State public school chief calls for targeted spending

Read Molly Farmer's article about State Supt. Larry Shumway's "State of Education" speech at www.deseretnews.com

"Targeted spending and strengthening business relationships are some of the improvements State Superintendent Larry Shumway would like to see made in the public school system during the upcoming school year."

Rick

Teacher Accountablility

The Philadelphia Inquirer wrote in it's editorial several days ago:

"President Barack Obama made another big push for his education agenda this week, with a renewed call to hold the worst teachers accountable. Those who fail to improve quickly have 'got to go.' It is a hard directive, but a necessary one, given the sorry state of public education. Students are failing classes and flunking out at alarming rates unable to read or perform basic math skills. Obama's plan calls for teachers who miss the mark to get additional training and a chance to improve, which is fair. But those who still fail to improve after a reasonable period could be fired. No doubt, teachers' unions are disturbed to hear such tough talk again from Obama, and with it the prospect that some teachers could lose jobs. But the president has made clear his intent to change the status quo. Obama did take a conciliatory tone in expressing his desire to work with the education unions. Historically, collective bargaining units have been reluctant to address issues such as tenure that make it difficult to get rid of poorly performing teachers. That must change. Keeping bad teachers who wear tenure like a badge of honor hurts students students in chronically troubled schools. It also makes it difficult for good teachers to create environments where students can succeed."

Rick

WEA Mediation Meeting

The Weber Education Association negotiation team met with the District team and mediator, Lynn Trenbeath, last evening and finished up talks and agreements on all non-money items. We are still waiting for the legislature to meet (probably in November) to discuss how much and when we will receive the "federal jobs bill" money that can be used for salary. We were happy to hear that P.E. specialists will be hired for each elementary school starting in January to give teachers another 30 minutes of prep time. Elementary prep time has been a priority of our WEA negotiations for four years.

Rick

Salt Lake Tribune Editorial: School Like Ours

Read in today's Salt Lake Tribune at www.sltib.com (under opinion) about Utah's test scores lagging behind other similar states. Utah's students lag far behind in reading, math and science test scores, according to a new local study that compares Utah students with those in states that similar demographics.

rick

Ogden/Weber Candidate Recommendations

Here are the PAC recommended candidates:

• House 6 No recommendation
• House 7 Ryan Wilcox
• House 8 Gage Froerer
• House 9 Neil Hansen
• House 10 Randy Rounds
• House 11 Brad Dee
• House 12 Richard Greenwood
• Senate 18 No recommendation

Rick

Waiting for Superman

Gail Collins has a great column in the NY Times (http://www.nytimes.com/)
today talking about the movie "Waiting for Superman" that follows five urban students in their quest to find a better education. NBC and MSNBC have been discussing education all week and there has been a lot of "union bashing". The column is worth reading.


Rick

Jordan School Board ratifies agreement with teachers for lanes and steps

The Jordan School District has ratified the agreement with the Jordan Education Association that resulted from negotiations, mediation and finally a fact-finding hearing. Jordan teachers will receive their lanes and steps for this year, but will not receive them next year unless funding increases to pay for them. JEA went to impasse early in the process and mediation did not solve anything. A fact-finder was hired by the district and JEA (final cost to JEA was several thousand dollars). The JEA leadership and staff prepared extensive material that was presented to the fact-finder in a hearing. The fact-finder recommended that the school district pay the lanes and steps. Jordan did not receive steps last year, but took a one-time 1% bonus instead.

Weber resumes their mediation meetings with the district and our mediator, Lynn Trenbeath, next Monday, Oct. 4.

Ogden has not scheduled any further mediation meetings until we have more information about the federal money coming to our state. Our best information (from legislators) is that we probably will be able to use half of the federal money for salaries and benefits, because the legislature will cut the districts funding for this fiscal year because of the lack of tax revenues. The new tax revenue numbers will be here in November and the legislators tell us that they will meet in special session in November to discuss the money.

Rick