AFSCME - Updates and Observations

Today, April 4th, marks the 43rd anniversary of Martin Luther King's assassination in 1968.  Dr. King was in Memphis in support of the AFSCME sanitation workers of that city, who were in the midst of a long struggle for better working conditions, and were on strike against an anti-union city leadership.


Today, workers across Minnesota will remember that day in 1968 and recognize the contemporaery struggle we public workers face across the nation (but in particular in Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Missouri, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, New York, Florida and Nevada) with a We Are One march and celebration.  Here are the details sent out by Council 5 Director Eliot Seide:

On Monday, April 4, the anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, the AFL-CIO, AFSCME Council 5 and others are sponsoring the WE ARE ON MARCH FOR THE MIDDLE CLASS, STAND UP FOR JOBS, A FAIR BUDGET AND WORKER RIGHTS!

5:00 P.M. Gathering at Cathedral Park, intersection of Marshall Avenue and John Ireland Blvd, St. Paul

5:15 P.M. March for the Middle Class---John Ireland Blvd.

6:00 P.M. Program and Music, Minnesota State Capitol, Upper Capitol Mall

Dr. King was assassinated while fighting for the rights of Memphis Sanitation workers (AFSCME Local 1733) to organize and bargain collectively.  These brave 1300 African American sanitation workers could not even use the bathrooms of their employer and had no legal rights to bargain or strike but they struck for recognition and dignity.  Collective bargaining is the extension of American democracy in the workplace. Without strong, independent trade unions there would be no American middle class.  And without a strong trade union movement to check employer power, American democracy is threatened.

Stand up and fight back!!  There are over 50 toxic bills in the Minnesota Legislature, many of which are moving right now that take away our rights to bargain wages and healthcare, eliminate over 6000 public sector jobs and the services they provide, cut taxes for corporations, raise property taxes on the middle class and protect the richest Minnesotans from paying their fair share of taxes.

Let’s stop this attack on Minnesota’s middle class.  Let’s show our outrage at this continued demonization of public workers.  Please come and rally on Monday, April 4 and march to protect our right to bargain collectively,  march for jobs and march for a fair budget that asks the richest Minnesotans to pay their fair share of taxes.

I am in the midst of an election fight within Local 34 to continue as a Vice President of the Local.  I'm opposed by Lynne Kincaid, who has been a Local 34 steward.  Voting by mail starts today.  Ballots are due in three weeks, and will be counted on April 28.

I've recently switched to using Microsoft Publisher to produce the Local 34 Banner - our Local's newsletter, which I've edited/produced for 10 years now - since mid- 2001.  Here's a link to the April issue (and newsletter archives): 
http://afscmelocal34.org/April_2011_Newsletter.pdf


I'm also on You Tube!  On March 22nd, AFSCME - 1500 strong - gathered at the Capitol for our annual Day on the Hill - lobbying day.  Not easy this year with all the Republicans in the Capitol - especially as most seem to want to do away with us - both as employees and as a union.   Workday Minnesota  filmed many of us, and I appear twice in the 7 minute video on You Tube, which I've linked below.  This captures the essence and overview of Day on the Hill in 2011.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhJfH1T4urM

http://afscmelocal34.org/index.htm (nice copy on the front page of the Local's website)


Wes

It's Been Awhile - Reaction to Excellent ABC Newspaper Editorial in Support of Teachers

I love this editorial from Don Heinzman of ECM Publishers, which appeared in the April 1 issue of the Anoka County Union.  I’ve captured the online version, a negative comment, and my own comment at the website, below…

Changing tenure and how teachers are evaluated should not be done this session of the Legislature

Don Heinzman Editorial — Tenure for teachers in Minnesota is under attack by conservatives in the Minnesota Legislature.

Tenure, critics say, protects “bad” teachers from being fired and enables senior teachers to get the best subjects to teach.

In reality, this appears to be another step in the ladder to get rid of the teacher bargaining law – just as happened in Wisconsin.

Other bills, besides the one on changing teacher tenure, chip away at teachers’ bargaining rights under the Minnesota Public Employees Labor Relations Act.  Bills introduced in the Legislature would freeze teacher salaries for two years, limit the right for teachers to strike, limit salary negotiations to the summer, set up a new five-year evaluation system and limit the amount of pay to a percentage of the per pupil state aid.

Tenure for teachers is complicated and difficult to understand for the average citizen and makes it easy to criticize in simplistic attacks.

In the main, teachers have tenure after passing a three-year probationary period, to protect them from losing their jobs from arbitrary and questionable administrative evaluations.

Under one proposal, teachers would have their contract renewed every five years, assuming bad teachers would not get their contract renewed.

The sticky question is:  Who is a bad teacher?  Under one bill authored by a Republican legislator, an evaluation of a teacher would be based 50 percent on test scores, which for all kinds of reasons are not reliable to measure a teacher’s performance.

Lifetime tenure may protect a few teachers who have lost their effectiveness, but critics have little evidence to show that teachers are not being discharged under the present system.

It’s a myth that teachers cannot be discharged under the present contract.    A teacher can be discharged immediately for immoral conduct, insubordination or conviction of a felony, for conduct unbecoming a teacher, failure without justifiable cause to teach and for gross inefficiency.

Legislators have shown no evidence that having teachers evaluated and their contract renewed every five years will result in weeding out the so-called bad teachers.

Meanwhile, teachers already under stress as their class sizes are enlarged, would feel more stress as they realize their teaching would be under heavier scrutiny during the five-year evaluation period.

Minnesotans had no idea that teacher tenure would come under such an attack when they voted Republicans into the majorities in both houses.

There’s little evidence that Minnesotans are dissatisfied with the public education, except it is under funded by legislators who prefer to cut spending rather than raise taxes.

By all measures, Minnesota students, except for those in Minneapolis and St. Paul, have a high graduation rate, a low dropout rate, ACT test scores that lead the nation and a high percentage that goes on to college.

Changing tenure and how teachers are evaluated is a huge task that can’t be done in this session of the Legislature.  Start first by having a good evaluation instrument for teachers and proceed from there to improve the process.

Minnesotans who care about their teachers and are alarmed over attacks on them, particularly their tenure, should contact their legislators and express their concern.  If this doesn’t happen, Republican legislators will assume they have the public’s backing. – DON HEINZMAN

http://hometownsource.com/2011/04/01/changing-tenure-and-how-teachers-are-evaluated-should-not-be-done-this-session-of-the-legislature-2/

Comment from a reader, who disagrees:

There is plenty of evidence that Minnesotans are dissatisfied with the public education system. I suggest you tour some of our local private schools and judge for yourself, because there is no comparison. Unfortunately, Minnesotans are held hostage by an extremely expensive, inefficient system that they have to pay for weather they use it or not.

As for tenure, why should teachers get a free pass when nobody else in the business world does? If I am not effective at my job, after a reasonable amount of time I will be let go.

Unfortunately for class sizes, the teachers union drives up the cost of labor per student requiring districts to do more with less and rely on free volunteers to fill in the gaps.

Mr. Heinzman as you are at retirement age I do not believe you have a dog in this fight or a vested interest in how poorly the public education system operates. My wife and I see it first had every day and it is extremely frustrating.

Jason Pietraszewski

My reply:

Thank you, Don Heinzman for capturing the essence of what it means to be a public school teacher in Minnesota, and standing up for a system that not only works well, and not only works better than in most other states, but also works to the advantage of the classroom professionals, their students, and their "customers" - the parents and taxpayers.

I was trained as a public school teacher, taught many years ago, and unlike Jason Pietraszewski and his wife, I don't have children in the schools.  And the way our system is today, I would never have any interest in going back, or frankly encouraging any of my loved ones to pursue a teaching career in this foul environment. What I am Jason is a taxpayer like you, an uncle, a neighbor, and every day I see children in the Anoka-Hennepin school district receiving a world class education for the 21st Century from the teaching professionals my district employs.

Don, you are correct in each of your major points.  You don't find bad teachers through the current evaluative methods, through test scores, or from polls of who the kids like and don't like.  The tenure system is not - and has not - been broken.  Teachers are terminated before receiving tenure.  Tenured teachers are dismissed following proper, legal steps, based on fair labor laws in this state.  Unlike many at-will employees in private schools and the private sector, employment is not based on who curries favor best, and potential discipline and termination are properly adjudicated under labor law provisions.

Who is a good or bad teacher is subjective and often held in the eye of the beholder.  Does the teacher who spends 70 hour weeks devoted to their classroom rate better or worse than the teacher-coach who puts in 30 hours to the classroom and 30 more to their team?  Does the subject matter expert who has difficulty in the social skills of classroom management rate better or worse than the one who charms their students, but has difficulty showing subject expertise beyond the teacher's edition answers?   Who has the harder or easier job - the 1st grade teacher with 15 -20 students still learning to manage themselves and all these new subjects and ideas, or the high school math teacher who teaches two different subjects three times each, every day, to 180 different 9th and 10th graders who'd rather be anywhere but in that geometry or higher algebra class? 

Provide every legal protection for our teachers, help them regain control of their profession, allow them more room and flexibility to police their own ranks in an appropriate manner, and get the parents and public's noses out of the classrooms they've intruded far too far into.  And never, ever, ever, allow our public school teachers to have their collective bargain rights trampled or intruded upon.

Wes

Andover Park Observations

I had the opportunity to meet with the Andover City Council on Thursday night to interview for a position on either the City's Planning and Zoning Commission or the Parks & Recreation Commission.  I understood there were three applicants for two Park & Rec appointments and eight candidates for three positions on the Planning and Zoning Commission.  When asked, I expressed some preference for Park & Recreation.

Whether or not I'm appointed to either Commission, I will still remain interested in the goings-on in my City, which so far has escaped the turmoil of the East Bethel self-interested bullies' coup, the divided hostilities in Ham Lake, and the insiders' games being played in Oak Grove.  Even the Anoka County Board has seen an upside-down circumstance as the right-wingers, including new Commissioners Look and Westerberg - representing parts of Andover - have formed a four-vote coalition at the expense of solid old-guarders like Erhart and Kordiak.  Bad enough that the slimy Mr. Look is on this Board, but now they've brought their politics into play by ousting Dan Erhart, the most prominent transit figure and rail advocate on the Board from even continuing to have a role with that part of the County's business.  What crumbs are they leaving for Kordiak and Erhart - I suppose they get to oversee a water fowl census in the County or something?

This coming week, the Park & Recreation Commission holds its first meeting of 2011.  Afterwards, they will be conducting a Commission planning-workshop for 2011.

Thoughts that I've had:

• With the Skateboard Park and new rinks by City Hall, there are 68 parks or recreation sites in the City, I believe - a tremendous figure...
• As I mentioned in my interview, I think the City needs to communicate better about its parks;  perhaps one means of doing so - depending on the budget and cost involved (but perhaps over a 3-4 year budget period) - is to invest in signage that directs drivers to key roads where parks are located, perhaps with pictures/symbols to reflect which have ballfields or skating rinks or picnic tables or playground equipment, as an example...
• I live near a small park, presumably required of our developer in Chesterton Commons North 7-10 years ago; it's 1.04 acres on a non-through, hidden portion of Avocet St. in the 15800 block.  Named Oak View Park, it simply has playground equipment for young children.  But it's not terribly convenient for use by even neighbors of mine a couple of blocks away.  It is hidden - it's next to open space on a block that's only easily visible to the homes nearest it.  There's a closed off, possible road extension next to the park, but there's no apparent path or trail that would involve the neighboring blocks, behind the weeds and trees on Wintergreen to use this park, too.  The park is not intended for use by older elementary or middle school-aged children; the open space doesn't even include a home-made ballfield like kids made in the Coon Rapids I grew up in nearly 50 years ago.  Instead the older kids play in our street, play in the yards, use our pond in winter, skate off the driveways, etc.  How many other parks are like this in Andover?  What is the usage?
• What about a relatively-hidden away park like Forest Meadows, which looked so quiet and unappreciated when we campaigned in that neighborhood - 179th and Unity - last fall?  I had no idea there were soccer fields there - I only saw some lonely picnic tables - seemingly in the middle of nowhere - and why?  What would be the attraction to go there to picnic?  I'm at a loss...
• Assuming that most parks are aimed at children and families, and that the most popular season (but realizing some have specific fall or spring sports, and winter activities enjoyed there) to use the parks begins in late Spring through about Labor Day (or thereabouts), I'd like to suggest that the City hire a summer intern to monitor and survey some of the parks we already realize are not as heavily used as sites like Prairie Knoll and Andover Station.  I suggest hiring an individual for 15 weeks to monitor parks in five week-blocks.  I think they should visit five different parks each week, for five weeks, then go back to the same parks for the next five weeks, and then once more for a third set of five weeks.   This would give us data on twenty-five Andover parks' usage through the late-Spring into the early-fall.  They could visit the five parks in any given week up to four tinmes a day, recording who and how many users at each part of the day - such as between 10 and Noon, between 1 and 3, between 3 and 5 and between 5 and 7.  Over two hours they could observe each park for about 15 minutes at a time, then drive to the next site, hopefully just minutes away, for the next observation period.  Watching a park at four different times a day, for a full week, then repeating the pattern five weeks and ten weeks later would give the City a great deal of data to consider for near-future planning for the parks...
• Why do we use parks?  And if we don't use our parks, why are they there or why do we maintain them?
• We have many parks in southern Andover, where the City first grew up.  But so did those neighborhoods.  Now certainly there are nice anecdotal stories of grandparents taking grandchildren to those parks, but are there neighborhood familes and children regularly in those parks?  Let's find out... 
• I'm not advocating closing and selling off our parks.  Someday, Andover's neighborhoods may turn over and younger familes move back into neighborhoods needing that park space.  But, do we keep turning over the equipment in those parks when the demographics suggest there aren't the users in the vicinity that are needed to make those expenses worthwhile? 
• We have parks where neighborhoods have aged, and we lack parks - or proper types of parks in many parts of Andover where the younger families - and users - have moved in.  Take the area near Rum River Elementary - recognizing the school has lots of park-like facility there, but then note the four parks in that large neighborhood between Round Lake and Hanson Blvds. and 161st northward.  There's Hawk Ridge at the north end - nice new upgrade of rinks and ballfields- with a playground and picnic area; White Oaks - undeveloped; Woodland Meadows - very tiny with playground only; and Lund's North - baseball field only.  If you live just off of Round Lake Blvd. or if you live northeast of the school, as my in-laws do, the park and recreation choices are not so close, and not so easy to determine...
• If we're not already getting demographics from the school districts to add in our analysis, then I must advocate doing this as well.  The school districts know where the children are and what their ages are.  They need to for determining school boundaries and bus routes.  Well, so should the city, so it can plan its park and recreation choices smartly.  If an area has too few young children, and the parks closest to that area only offer young child-oriented playgrounds, isn't there something we can do to address this?  Can't we either determine if there are more age-appropriate choices for that neighborhood park, or can we change that park's nature by perhaps moving the playground equipment where it would be better-served, and bringing in something like the picnic facilities or tennis and basketball courts to that area?   I am woefully unaware of the costs and work involved in such a suggestion, but I don't necessarily look at this as a quick fix - these are changes we should consider planning and budgeting for over a four, five, six year period - recognizing that in a decade or 15 years, the current "young areas" will have aged, as well, and a new cycle of park changes will be needed and necessary for a new group of leaders to consider...

City leaders are there to govern;  I don't think that means they were elected or appointed to reduce government, to watch how much is spent or to turn back someone's idea of what a lot of us call progress.  I think government is best when we do, when we act - and do it smartly.  I think we can decide if there are parks that need simply be cut, mowed, weeded, etc. while others get improved facilities and equipment on an appropriate timetable.  I think we can decide that there are important city expenditures on the horizon, and that for the common good of all of us, there may be a need to finance those changes on the citizens of this City.  There are many here in Andover who will not agree, and will be adamantly opposed to doing so - and look at our neighbors and our new County Board - but those people are not governing the needs of their City - they're simply watching their own and their friends. wallets and putting that ahead of progressing their City through its natural course of change and improvement.  I envision leadership in the mode of a progressive like Theodore Roosevelt, someone who would be hostily opposed by his own Republican Party today.  I strongly recommend a recent - and long - book by Douglas Brinkley - Theodore Roosevelt: Wilderness Warrior - to learn about the power and art of governing, of change-making, of putting right and progress ahead of political expediency.