A politicized school board? Superintendency, form of elections being considered By Jennifer Toomer-CookDeseret Morning News
17 comments:
Anonymous
said...
If a politicized school board weakens the thugs in the teacher’s unions and the NEA, all the better. This is a great proactive and positive move by our legislature and one that our education oriented governor will defiantly sign into law when passed.
This will make the state school board more responsive to the citizens at large – it won’t be the elite club that it is now.
Furthermore, it will provide more transparency to the board, ie. Accountability to the Utah taxpayer.
Ever wonder why Republicans hate the UEA? They hate any thing that allows common people any opportunity to stand up for their rights. That's why they love China. No worker rights, and higher profits. What's the cost? Not much, just human rights and our children's health.
If there are any thugs they belong to the Republican Party.
Could someone please name a Utah union thug so we can all go and dethug her? I won't stand for thugs teaching my children thuggery in their thuggy ways.
Unions are actually an active component of the modern conservative intellectual movement. Ronald Reagan was not only head of the Screen Actors Guild but, to his death, was a card-carrying member of the AFL-CIO.
Unions are typically organic community creations. Where many modern unions have gone wrong (such as the teachers union and the public employees union) is when they are special-interest, bureaucratic expressions, not truly broad community expressions.
I might write about this for Sutherland's Defining Conservatism series on our web site (plug, plug).
Paul, I hate to tell you, but you are wrong about Ronald Reagan. He could not have been a member of the AFL-CIO.
The AFL-CIO's membership is of unions, not people. AFSCME is a member of the the AFL-CIO, the IBEW is a member of the AFL-CIO, the American Federation of Teachers is a member of the AFL-CIO. (FYI, Teamsters, the NEA, and SEIU are not members of the AFL-CIO.)
Ed Mayne is not a member of the AFL-CIO -- his union, the United Steelworkers, is.
Todd, Reagan might have been an "honorary" member. I was watching a Reagan documentary and it mentioned he not only was SAG president (seven times) but was a lifelong, card-carrying member of another union.
My concern is that I will not be able to verify my comment because it was from video documentary.
So, until I can verify, I happily stand corrected.
The fact is that the state school board had the courage to stand up to the Republican leadership in the legislature and to the State Attorney General on the voucher issue. Now it is time for payback. The Republican leadership wants to water down the authority of the State School Board and turn it into a partisan entity so that they will be in total control. They will lie about their purpose and motives and one more time will think the public is too stupid to see right through what they are doing. This group will not stop until their control of every aspect of state government is complete. Utah is long overdue for the checks and balances of a two party system.
Non-governmental, local, trade specific organizations. Truly organic unions tend to build community.
Modern unions...non-local, top-down-driven and often government employee specific (i.e. UEA/UPEA)tend to create community divisions.
So you have Reagan...a union man who voted for FDR all four times...shutting down the air traffic controllers. That is, an old school union man calling out a modern government union.
Old school union men were typically very conservative, very patriotic...today's union folk are typically liberal and very parochial in their citizenship.
No doubt this distinction bugs the hell out of someone like you-of-the-latter-category. But I think it is an accurate description of traditional unionism versus its modern counterpart.
So Paul, according to you the local Nebo Eduction Association and Utah Education Association to which I belong are "top-down-driven" and "non local" unions full of liberals. That will surely come as a surprise to the thousands of members of the UEA and their local associations who:
1. Elect their local faculty representatives from each of their schools to carry their views and concerns to the local association meetings.
2. Elect the president and other officers of their local association from among candidates who they feel will best represent their views.
3. Cast their individual votes whether to accept or reject the salary and contractual agreement negotiated each school year with their local boards of education and administration.
4. Elect their state UEA president and officers from among the best candidates running for those positions.
5. Give their input both directly and through their faculty representatives to the UEA concerning education issues before the legislature.
If you want to see a real "top down driven" union that collects dues from its members, check out the LDS Church.
Could it be that the "community divisions" that you accuse the "Utah Education Association" and the "Utah Public Employees Association" of creating are actually between the Utah Taxpayer's Association, the Sutherland Institute, and the far right leadership of the Republican controlled legislature.
I don't see those divisions existing between the PTA, the Democratic members of the legislature, or the countless supporters of public education.
I find it ironic and somewhat amusing that the president of the Sutherland Institute Conservative Think Tank would use the word "parochial" to describe the teacher's union.
These are my opinions, the view from your tunnel may be different.
Evidently you're so "fed up in Utah County" that you miss the point: the UEA is not organized to address any social injustice or trade injustice...they are organized to serve their parochial interest...AND worse, they are government employees (public servants?).
In fact, let's start a new conversation: why should government employees be allowed to unionize? That is about the most selfish "public service" behavior I can imagine. Can you defend that?
BTW, why don't you move to the Avenues in SLC? Perhaps that would make you feel better to live in some gayborhood or Berkleyesque environment. I'm simply concerned for your mental health...you seem very angry.
You're getting a bit testy again Paul. It doesn't help your pious sanctimonious image one bit.
You may be interested in UEA's mission statement.
UEA's Mission Statement
The UEA's mission is to advance the cause of public education in partnership with others: strengthen the teaching profession, promote quality schools for Utah's children, and advocate the well-being of members.
Why should government employees (teachers) be allowed to form a union? Let's see:
-Since this is the United States of America they have the right to do so
-To collectively have a stronger voice to champion the needs of their profession and to lobby those in government who control the purse strings and legislate the policies they must work under
-To enable teachers to have a network of support and communication across the nation in order to be able to share ideas and information with others facing the same problems and challenges, and the one you love to hate:
-To lobby for fair compensation and benefits for their profession commensurate with their level of education and for fair and equitable working conditions
Don't you "home school folks" have a similar organization to help and support parents who choose to home teach their children, and to lobby for rights and privileges for their special interest group within school districts and state legislatures?
Advising me to get out of Utah County and move to a "gayborhood or Berkleyesque environment" is an immature and spiteful variation on the "if you don't like it here---leave" mantra your kind is so fond of intoning whenever they are threatened by someone who actually thinks for themselves.
Your inclusion of those inflammatory terms speaks volumes about your Christian love, acceptance, and tolerance of others. Is Hypocrisy one of Utah's family values? I don't remember.
The tone of your remarks are much too angry for you to feign such sensitivity.
Your justifications for government workers to unionize are sophmoric and a mish-mash of "are they a union or are they a professional association?" thinking.
They're a union (UEA/UPEA) and they ought to be ashamed of themselves for organizing against (yes, against) the very people they serve and the very people who pay their salaries...taxpayers.
Public school teachers would be much better served by forming an association that helps them to be better teachers (read: more knowledgable about the subjects they teach) and that removes politics from their ranks. The UEA does the opposite on both counts. The UPEA is worse.
Admittedly, it is also a shame for any public employee to feel the need to unionize, but we'll never know if Utahns would appropriately pay them for their services without taxpayers being subjected to politicization from the unions, now will we?
Home school families do associate. Of course, the difference is that they don't associate or lobby the Legislature to get anything from taxpayers...except freedom to home school.
And, lastly, and really, you should think about moving from Utah County if it makes you this upset and this cynical...wouldn't you rather wake up each morning happy that you live among more enlightened people?
Or, you just might consider running for office. Utah County needs good Democrats. It might be a good test to see if your thoughts actually make sense to other people.
Your myopic view of the world is entertaining to say the least. I note that you rarely if ever respond to what I write point by point. Why is that? Do your arguments break down somewhere along the way so that labeling and name calling and telling me to go somewhere else is the best your keen intellect can come up with?
If you knew anything at all about the UEA you would know that it serves as both a union and as a professional association to improve the quality of teaching and the teachers in it's ranks. You keep referring to the union as a separate top down entity. Let me spell it out for you. The teachers in Utah's public schools collectively are the Utah Education Association. We are the UEA. The UEA is us---the 18,000 member teachers in Utah's public schools. You are right that we teachers are public servants---just like the police, firemen, judges, and even the legislators.
Being public servants means that we are accountable to all of the citizens of the state. You seem to imply that as servants, we should bow down and lick the shoes of the far right Republican conservatives like yourself, and keep our mouths shut and just do as we're told, because the Authority has done the thinking for us. We're sorry, it just doesn't work that way as the Referendum vote proved.
You keep referring to me as being angry. Yes Paul, I am angry with you and what you say and represent. On the Republican Senate Site you Paul Mero wrote:
"and the right thing to do is to ignore politics (yes, the vote) and help those kids...perhaps by amending the current state voucher law, Carson Smith, to include these other struggling students."
My first thought when reading that was "who the hell does Paul Mero think he is?" to tell the state senate to ignore the vote of the people and legislate vouchers anyway. My second thought was, I wonder if there is any way I can make Paul Mero just as angry as I got by what I write on these discussion forums. And here we are. You said "thanks for the conversation". Peety-Em, the pleasure is all mine.
John Talcott a fed up Democrat who is staying put in Utah County
Todd, after much searching...even calling the Reagan Library and Museum...I cannot find support for my claim about the "life-long" union membership outside of SAG. And I cannot remember the name of the video or the event at which I saw it.
So, I do stand corrected. Thanks.
To saxguy, John...I don't reply point by point to many of your comments because either they do not need comment (such as quoting from the UEA booklet) or they are not very relevant to my thinking (so I let it go) or they don't make much sense (to the degree that some things are so "out there" so why even go there).
You do make one point that I think is debatable...who is the UEA? The UEA membership barely represents half of all public school teachers and, by law, the majority teachers association is the one that is allowed to be the sole representative in collective bargaining.
There are a few new teachers associations coming online and my guess is that the UEA won't be the "majority" teachers group for much longer...and, hence, no longer the arbiter of collective bargaining for teachers.
And, yes, if you go to work for the state (taxpayers) I do think you trade a voice for job security...and I do think a public servant is a servant not a master.
17 comments:
If a politicized school board weakens the thugs in the teacher’s unions and the NEA, all the better. This is a great proactive and positive move by our legislature and one that our education oriented governor will defiantly sign into law when passed.
This will make the state school board more responsive to the citizens at large – it won’t be the elite club that it is now.
Furthermore, it will provide more transparency to the board, ie. Accountability to the Utah taxpayer.
And the bullsh*t campaign begins.
Ever wonder why Republicans hate the UEA? They hate any thing that allows common people any opportunity to stand up for their rights. That's why they love China. No worker rights, and higher profits. What's the cost? Not much, just human rights and our children's health.
If there are any thugs they belong to the Republican Party.
Could someone please name a Utah union thug so we can all go and dethug her? I won't stand for thugs teaching my children thuggery in their thuggy ways.
Unions are actually an active component of the modern conservative intellectual movement. Ronald Reagan was not only head of the Screen Actors Guild but, to his death, was a card-carrying member of the AFL-CIO.
Unions are typically organic community creations. Where many modern unions have gone wrong (such as the teachers union and the public employees union) is when they are special-interest, bureaucratic expressions, not truly broad community expressions.
I might write about this for Sutherland's Defining Conservatism series on our web site (plug, plug).
PTM
Paul, I hate to tell you, but you are wrong about Ronald Reagan. He could not have been a member of the AFL-CIO.
The AFL-CIO's membership is of unions, not people. AFSCME is a member of the the AFL-CIO, the IBEW is a member of the AFL-CIO, the American Federation of Teachers is a member of the AFL-CIO. (FYI, Teamsters, the NEA, and SEIU are not members of the AFL-CIO.)
Ed Mayne is not a member of the AFL-CIO -- his union, the United Steelworkers, is.
Sorry, I'll look it up. Perhaps it was one or the other...the AFL or the CIO but it was a membership he bragged on.
I'll check it out and post later.
Meanwhile, my broader point is accurate. Unionism, organic community organizing is wholly conservative in its philosophical American identity.
Todd, Reagan might have been an "honorary" member. I was watching a Reagan documentary and it mentioned he not only was SAG president (seven times) but was a lifelong, card-carrying member of another union.
My concern is that I will not be able to verify my comment because it was from video documentary.
So, until I can verify, I happily stand corrected.
The fact is that the state school board had the courage to stand up to the Republican leadership in the legislature and to the State Attorney General on the voucher issue. Now it is time for payback. The Republican leadership wants to water down the authority of the State School Board and turn it into a partisan entity so that they will be in total control. They will lie about their purpose and motives and one more time will think the public is too stupid to see right through what they are doing. This group will not stop until their control of every aspect of state government is complete. Utah is long overdue for the checks and balances of a two party system.
John Talcott
Paul Mero said:
"Unions are typically organic community creations."
Paul, would you mind explaining exactly what that great sounding phrase really means.
John Talcott
Okay...
Non-governmental, local, trade specific organizations. Truly organic unions tend to build community.
Modern unions...non-local, top-down-driven and often government employee specific (i.e. UEA/UPEA)tend to create community divisions.
So you have Reagan...a union man who voted for FDR all four times...shutting down the air traffic controllers. That is, an old school union man calling out a modern government union.
Old school union men were typically very conservative, very patriotic...today's union folk are typically liberal and very parochial in their citizenship.
No doubt this distinction bugs the hell out of someone like you-of-the-latter-category. But I think it is an accurate description of traditional unionism versus its modern counterpart.
PTM
So Paul, according to you the local Nebo Eduction Association and Utah Education Association to which I belong are "top-down-driven" and "non local" unions full of liberals. That will surely come as a surprise to the thousands of members of the UEA and their local associations who:
1. Elect their local faculty representatives from each of their schools to carry their views and concerns to the local association meetings.
2. Elect the president and other officers of their local association from among candidates who they feel will best represent their views.
3. Cast their individual votes whether to accept or reject the salary and contractual agreement negotiated each school year with their local boards of education and administration.
4. Elect their state UEA president and officers from among the best candidates running for those positions.
5. Give their input both directly and through their faculty representatives to the UEA concerning education issues before the legislature.
If you want to see a real "top down driven" union that collects dues from its members, check out the LDS Church.
Could it be that the "community divisions" that you accuse the "Utah Education Association" and the "Utah Public Employees Association" of creating are actually between the Utah Taxpayer's Association, the Sutherland Institute, and the far right leadership of the Republican controlled legislature.
I don't see those divisions existing between the PTA, the Democratic members of the legislature, or the countless supporters of public education.
I find it ironic and somewhat amusing that the president of the Sutherland Institute Conservative Think Tank would use the word "parochial" to describe the teacher's union.
These are my opinions, the view from your tunnel may be different.
John Talcott
A fed up Democrat in Utah County
Evidently you're so "fed up in Utah County" that you miss the point: the UEA is not organized to address any social injustice or trade injustice...they are organized to serve their parochial interest...AND worse, they are government employees (public servants?).
In fact, let's start a new conversation: why should government employees be allowed to unionize? That is about the most selfish "public service" behavior I can imagine. Can you defend that?
BTW, why don't you move to the Avenues in SLC? Perhaps that would make you feel better to live in some gayborhood or Berkleyesque environment. I'm simply concerned for your mental health...you seem very angry.
PTM
You're getting a bit testy again Paul. It doesn't help your pious sanctimonious image one bit.
You may be interested in UEA's mission statement.
UEA's Mission Statement
The UEA's mission is to advance the cause of public education
in partnership with others: strengthen the teaching profession,
promote quality schools for Utah's children, and advocate the
well-being of members.
Why should government employees (teachers) be allowed to form a union? Let's see:
-Since this is the United States of America they have the right to do so
-To collectively have a stronger voice to champion the needs of their profession and to lobby those in government who control the purse strings and legislate the policies they must work under
-To enable teachers to have a network of support and communication across the nation in order to be able to share ideas and information with others facing the same problems and challenges, and the one you love to hate:
-To lobby for fair compensation and benefits for their profession commensurate with their level of education and for fair and equitable working conditions
Don't you "home school folks" have a similar organization to help and support parents who choose to home teach their children, and to lobby for rights and privileges for their special interest group within school districts and state legislatures?
Advising me to get out of Utah County and move to a "gayborhood or Berkleyesque environment" is an immature and spiteful variation on the "if you don't like it here---leave" mantra your kind is so fond of intoning whenever they are threatened by someone who actually thinks for themselves.
Your inclusion of those inflammatory terms speaks volumes about your Christian love, acceptance, and tolerance of others. Is Hypocrisy one of Utah's family values? I don't remember.
John Talcott
a fed up Democrat in Utah County
The tone of your remarks are much too angry for you to feign such sensitivity.
Your justifications for government workers to unionize are sophmoric and a mish-mash of "are they a union or are they a professional association?" thinking.
They're a union (UEA/UPEA) and they ought to be ashamed of themselves for organizing against (yes, against) the very people they serve and the very people who pay their salaries...taxpayers.
Public school teachers would be much better served by forming an association that helps them to be better teachers (read: more knowledgable about the subjects they teach) and that removes politics from their ranks. The UEA does the opposite on both counts. The UPEA is worse.
Admittedly, it is also a shame for any public employee to feel the need to unionize, but we'll never know if Utahns would appropriately pay them for their services without taxpayers being subjected to politicization from the unions, now will we?
Home school families do associate. Of course, the difference is that they don't associate or lobby the Legislature to get anything from taxpayers...except freedom to home school.
And, lastly, and really, you should think about moving from Utah County if it makes you this upset and this cynical...wouldn't you rather wake up each morning happy that you live among more enlightened people?
Or, you just might consider running for office. Utah County needs good Democrats. It might be a good test to see if your thoughts actually make sense to other people.
Thanks for the conversation.
PTM
Peety-Em,
Your myopic view of the world is entertaining to say the least. I note that you rarely if ever respond to what I write point by point. Why is that? Do your arguments break down somewhere along the way so that labeling and name calling and telling me to go somewhere else is the best your keen intellect can come up with?
If you knew anything at all about the UEA you would know that it serves as both a union and as a professional association to improve the quality of teaching and the teachers in it's ranks. You keep referring to the union as a separate top down entity. Let me spell it out for you. The teachers in Utah's public schools collectively are the Utah Education Association. We are the UEA. The UEA is us---the 18,000 member teachers in Utah's public schools. You are right that we teachers are public servants---just like the police, firemen, judges, and even the legislators.
Being public servants means that we are accountable to all of the citizens of the state. You seem to imply that as servants, we should bow down and lick the shoes of the far right Republican conservatives like yourself, and keep our mouths shut and just do as we're told, because the Authority has done the thinking for us. We're sorry, it just doesn't work that way as the Referendum vote proved.
You keep referring to me as being angry. Yes Paul, I am angry with you and what you say and represent. On the Republican Senate Site you Paul Mero wrote:
"and the right thing to do is to ignore politics (yes, the vote) and help those kids...perhaps by amending the current state voucher law, Carson Smith, to include these other struggling students."
My first thought when reading that was "who the hell does Paul Mero think he is?" to tell the state senate to ignore the vote of the people and legislate vouchers anyway. My second thought was, I wonder if there is any way I can make Paul Mero just as angry as I got by what I write on these discussion forums. And here we are. You said "thanks for the conversation". Peety-Em, the pleasure is all mine.
John Talcott
a fed up Democrat who is staying put in Utah County
Todd, after much searching...even calling the Reagan Library and Museum...I cannot find support for my claim about the "life-long" union membership outside of SAG. And I cannot remember the name of the video or the event at which I saw it.
So, I do stand corrected. Thanks.
To saxguy, John...I don't reply point by point to many of your comments because either they do not need comment (such as quoting from the UEA booklet) or they are not very relevant to my thinking (so I let it go) or they don't make much sense (to the degree that some things are so "out there" so why even go there).
You do make one point that I think is debatable...who is the UEA? The UEA membership barely represents half of all public school teachers and, by law, the majority teachers association is the one that is allowed to be the sole representative in collective bargaining.
There are a few new teachers associations coming online and my guess is that the UEA won't be the "majority" teachers group for much longer...and, hence, no longer the arbiter of collective bargaining for teachers.
And, yes, if you go to work for the state (taxpayers) I do think you trade a voice for job security...and I do think a public servant is a servant not a master.
PTM
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