My GHEA Rocks!

Despite help from state, Buena Vista School District refuses to pay its teachers Friday Without warning, the Buena Vista School District did not pay its 28 teachers Friday - despite it being a pay day and despite the state of Michigan's sending $400,000 to the struggling district to keep it open for the remainder of the school year. "The teachers in the Buena Vista School District have made numerous sacrifices on behalf of their students, and they deserve to get paid for the work they do so they can feed their families," MEA Executive Director Gretchen Dziadosz said. "Teachers and their students should not be made to suffer for the school district's financial mismanagement and Gov. Rick Snyder's lack of support for public education." Friday was a scheduled pay day for the teachers, who haven't been paid since May 10. Sick teachers have also been barred by the district from calling substitute teachers, resulting in crowded classrooms. Students and school employees in the Buena Vista School District are innocent victims of gross financial mismanagement by district and state administrators, as well as Gov. Rick Snyder's reckless $1 billion in cuts to school funding. Read more. Joint House and Senate panels agree on education budgets Michigan K-12 school districts are set to see a small increase in funding for next year's budget, but nowhere near enough to make up for the $1 billion in cuts that the Snyder administration previously made to local schools. A joint Michigan House and Senate conference committee Thursday agreed on a compromise K-12 budget bill that would increase per-pupil funding by $60 for the state's lowest-funded districts and $30 for the wealthiest districts. Other school districts would receive a proportional increase between $30 and $60 per pupil. The slight increase in funding would bring the minimum state foundation grant to school districts to $7,026 per pupil, up from $6,966. In addition, the conference committee has recommended keeping in place performance grants and class-size reduction grants. The Senate's plan had eliminated those grants. The budget passed by the conference committee also increases funding for early childhood education by $65 million - a major win for MEA and the 1,400 members who called their legislators to demand more support for early childhood education. Read more. Poll: Voters don't agree with Snyder's 'pretty cool' assessment of 'Skunk Works' plan Michigan citizens abhor the value-meal education proposal developed by Gov. Rick Snyder's secret "Skunk Works" group, according to a new poll, which also shows that voters aren't too happy with the job Snyder's been doing. According to the poll, conducted May 11-15 by Lansing-based EPIC/MRA, 64 percent of citizens oppose the concepts developed by Skunk Works, while only 10 percent approve. Snyder administration officials had been holding secret meetings since last December, working with corporate executives from IT companies to develop a plan that would replace qualified, professional teachers with long-distance video conferencing. The plan would create "value schools" and would spend less than half what we currently spend to educate a student, putting those remaining meager funds on debit cards for parents and students to purchase their learning - not unlike food stamps.  Snyder denied being involved with the secret group, but called its ideas "pretty cool." Opposition to the value schools plan is fierce; 53 percent of respondents said they "strongly oppose" the concept, while only 4 percent said they "strongly support" it. Read more. Merit pay bill 'foolhardy,' conservative newspaper says The conservative Livingston Daily Press & Argus on Thursday editorialized against House Bill 4625, which would bar school districts from considering a teacher's experience or education when determining his or her pay. Snyder's relentless negative attacks on public education and middle class families continue to harm his approval ratings. The same poll found that only 39 percent approve of the job he's doing as governor, while 58 percent disapprove. The state House Education Committee reported the bill out of committee Wednesday. The legislation, which also makes teacher performance the primary factor in determining pay, now goes to the full House for consideration. "It's clearly a good idea to look for ways to improve teaching techniques," the Livingston Daily Press & Argus' editorial board wrote. "It's also sound policy to upgrade the quality of teacher evaluations. And there is nothing wrong with finding ways to better identify and to compensate excellent teachers. "But tying teacher pay and evaluations almost exclusively to the results of standardized tests is a horrible idea. Our Lansing lawmakers should scrap this poor idea before it has a chance to flourish. Better to work with public educators than to continually look for ways to harass them." Read more. MEA will appeal state ruling that claims school secretaries not protected from outsourcing Attorneys for MEA and the Reese Professional Support Personnel Association will appeal a recent ruling by a state commission that claims school secretaries are non-instructional employees and thus do not have the right to bargain over decisions to privatize their jobs.  The Reese Public School District in 2011 laid off six secretaries and outsourced their jobs to a private company, without bargaining with the RPSPA, an MEA local affiliate.  The Michigan Public Employment Relations Act only allows school districts to bid out for "non-instructional support services." The Michigan Employment Relations Commission ruled that school secretaries do not perform instructional support services as a "substantial part of their duties," and as such should be considered non-instructional support employees. MEA and RPSPA disagree, arguing that secretaries perform importantinstructional support services. After all, they assist instructional staff with their duties by tutoring students, overseeing students' work while they're in detention, and helping to develop special education plans - among other instructional support tasks. The key word, according to MEA attorneys, is "support." MEA argues that MERC's interpretation of "instructional support services"ignores that key word. The MERC decision simply and wrongly concludes that since secretaries do not a spend a majority of their days providing direct instruction, they should be considered non-instruction support service employees whose jobs can be outsourced without bargaining.  Prior legal decisions have determined that paraprofessionals, occupational therapists and speech therapists are instructional support personnel, so MERC's ruling does not affect those employees.