Arizona Legislature, Education, Reform, teachers, performance, contracts
AEA Fights Good Policy Yet Again
November 23 2009 16:02 Filed in: Education
The Arizona Education Association (AEA), Arizona’s largest teacher’s union filed a special action lawsuit in the Arizona Supreme Court against the State Legislature and Governor Jan Brewer for changes to education policy in the 3rd Special Session.
The reasons for the policy changes are numerous and an improvement upon previous policy. The AEA’s actions to file suit has made their self-interest blatantly obvious.
Here are a few questions to help determine where you stand:
- Do you want the best teachers in the classroom?
- Should a teacher be given a contract based on performance?
- Should underperforming teachers be let go?
- Do you want to stop the forced teacher layoffs due to an arbitrary contract signing date?
If you answered ‘no’ to any of these questions, you agree with the AEA.
If you answered ‘yes’ to any of these questions, you’re looking after the best interests of students and teachers.
The policy change allows school districts to retain and reward teachers based on their performance rather than the current procedure of basing promotion and retention solely on years served on the job.
Those who voted for this provision did so for numerous reasons:
- They want the best teachers in the classroom
- They believe a school district's decision to employ or re-employ a teacher should be based on a quality assessment of the teacher and how well they are teaching students.
- Like most jobs, years-of-service is a positive indicator of experience, but it should not be the only indicator of quality. Communication, effectiveness, enthusiasm, work ethic, knowledge, and student progress are all factors that should come into play when employment or promotion decisions are made.
- Parents, and yes, even teachers have told legislators for years that good teachers should be rewarded, while underperforming teachers should be let go.
The new policy allows school districts flexibility in setting timetables for entering teacher contracts. Teachers are one of the few employees, even among State employees, that have guaranteed employment contracts for a set period of time.
Last year when school districts were uncertain about how much money they would have, school districts were forced to lay off many more teachers than they needed to simply because the teacher union wanted the contracts signed by May 15th. For more info on this, click on this link.
If the districts would have been allowed to postpone the contract signing date, only a few teachers would have been laid off and the fear and anxiety caused by massive layoffs would have been avoided.
Arizona school districts issued reduction-in-force notices to about 7,000 teachers on April 15, 2009. By June those same school districts were rehiring those teachers because the school district was not given the flexibility to postpone contract-signing time.
Last, the new policy stops the practice of paying teachers for days that they were using for union activity.
Parents and taxpayers want their money used to teach students, not to lobby for a particular cause. Instead teachers were given extra paid days off in addition to their vacation and sick days to support union activities.
The new law does not prohibit individual employees of school districts from taking compensated leave time for any personal purpose, any professional purpose or any other lawful purpose. Like any other job, if a teacher desires to participate in union activities, they are free to use vacation days. Why should a teacher receive extra vacation days on the taxpayers’ dime to lobby for union activities?
One has to wonder what the AEA, the teacher’s union who claims their main purpose is “to advance the cause of public education” would fight against and now litigate against such good policy…
The reasons for the policy changes are numerous and an improvement upon previous policy. The AEA’s actions to file suit has made their self-interest blatantly obvious.
Here are a few questions to help determine where you stand:
- Do you want the best teachers in the classroom?
- Should a teacher be given a contract based on performance?
- Should underperforming teachers be let go?
- Do you want to stop the forced teacher layoffs due to an arbitrary contract signing date?
If you answered ‘no’ to any of these questions, you agree with the AEA.
If you answered ‘yes’ to any of these questions, you’re looking after the best interests of students and teachers.
The policy change allows school districts to retain and reward teachers based on their performance rather than the current procedure of basing promotion and retention solely on years served on the job.
Those who voted for this provision did so for numerous reasons:
- They want the best teachers in the classroom
- They believe a school district's decision to employ or re-employ a teacher should be based on a quality assessment of the teacher and how well they are teaching students.
- Like most jobs, years-of-service is a positive indicator of experience, but it should not be the only indicator of quality. Communication, effectiveness, enthusiasm, work ethic, knowledge, and student progress are all factors that should come into play when employment or promotion decisions are made.
- Parents, and yes, even teachers have told legislators for years that good teachers should be rewarded, while underperforming teachers should be let go.
The new policy allows school districts flexibility in setting timetables for entering teacher contracts. Teachers are one of the few employees, even among State employees, that have guaranteed employment contracts for a set period of time.
Last year when school districts were uncertain about how much money they would have, school districts were forced to lay off many more teachers than they needed to simply because the teacher union wanted the contracts signed by May 15th. For more info on this, click on this link.
If the districts would have been allowed to postpone the contract signing date, only a few teachers would have been laid off and the fear and anxiety caused by massive layoffs would have been avoided.
Arizona school districts issued reduction-in-force notices to about 7,000 teachers on April 15, 2009. By June those same school districts were rehiring those teachers because the school district was not given the flexibility to postpone contract-signing time.
Last, the new policy stops the practice of paying teachers for days that they were using for union activity.
Parents and taxpayers want their money used to teach students, not to lobby for a particular cause. Instead teachers were given extra paid days off in addition to their vacation and sick days to support union activities.
The new law does not prohibit individual employees of school districts from taking compensated leave time for any personal purpose, any professional purpose or any other lawful purpose. Like any other job, if a teacher desires to participate in union activities, they are free to use vacation days. Why should a teacher receive extra vacation days on the taxpayers’ dime to lobby for union activities?
One has to wonder what the AEA, the teacher’s union who claims their main purpose is “to advance the cause of public education” would fight against and now litigate against such good policy…