in"> </span></p>
<p style="text-indent:.5in;line-height:115%;background:white"><span style="font-family:Georgia,serif">The National
Education Association (2.2 million members), the American Federation of
Teachers (1.5 million members), and millions of parents are not happy with Obama’s continuation of Bush Era policies,
which place far too much emphasis on test scores and pit states and schools
districts against one another. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"><span style="line-height:115%;font-family:Georgia,serif">The Washington (D.C.) Teachers’ Union (AFT) has now succeeded in
reducing the percentage that test scores count in teacher evaluation from 50 to
35 percent. The NEA-AFT union in Los Angeles has convinced its board that test
scores will no longer be used in teacher evaluation. In stark contrast Idaho
law now requires that lump sum merit pay appropriations be sent to school
districts solely on the basis of test score improvement.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"><span style="line-height:115%;font-family:Georgia,serif"><br></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"><span style="line-height:115%;font-family:Georgia,serif">In 1983 the National Commission on Excellence
in Education issued a report entitled “A Nation at Risk.” As the new president
of the Idaho Federation of Teachers, I went on a state-wide speaking tour and
committed my union to education reform. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"><span style="line-height:115%;font-family:Georgia,serif"><br></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"><span style="line-height:115%;font-family:Georgia,serif">The IFT offered a Master Teachers Plan in
response to the report’s call for merit pay. Master Teachers would be
responsible for curriculum development and mentoring new teachers and would
receive substantial salary increments for that work. The State Board of Education failed to
respond to our plan, even though we introduced the concept of Master Teacher 30
years before Superintendant Tom Luna did.</span></p>
<p style="margin-top:3.95pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:12.0pt;margin-left:0in;text-indent:.5in;line-height:115%;vertical-align:baseline"><span style="font-family:Georgia,serif">I urge voters to ignore these vicious attacks
on teachers and repeal the Luna Laws by voting “No” on Propositions 1, 2, and
3.</span></p>
<p style="margin-top:3.95pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:12.0pt;margin-left:0in;text-indent:.5in;line-height:115%;vertical-align:baseline"><span style="font-family:Georgia,serif">Nick
Gier is President of the Idaho Federation of Teachers, AFT/AFL-CIO.</span></p>
<p style="text-indent:.5in;line-height:115%;background:white"><span style="font-family:Georgia,serif"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:115%;font-family:Georgia,serif"> </span></p></div><div><br></div>