Teachers paid not to teach

[The Scotsman]

California is one State that does not exactly boast the healthiest current account balance sheet indeed the Governor himself made this statement late last year

Well, the legislators heard an earful earlier this week from our financial experts about our financial situation. And it's exactly the same sad news and same thing that I've been saying actually for months now. California faces a growing financial crisis and if we don't put aside our ideological differences and negotiate and solve this problem, we're heading towards a financial Armageddon.

Obviously this problem is not just confined to California but consider the following................

L.A. Unified pays teachers not to teach

About 160 instructors and others get salaries for doing nothing while their job fitness is reviewed. They collect roughly $10 million a year, even as layoffs are considered because of a budget gap.

For seven years, the Los Angeles Unified School District has paid Matthew Kim a teaching salary of up to $68,000 per year, plus benefits.

His job is to do nothing.

Every school day, Kim's shift begins at 7:50 a.m., with 30 minutes for lunch, and ends when the bell at his old campus rings at 3:20 p.m. He is to take off all breaks, school vacations and holidays, per a district agreement with the teacher's union. At no time is he to be given any work by the district or show up at school.

He has never missed a paycheck.

In the jargon of the school district, Kim is being "housed" while his fitness to teach is under review. A special education teacher, he was removed from Grant High School in Van Nuys and assigned to a district office in 2002 after the school board voted to fire him for allegedly harassing teenage students and colleagues. In the meantime, the district has spent more than $2 million on him in salary and legal costs.


Last week, Kim was ordered to continue this daily routine at home. District officials said the offices for "housed" employees were becoming too crowded.

About 160 teachers and other staff sit idly in buildings scattered around the sprawling district, waiting for allegations of misconduct to be resolved.

The housed are accused, among other things, of sexual contact with students, harassment, theft or drug possession. Nearly all are being paid. All told, they collect about $10 million in salaries per year -- even as the district is contemplating widespread layoffs of teachers because of a financial shortfall.

Most cases take months to adjudicate, but some take years.

Kim, 41, has persisted the longest.

He argued unsuccessfully in a lawsuit that he was the victim of disability discrimination. Born with severe cerebral palsy, he has limited use of his limbs, must use a wheelchair and requires a full-time personal aide (who is paid about $14 an hour by the district). He declined repeatedly to be interviewed, as did his attorney, Lawrence Trygstad.

Kim's long-term stay in paid professional limbo highlights how long it can take to move through the thicket of legal protections afforded educators in the Los Angeles Unified School District, the nation's second-largest.

"It's a glaring example of how hard it is to remove someone from the classroom and how the process is tilted toward teachers," said school board member Marlene Canter, who recently proposed -- unsuccessfully -- to revamp the disciplinary process.

National issue

The problem of what to do with teachers in trouble extends well beyond Los Angeles Unified. But not every district in California, or the country, handles it the same way.

In New York City public schools, which make up the country's largest district, teachers are confined to "rubber rooms." About 550 of the district's 80,000 teachers spend school hours "literally just doing crossword puzzles, waiting for the end of the day" until their cases are resolved, spokeswoman Ann Forte said. Some have been there for years.

In Chicago, the dismissal process moves faster and the 30 teachers waiting for their cases to be resolved are assigned clerical tasks. "They've got to be doing something," senior assistant general counsel James Ciesil said.

San Francisco Unified employees are either sent home or assigned to tasks such as working in warehouses, doing inventory or answering phones, said Jolie Wineroth, the district's senior executive director for human resources.

"I don't want to give anyone a free vacation," she said.

Former union leaders say teachers in the Los Angeles district used to be assigned non-teaching jobs when they were housed. "They should not just sit there like zombies," said Hank Springer, United Teachers Los Angeles president from 1975 to 1980.



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http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-teachers6-2009may06,0,3038809.story

 

[ASPCA4EVER]

I'd smack my fore head in frustration but as with my local USD teachers union, I'm not surprised and after smacking my fore head in extenuous frustration I'm sure to have a 'self inflicted concussion'...soon, real soon!

OMG...that is appalling...UNIONS aren't they GRAND! Which is worse Unions or the School Districts that just waste the tax payers money...Hmmm???

 

[Pandora]

Which is worse Unions or the School Districts that just waste the tax payers money...Hmmm???

School districts do what they do BECAUSE of the union that backs them!


I work for the biggest school district in my area, and boy oh boy can I tell you some stories.


By the way do you get the day after thanksgiving off paid?

I do

 

[ASPCA4EVER]

School districts do what they do BECAUSE of the union that backs them!


I work for the biggest school district in my area, and boy oh boy can I tell you some stories.


By the way do you get the day after thanksgiving off paid?

I do

No, I'm just a lowly Paraprofessional that works via a contractual agreement with the school district. 6 HOURS A WEEK NO MORE NO LESS, everything else that I do is strictly volunteer duty and I support 3 different teachers with my extra time - 4 free!

I get loads of days off but very few of them are paid! Right now I'm off because of elder care of my mother...and when she was released the school district had a hiring freeze on...still loads of special needs children but not money! Or so I'm told! Wait until summer before reapplying for contracts...last summer they weren't ready until 2 days before school started...GOOD GRIEF!

 

[ASPCA4EVER]

Obama's education secretary seeks parents', educators' comments on No Child Left Behind law

LIBBY QUAID | AP Education Writer
8:01 PM EDT, May 5, 2009

BUNKER HILL, W.Va. (AP) — Special education teacher Lynn Reichard has a problem with the federal No Child Left Behind law: Some of her kids cannot read, never mind pass its required state test.

Reichard told Education Secretary Arne Duncan on Tuesday that she works all year long to boost the self-esteem of mentally impaired students at Bunker Hill Elementary, only to see them fall apart over standardized tests.

"They feel so good about themselves, and then they look at a two-paragraph reading passage, and they know six words," Reichard said. "I have one child here that's a nonreader, and she's going to have to take the test, and she's going to cry.

"There's just got to be another answer for that," Reichard said.

No Child Left Behind pushes schools to boost the performance of low-achieving students, and Duncan gives the law credit for shining a spotlight on kids who need the most help. Opponents, however, insist the law's annual reading and math tests have squeezed subjects like music and art out of the classroom and that schools were promised billions of dollars they never received.
Duncan wants to hear how the program works from educators, parents and kids, and he began a 15-state "listening tour" at Reichard's school in the eastern panhandle of rural West Virginia. President Barack Obama has been vague about much he would overhaul the law, but on Tuesday, his ideas began to take shape.

The teacher was right, Duncan said later.

While the law does make allowances for different tests for severely impaired kids, many don't fall into that category.

"To have a child taking a test that it is literally impossible for them to pass and having that humiliation, and holding schools accountable for that, that doesn't make sense," Duncan said in an interview with the Associated Press.

Duncan used Reichard's tale as an example of how the federal government should be "looser" about how states meet goals. He fought the government on similar issues in his last job, as chief executive of Chicago's public schools.

At the same time, he said, the government should get "tighter" about goals, insisting on more rigorous academic standards that are uniform across the states.

"What I mean by loose is not getting away from accountability at all," he told the AP. "What I mean by loose is giving folks more flexibility in how they achieve their goals."

Duncan made time to visit with kids, reading the book, "Doggie Dreams" to first-graders at Bunker Hill and having lunch with fourth-graders at Eagle Intermediate School in Martinsburg, where he ate a cheesesteak sandwich and onion rings but finished only half his vegetables.

"Who's the president now?" Duncan asked the first-graders, one of whom correctly identified Obama.

Duncan said little about the law Tuesday, preferring to listen to the concerns of teachers in more intimate sessions at elementary schools and a larger forum at Blue Ridge Community College in Martinsburg.

Both schools are high-performing and rely heavily on sophisticated data systems to explain not only what kids don't know, but why they don't know it, something Duncan wants to see more. Federal dollars in the economic stimulus law can be used for those kinds of systems.

Duncan said he won't hesitate to visit struggling schools, too.

Whatever the administration decides to do, it needs the approval of Congress, which passed the law with broad bipartisan support in 2001 but deadlocked over a rewrite in 2007. Lawmakers plan to try again in the fall.

While the law has helped improve the academic performance of many minority kids, English-language learners and kids with disabilities, critics say the law is too punitive: More than a third of schools failed to meet yearly progress goals last year, according to the Education Week newspaper.

That means millions of children are a long way from reaching the law's ambitious goals. The law pushes schools to improve test scores each year, so that every student can read and do math on grade level by the year 2014.

http://www.newsday.com/news/politics/wire/sns-ap-us-obama-no-child,0,2886321.story
******************************************

I would have cut & condensed some of this article but it was just so 'SPOT ON' and shows some hope for the horrible impact that "No Child Left Behind" has done. {I know, I know...this topic is about teachers getting paid to do nothing but if I had been able to start my own topic I would have} Seems as though there are some places a 'newbie' can't get a new topic going...So you have my apologies but this article is excellent!

 

[Pandora]

No, I'm just a lowly Paraprofessional that works via a contractual agreement with the school district. 6 HOURS A WEEK NO MORE NO LESS, everything else that I do is strictly volunteer duty and I support 3 different teachers with my extra time - 4 free!

I get loads of days off but very few of them are paid! Right now I'm off because of elder care of my mother...and when she was released the school district had a hiring freeze on...still loads of special needs children but not money! Or so I'm told! Wait until summer before reapplying for contracts...last summer they weren't ready until 2 days before school started...GOOD GRIEF!

That is very nice of you to volunteer. I have an idea that I wish could happen. Schools have become too expensive to support for the tax payers and the wages and retirement plans for the school district employees is the main cause. Its all for the kids but the money always seems to go to payroll.

Teacher’s aides get at least 17 dollars an hour to start without any experience, Secretaries start at a much higher number than that and office assistants about the same as teacher’s aides.

So this is my idea. Any person (who can pass a background check) that is willing to volunteer gets a certain amount of a tax deduction equivalent to if the were actually a paid school district employee. These people could volunteer with currently paid teachers aides and office assistants and eventually once those teachers’ aids and office assistants retire or quit the volunteers can take over the job as a volunteer. There would be a need for someone in each school to verify if they really did volunteer and if so how many hours so they would know what they could write off on their taxes.

This would save literally millions of dollars over time and get people back to being connected with the schools. Lowering the tax burden for the citizens and since the volunteers would not be taking the jobs away from the people outright but rather taking over once those people who are currently there are retired, I see it as a win win situation.

What do you think? It would help you I am sure with an extra very nice tax deduction.

 

[ASPCA4EVER]

That is very nice of you to volunteer. I have an idea that I wish could happen. Schools have become too expensive to support for the tax payers and the wages and retirement plans for the school district employees is the main cause. Its all for the kids but the money always seems to go to payroll.

Teacher’s aides get at least 17 dollars an hour to start without any experience, Secretaries start at a much higher number than that and office assistants about the same as teacher’s aides.

So this is my idea. Any person (who can pass a background check) that is willing to volunteer gets a certain amount of a tax deduction equivalent to if the were actually a paid school district employee. These people could volunteer with currently paid teachers aides and office assistants and eventually once those teachers’ aids and office assistants retire or quit the volunteers can take over the job as a volunteer. There would be a need for someone in each school to verify if they really did volunteer and if so how many hours so they would know what they could write off on their taxes.

This would save literally millions of dollars over time and get people back to being connected with the schools. Lowering the tax burden for the citizens and since the volunteers would not be taking the jobs away from the people outright but rather taking over once those people who are currently there are retired, I see it as a win win situation.

What do you think? It would help you I am sure with an extra very nice tax deduction.

What a novel idea...see great minds think a like...there is no other place that a good group of volunteers could help give back to our community and those children/over worked teachers/staff would all benefit from my generations experience and numbers! And as a tax deductible way to work that, then the people on Social Security could still work and not impact their retirement $$$. Excellent idea...get your teachers union behind that and you'll get the ball rolling...this could really, really work!

Teacher’s aides get at least 17 dollars an hour to start without any experience, Secretaries start at a much higher number than that and office assistants about the same as teacher’s aides.[/QUOTE]

JEEZE LOUISE...I wish we could make that type of wage...here the CO-OP that represents us and supplies a 4 county area with Paraprofessionals make the big bucks and they only pay the 'worker bees' $8.95 an hour. Yet we have to have the accreditation/back ground check {yes, I've been finger printed and FBI approved} to work with those special needs children.

But I really am excited about your idea...are you going to promote it via your union or send President Obama Education Guru a email message with your idea???

 

[Pandora]

What a novel idea...see great minds think a like...there is no other place that a good group of volunteers could help give back to our community and those children/over worked teachers/staff would all benefit from my generations experience and numbers! And as a tax deductible way to work that, then the people on Social Security could still work and not impact their retirement $$$. Excellent idea...get your teachers union behind that and you'll get the ball rolling...this could really, really work!

Teacher’s aides get at least 17 dollars an hour to start without any experience, Secretaries start at a much higher number than that and office assistants about the same as teacher’s aides.[/QUOTE]

JEEZE LOUISE...I wish we could make that type of wage...here the CO-OP that represents us and supplies a 4 county area with Paraprofessionals make the big bucks and they only pay the 'worker bees' $8.95 an hour. Yet we have to have the accreditation/back ground check {yes, I've been finger printed and FBI approved} to work with those special needs children.

But I really am excited about your idea...are you going to promote it via your union or send President Obama Education Guru a email message with your idea???

The teachers union won’t touch my idea. They would be instantly attacked by the classified union. It would be about jobs. Even though no ones jobs would be impacted and only after a person retires or moves on would their job are totally done by a volunteer, the unions are out to protect jobs so it would never fly with them. It would have to be something that was done on a Federal and State level since there are tax cuts involved.

I think this is one of those ideas that work but will never come to being. It almost makes too much sense for the government to wrap their tiny minds around

The post office could deliver mail 2 or 3 days a week and save literally billions of dollars. They could offer more services if you are willing to pay more, like a business might want daily service but they wont do it because it will hurt jobs. Its rarely about saving money when it’s a government job because there is no bottom line to start with, it usually boils down to jobs.

If you could make the teachers aide idea work that would be so great. What ever school district you did it in would be a great model for others to follow.

Oh and why the teachers and office aids make so much to start is kind of cute. The union had a heck of a time getting the custodians and the facilities workers to vote the way the union wanted, because the union usually did things that favored teachers rather than custodians and plumbers and carpenters. The aides and the secretaries usually backed the custodians and the facilities workers because every one started around the same pay. The union gave very large increases to secretaries, and teacher / office aids and all the sudden in large majority they backed what the union wanted. I hate unions.


Also Oregon’s min wage is closing in on 9 dollars an hour right now so their wage isn’t so extreme, hell within a few years they will be at min wage

 

[ASPCA4EVER]

Also Oregon’s min wage is closing in on 9 dollars an hour right now so their wage isn’t so extreme, hell within a few years they will be at min wage

Well, that explains much of this B.S. our minimum wage is just at $5.75 a/hr and it is supposed to go up this year another .50¢..WHOOPIE

Thank you for that insight into the union and whose scratching whose back to get what they want at the negotiations table...sure explains a lot!!!

There are staff within our CO-OP that are so inept at their jobs I've had to explain how they continue to mess up on my pay checks; I have always asked for the 9 month contractual salary and with my deductions...2 years, 2 years in a row they've messed up on my sick leave hours, my in-service time and my deductions...last year we didn't get it straightened out until Christmas Break!!!

Where I moved from {9 years ago} Paraprofessionals earned $13.00 an hour but I relocated to help care for my mother and moving back into this middle of Kansas was like stepping back into history 20 years...good grief!!!

 

[Pandora]

Well, that explains much of this B.S. our minimum wage is just at $5.75 a/hr and it is supposed to go up this year another .50¢..WHOOPIE

Thank you for that insight into the union and whose scratching whose back to get what they want at the negotiations table...sure explains a lot!!!

There are staff within our CO-OP that are so inept at their jobs I've had to explain how they continue to mess up on my pay checks; I have always asked for the 9 month contractual salary and with my deductions...2 years, 2 years in a row they've messed up on my sick leave hours, my in-service time and my deductions...last year we didn't get it straightened out until Christmas Break!!!

Where I moved from {9 years ago} Paraprofessionals earned $13.00 an hour but I relocated to help care for my mother and moving back into this middle of Kansas was like stepping back into history 20 years...good grief!!!

I think the volunteerism in schools could work if the unions would let it happen. This same sort of thing could be done through out the government. When my son was first born I was dirt poor and I was on welfare for about 2 years. It was terrible to get money when I had not earned it. I asked them if they would let me volunteer there cleaning the office or doing something to help make up for the money and medical help they gave me but they said no they could not do that. So I ended up volunteering as a secretary for a small business and got some skills under my belt and eventually got off welfare.

But let’s say there was a program that when people came in needing welfare they instead said ok, we will pay you the min wage (and that works out to be more than a welfare check) you show up at the welfare office to answer phones, or clean the office or clean DMV or the post office or sort mail at the post office or answer phones at the county clerks office or file papers exc.. You get the idea.

The person getting the welfare is getting actual experience to help them get out of the welfare trap, the government hires fewer employees because they have many people doing the job and gaining experience and the person doing it feels a whole lot better about their self because they are earning what they are getting.


The minimum wage is another story. I do not approve of our high min. wage for a number of reasons. Not sure how it is where you are at but here they have made it illegal for kids to pick fruit here. When I was a kid in the summer I would make extra money picking beans, strawberries and peas. Now only illegals and old people do it and kids have no real way to make money till they are 16 and then its in fast food where the managers don’t want to hire them because why should they want to pay 8 something an hour for an inexperienced person to have to train and they can only work certain hours and not use the fryers. So basically kids don’t have very many choices for where they can work.

Also, I remember when the min wage went up the first time in my adult life. I was at min wage there and was pretty excited about the wage going up. I was on a very tight budget so I knew the price of just about everything in the store I shopped at. When min wage went up so did the price of hamburger, veggies, fruit … everything. It ended up costing me more than my new wage to buy the same stuff I had been buying, in short I was worse off.

The second time the min wage went up I was just above min wage and the increase put me back at min wage. My boss could not afford to pay the new min wage for all the people plus up my wage so again I was at min wage and again the price of everything went up again and I was worse off again.

Now I make a little over 14 dollars an hour. I have been with the school district for 20 years and our min wage goes up approximately 50 cents a year, so I figure in the next 6 to 8 years I will be back at min wage and I won’t be able to afford to go to McDonalds because if you are paying people that much money to make fast food the cost of those items are going to have to increase too.

I think there has to be some kind of rule about a min wage because some would do slave labor if they could but there should be exemptions like fast food because kids need to be able to work and they are not supporting a family they just need extra spending money and a chance to learn skills and understand how the real world works but everyone in the United States that works does not need to raise a family so the min wage should not be thought of as an income you can support a family on.

 

[PLC1]

A little perspective, from a 38 year veteran of California's public schools.

First of all, I totally agree that the opening post highlights a situation that is ludicrous to the extreme and needs to be ended. I couldn't help but notice that it is happening in the state's largest and least manageable school district. One of many reforms needed is to decentralize and cut some of those huge districts down to size.

I won't take the time to list all of the reforms that are needed, as the post would be very long and no one would read it.

Let's take a part of the link posted by ASPCA4EVER (must be an animal lover???)

No Child Left Behind pushes schools to boost the performance of low-achieving students, and Duncan gives the law credit for shining a spotlight on kids who need the most help.

That it does, the kids who need the most help passing the test.

Tests, however are but one measure of performance, and not a very reliable one at that.

Opponents, however, insist the law's annual reading and math tests have squeezed subjects like music and art out of the classroom and that schools were promised billions of dollars they never received.

I don't know about those billions, or just what was promised but not delivered. NCLB is costing the taxpayers a mint, though.

It certainly has spawned a test centered curriculum, that part is indisputable. If it is not on the test, it simply isn't stressed, perhaps not taught at all. Music, art, and vocational education are all casualties.

Duncan wants to hear how the program works from educators, parents and kids, and he began a 15-state "listening tour" at Reichard's school in the eastern panhandle of rural West Virginia. President Barack Obama has been vague about much he would overhaul the law, but on Tuesday, his ideas began to take shape.

The feds are listening? Well, that's a hopeful sign, maybe.

While the law does make allowances for different tests for severely impaired kids, many don't fall into that category.

"To have a child taking a test that it is literally impossible for them to pass and having that humiliation, and holding schools accountable for that, that doesn't make sense," Duncan said in an interview with the Associated Press.

Here, they are talking about students with learning disabilities, sometimes severe disabilities, who nevertheless have to pass a difficult academic test. If they can't do so, then the school is a failure.

Of course, it is permissible for the teacher to read questions to learning handicapped students in some situations. That is one "allowance" made. Another is that students who have about as much chance of passing the test as I would have of passing one written in Mongolian can be given a little more time to do the impossible.

I got a new student once, about a week before the big test my fourth graders had been preparing for all year. This student was fresh from rural Mexico, where she had had no opportunity to attend school. She could not read, write, do even basic math, or speak English.

She was nevertheless required to take the test, one week after enrolling in school here.

Of course, we were not allowed to ask her parents for a green card, or any proof of legal immigration status.

Duncan used Reichard's tale as an example of how the federal government should be "looser" about how states meet goals. He fought the government on similar issues in his last job, as chief executive of Chicago's public schools.

At the same time, he said, the government should get "tighter" about goals, insisting on more rigorous academic standards that are uniform across the states.

The federal government doesn't need to get looser or tighter about goals, but does need to get out of education entirely, close down the Department of Education, and focus on what is should be doing under the Constitution.

Taking care of illegal immigration, for example.

I've got lots more stories, as well as some ideas about how we could really improve schools, despite the decay in our society, but will save them for later.

 

[ASPCA4EVER]

Excellent post PLC1...I really enjoyed reading your thoughts and those of Pandora's as well.

Maybe we need to start a topic about: How to fix our 'LAME EDUCATION SYSTEM' and then take those ideas and fine tune them and forward them onto the Educational GURU! Hell, it really couldn't hurt!

 

[PLC1]

Excellent post PLC1...I really enjoyed reading your thoughts and those of Pandora's as well.

Maybe we need to start a topic about: How to fix our 'LAME EDUCATION SYSTEM' and then take those ideas and fine tune them and forward them onto the Educational GURU! Hell, it really couldn't hurt!

Great idea.

Just who is our educational GURU, anyway?

I wonder if he/she reads blogs?

 

[ASPCA4EVER]

Great idea.

Just who is our educational GURU, anyway?

I wonder if he/she reads blogs?

Education Secretary Arne Duncan

We really could come up with some wonderful cost effective ideas and a 'PLAN'...we have the knowledge!!!

 

[PLC1]

Education Secretary Arne Duncan

We really could come up with some wonderful cost effective ideas and a 'PLAN'...we have the knowledge!!!

I wonder what he would think of my idea of closing down the Department of Education and leaving the job up to the states?

Maybe if we offered him unemployment benefits.....