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1) Tennessee: Do Union Teachers
Really Pay $422 in Dues to Receive $130 Less Money?
Republicans in the Tennessee legislature have introduced a
bill to
ban collective bargaining by the state's public school teachers. The
current law allows it, but doesn't require it. Naturally, this has the
Tennessee Education Association up in arms. The Tennessee School Boards
Association supports the bill, but the expenditure numbers it released sound
a little hard to believe.
According to the database supplied
by TSBA and posted on the Knoxville News Sentinel web site, 92
districts bargain and 45 do not. However, teachers from the non-bargaining
districts earn, on average, $130 per year more in pay and benefits than do
those who bargain collectively.
If true, then teachers represented by
the Tennessee Education Association will pay $254 to TEA and another $168 to
NEA for the privilege of earning $130 less.
That's a slap in the face to the union
and its members, but it's not exactly a triumph for the other side. Were the
difference to hold, then eliminating collective bargaining in those 95
districts would cost the state about another $6 million per year in teacher
compensation.
2) Last Week's Intercepts.
EIA's blog,
Intercepts, covered these topics from January 25-31:
* 144
Unions, 18 School Districts Receive Health Care Waivers. Sick.
* Rewriting
History: The Bruce Randolph Story. Short-term memory loss.
*
Who's Ditching Collaborpalooza? About 13,500 districts have better
things to do.
*
Teachers' Union Learns About Boundaries. "Let us in!"
*
Cracking the Code. Could be a columnar transposition cipher, but it's
definitely not plaintext.
3)
Quote of the Week.
"I
disagree with him completely that our system is broken. It's not our system,
it's the preparation of our kids these days. For my school, is it my fault
that students come to me in the eighth grade and read at a second grade
level?"
-
Ruby Caliendo, a middle school teacher in Nevada, commenting on Gov. Brian
Sandoval's budget address.
(January 25
Las Vegas Sun) |
