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Are you sure it was the union which forced the district not to remote teach? I live in an area where teachers are not unionized and the teachers are still getti

by tssva 7y ago

Are you sure it was the union which forced the district not to remote teach? I live in an area where teachers are not unionized and the teachers are still getting paid and not teaching. The school district has signed contracts with the teachers which doesn't have any terms which stop payment because the schools close during the year and the district is not requiring remote learning because of equal access issues.

Reelin 7y ago
> doesn't have any terms which stop payment because the schools close during the year And so they shouldn't! In many (most?) US states, the public schools are unconditionally funded by the state based on student enrollment figures. Cutting teacher pay during a closure under such a system would be a purely greedy move.
- tssva 7y ago
  If my comment seemed to imply I thought they shouldn't I didn't mean to. I agree that they should get paid. I don't know how it works in the majority of states but I know the model of mostly state funding based upon student enrollment is not universal. In my state the majority of funding is from local tax revenues. For example the budget for my local school district is approximately $1.3 billion. $370 million comes from the state and $30 million comes from the federal government. Another $40 million comes from "misc other sources" and $860 million comes from local tax revenue.
  - Reelin 7y ago
    I hadn't considered the local tax aspect. I understand that many areas are projecting large shortfalls in the near future, so I suppose there could be some issues. I guess it would probably depend on how the education taxes were levied in a given jurisdiction (property, sales, or something else).
- Talanes 7y ago
  California funds schools by actual attendance, not enrollment, and we're around 10% of the US school population. Sources: https://edsource.org/2019/californias-school-funding-flaws-make-it-more-difficult-for-districts-to-meet-teacher-demands/608824 https://edsource.org/2019/californias-school-funding-flaws-m... https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d13/tables/dt13_203.20.asp https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d13/tables/dt13_203.20.a...
  - Reelin 7y ago
    Wow, that's terrible IMO. Public schools are quasi-governmental entities with largely fixed costs. Aren't the taxes getting paid either way? Doesn't regulation require a specific number of school days per year? And there are certainly truancy laws on the books.
jcims 7y ago
In their defense, developing content for a classroom is a shit-ton of work. Flipping that over to Internet-only is going to take some time. If they are just sitting at home getting drunk and trolling facebook that's one thing, but it's going to take a couple of months for teachers to effectively pivot to a mode of teaching that they've never had to do. Until then you're just going to see a trickle of work even from the best of them b/c they are going to be focused on trying to develop a game plan to close out the year. My wife taught K12 for 12 years and then became an instructional coach teaching teachers how to teach. There's a shitload of work if you want to do it right, and at least half (in our district anyway) will stretch themselves extremely thin to do so. Half of the rest are 9-5'ers and the remainder are shitheads.
wegs 7y ago
Well, I'm pretty sure. The negotiation between the teacher's union on the administration is a closed-door meeting, but I follow district politics very closely. Perceived equity issues fed into this as well. The result, of course, is that parents who have time to teach kids have kids who are learning, while the vast majority of the district is learning nothing. With remote learning, the results would be less differential. But I guess the districts feels worse about inequities it contributes to than ones that arise out of inaction. We have a 1:1 program, so all students have technology. But I would the union preempted this, and is what made this discussion moot.

by tssva 7y ago

Reelin 7y ago

> doesn't have any terms which stop payment because the schools close during the year And so they shouldn't! In many (most?) US states, the public schools are unconditionally funded by the state based on student enrollment figures. Cutting teacher pay during a closure under such a system would be a purely greedy move.

tssva 7y ago
If my comment seemed to imply I thought they shouldn't I didn't mean to. I agree that they should get paid. I don't know how it works in the majority of states but I know the model of mostly state funding based upon student enrollment is not universal. In my state the majority of funding is from local tax revenues. For example the budget for my local school district is approximately $1.3 billion. $370 million comes from the state and $30 million comes from the federal government. Another $40 million comes from "misc other sources" and $860 million comes from local tax revenue.
- Reelin 7y ago
  I hadn't considered the local tax aspect. I understand that many areas are projecting large shortfalls in the near future, so I suppose there could be some issues. I guess it would probably depend on how the education taxes were levied in a given jurisdiction (property, sales, or something else).
Talanes 7y ago
California funds schools by actual attendance, not enrollment, and we're around 10% of the US school population. Sources: https://edsource.org/2019/californias-school-funding-flaws-make-it-more-difficult-for-districts-to-meet-teacher-demands/608824 https://edsource.org/2019/californias-school-funding-flaws-m... https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d13/tables/dt13_203.20.asp https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d13/tables/dt13_203.20.a...
- Reelin 7y ago
  Wow, that's terrible IMO. Public schools are quasi-governmental entities with largely fixed costs. Aren't the taxes getting paid either way? Doesn't regulation require a specific number of school days per year? And there are certainly truancy laws on the books.

jcims 7y ago

In their defense, developing content for a classroom is a shit-ton of work. Flipping that over to Internet-only is going to take some time. If they are just sitting at home getting drunk and trolling facebook that's one thing, but it's going to take a couple of months for teachers to effectively pivot to a mode of teaching that they've never had to do. Until then you're just going to see a trickle of work even from the best of them b/c they are going to be focused on trying to develop a game plan to close out the year. My wife taught K12 for 12 years and then became an instructional coach teaching teachers how to teach. There's a shitload of work if you want to do it right, and at least half (in our district anyway) will stretch themselves extremely thin to do so. Half of the rest are 9-5'ers and the remainder are shitheads.

wegs 7y ago

Well, I'm pretty sure. The negotiation between the teacher's union on the administration is a closed-door meeting, but I follow district politics very closely. Perceived equity issues fed into this as well. The result, of course, is that parents who have time to teach kids have kids who are learning, while the vast majority of the district is learning nothing. With remote learning, the results would be less differential. But I guess the districts feels worse about inequities it contributes to than ones that arise out of inaction. We have a 1:1 program, so all students have technology. But I would the union preempted this, and is what made this discussion moot.