Teachers’ union is big donor to N.J. Democrats
The super PAC that has spent nearly $1 million to support Democrats in New Jersey’s Assembly elections next month has received nearly 90 percent of its money from a group affiliated with the state’s largest teachers’ union, records filed with state regulators show. Andrew Seidman, Philadelphia Inquirer Read more
Ridgewood NJ , School board must talk healthcare costs with union no truer statement has ever been said and since the teachers unions were overwhelming supporters of Obamacare for the rest of us ,its high time they participate in the “healthcare” they pushed on the rest of America .
OCTOBER 9, 2015 LAST UPDATED: FRIDAY, OCTOBER 9, 2015, 12:30 AM
THE RIDGEWOOD NEWS
BOE must talk healthcare costs with REA
To the Editor:
I am proud to say that I have been educating 6 and 7 year olds in this community for 32 years. Many of these children have gone on to become doctors, lawyers, actors, and most dear to my heart, teachers, as well as numerous other professions. The one thing they have in common is Ridgewood and the superior education they received here.
As I enter into my 33rd year of teaching, I look into the eyes of my current students, knowing the path in front of them will lead them to a successful future because of the dedicated teachers and administrators who work here.
Each year, teachers are asked to do more and more for less and less. We all understand the economic realities that face us today. Teachers are taxpayers, too, and we all have our own budgets to balance.
As a member of the REA, this is my 11th contract negotiation, and it is sad to observe that every negotiation has become more and more acrimonious; however, never in my 33 years has a Ridgewood Board of Education refused to discuss all of the topics that need to be negotiated, specifically healthcare.
Every day I come to work knowing both parents and administrators expect me to be keeping the best interests of my students in mind. I would like to think that the board is doing the same for my colleagues and me. My personal contribution in 2012 to our health benefit package was over $2,200. In 2015, I am now contributing almost $10,000, which is a 350 percent increase. However, my salary certainly did not increase that much. It actually increased by 4.9 percent over the same time period. Anyone retiring from Ridgewood within the next five years will not be able to make the same amount of money that he/she did in 2012. That is just wrong!
All that I am requesting of our Board of Education is to have respect for us as educators, professionals, and community members and to sit down with the REA to talk about the cost of our healthcare benefits.
Donna Pedersen
Ridgewood
AUGUST 27, 2015, 11:55 AM LAST UPDATED: THURSDAY, AUGUST 27, 2015, 2:23 PM
ASSOCIATED PRESS
NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. (AP) — An elementary school teacher has been allowed to keep his job even though he was late for work 111 times over a two-year period.
In a decision filed Aug. 19, an arbitrator rejected an attempt by the Roosevelt Elementary School to fire 15-year veteran Arnold Anderson from his $90,000-a-year job, saying he was entitled to progressive discipline.
Anderson was late 46 times in the most recent school year through March 20 and 65 times in the previous school year, the arbitrator said. But the arbitrator criticized Anderson’s claim that the quality of his teaching outweighed his tardiness.
He relied on “micro-quibbles of a few unpersuasive explanations, with a macro-default position that even when he is late he nevertheless delivers a superb educational experience to his grateful students,” the arbitrator wrote.
AUGUST 5, 2015, 11:45 PM LAST UPDATED: WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 5, 2015, 11:49 PM
BY HANNAN ADELY
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD
New Jersey won’t increase the weight of state tests on teacher evaluations in the coming school year — to the relief of educators whose reviews are based in part on students’ scores.
Student performance on state tests will count for 10 percent of a teacher’s job review in the coming school year, the same as in the past year, state officials announced Wednesday.
The state could have made test scores account for as much as 20 percent of a teacher’s evaluation under a revised policy adopted last year. But state officials backed down amid an outcry from teachers against use of standardized state tests in their reviews.
“We don’t think this is a proper use |of test score data, but it is a step in |the right direction that they’re freezing it rather than raising it,” said Steve Baker, a spokesman for the New Jersey Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union.
David Hespe, the state education commissioner, said the decision was made because data from the new tests haven’t been received and reviewed yet and because the state was still transitioning from its old tests.
“This is the right move to keep teacher evaluations strong and successful into the future,” Hespe said at a state Board of Education meeting.
Posted by Matt Rooney On August 03, 2015 11 Comments
By Matt Rooney | The Save Jersey Blog
Governor Chris Christie’s CNN interview continues to elicit strong reactions, Save Jerseyans, and the problem with this controversy, as with similar incidents, is that most folks are focusing on the style points. It’s among the regrettable byproducts of our presidential politics, cultural decline, and hyper-politicization of the education industry. But those are topics for another post…
What about the substance?
Let’s revisit, briefly, what these teachers’ unions are all about and objectively decide whether they deserve to exist (I’m not pulling any punches):
10) The union establishment’s demands are as unrealistic as they’ve been fiscally ruinous. NJEA members will donate $126,000 to pension and health benefits over 30 years but stand to collect $2.4 million in return. Who thought this was a good idea??? Are all of the calculators broken in Trenton? Of course not. It’s all part of an elaborate, decades-old double-whammy of vote buying and problem avoidance. Instead of hating Chris Christie, teachers should direct their ire to the politicians on their own union’s campaign season payroll. They did it.
9) Their chosen tactics are disgusting. Wisconsin’s recent experienceswere horrific, and the physical/verbal violence perpetrated by Big Labor’s storm troopers was 100% one-sided.
8) The system these unions ferociously protect is failing our country’s most vulnerable children, especially those students living in poorer, minority-concentrated school districts. Click here to check out my lengthy run-down of Camden High School’s plight (catalyzed by a give-and-take with my liberal friend of Inky fame Kevin Riordan) for the uncomfortable truth.
7) American Teachers’ unions = Democrat Party affiliates. After self-preservation, the teacher union establishment is primarily concerned with protecting the Democrats whose policies protect their power. A good faith union would avoid colluding with one political party or the other, pursuing and prioritizing the best interests of its membership and their children. Not the teacher’s unions; in this state and most others, and certainly nationally as Chris Christie pointed out, they function as a Democrat Super PAC. The American Federation of Teachers has already endorsed Hillary Clinton before either party held its first debate!
6) Dues tied up in waste and hypocrisy… so teachers lose, too: The NJEA collects a 9-figure annual sum in teachers’ taxpayer paycheck-derived dues; its regular and political arms spend many millions more in lobbying and both direct and indirect campaigning activity to influence public police. What do its members have to show for it???
5) Therefore, these unions have a financial incentive to protect bad dues-paying teachers at the expense of the education system. Much has been written on this topic but John Stossel did a particularly good job of illustrating how difficult it is to purge the suck; it’s a crisis that’s turned even hardened union veterans against the tenure-centric system.
https://savejersey.com/2015/08/chris-christie-teacher-union-punch-video-facts/
July 16,2015
Ridgewood High School: Effective: 92, Highly Effective: 39
Benjamin Franklin Middle School: Effective: 28, Highly Effective: 24
George Washington Middle School: Effective: 42, Highly Effective: 14
Hawes Elementary School: Effective: 21
Ridge Elementary School: Effective: 29
Somerville: Effective: 29
Travell Elementary School: Effective: 20
Orchard Elementary School: Effective 19
Willard Elementary School: Effective: 21, Highly Effective: 14
https://www.njspotlight.com/tables/njdoe_staff_eval_1314/#/c04/RIDGEWOOD VILLAGE
July 2,2015
By Alan Shusterman
As “Pomp and Circumstance” plays at ceremonies nationwide this month, a record number of high school students are celebrating their hard-earned diplomas.
The celebrations won’t last. Despite their hard work, these students will soon find that they’re far from prepared for life after graduation. Academically, they’re worse educated than most of their foreign contemporaries. Occupationally, they’re ill-equipped for the jobs our economy needs. And emotionally, they’re less healthy than any generation in recent history.
America’s K-12 educational system is to blame. Despite huge advances in classroom technology and the science of learning, our nation’s schools remain a relic of another era.
Modernizing our schools isn’t just a matter of changing funding formulas and tweaking mechanisms for accountability. Instead, we must completely reimagine the American model of schooling, drawing on the science- and technology-driven practices that have revolutionized the modern world.
U.S. students are rapidly falling behind their international peers in primary and secondary education. A recent report from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development ranked countries based on the average math and science scores of 15-year-old students. America’s schools came in 28th.
Even worse, the OECD found that almost a quarter of American 15-year-olds failed to acquire “basic skills” in math and science. Of the 76 countries evaluated in the study, only Luxembourg performed worse.
This poor academic performance translates directly into inadequate workforce skills, especially in science, technology, engineering, and math, or STEM. Because of a lack of qualified applicants, companies take more than twice as long to fill STEM positions than equivalent non-STEM ones. The problem will only worsen. STEM positions are projected to grow 17 percent by 2024, almost double the rate of non-STEM jobs.
As if leaving students undereducated and unprepared for the workforce isn’t enough, current school practices are also making students psychologically unhealthy. The incidence of anxiety and depression among American adolescents has reached alarming levels. And, according to the Centers for Disease Control, nearly one in five high school kids contemplated suicide in 2013, many due to stress from school.
If we are going to reverse these dangerous trends, we need to completely change the way we teach our young people.
That starts by acknowledging that every student is different, and that the same student can be different depending on the week, the month, and the year. As a result, students need an education customized to their evolving individual needs.
This idea is far from new. Individualized teaching has long been recognized as superior to standard one-size-fits-all instruction. A 1984 study showed that individually tutored students, on average, performed better than 98 percent of students educated in a standard setting.
The problem is that such tutoring has long been prohibitively expensive. But with the advent of new technology, programs such as Khan Academy and Coursera are demonstrating that personalized, self-directed learning is possible on a large scale.
That could mean a classroom full of students using laptops or tablets to learn at their own pace. Or teachers using technology to closely track individual student progress so they know when to step in and help.
Once students master foundational core knowledge and skill requirements, they need resources and time to pursue their own projects, internships, and other opportunities for applied learning.
Rather than trudge through unnecessary extra English courses, a science-lover should be able to spend her time in the laboratory. By the same token, an aspiring writer should be encouraged to work on the novel kicking around in his head rather than taking unwanted extra science courses. It’s amazing what teenagers are capable of if they are given agency and a little direction.
Apart from academics, schools should address students’ emotional and social growth. For too long, a skeptical public has brushed aside concepts like socio-emotional learning as hippie nonsense. But in this case, the hippies have it right. Those who embrace these concepts experience very real, measurable benefits — including enhanced academic achievement.
For example, in January, Developmental Psychology published a study of grade-school students who were taught meditation and mindfulness techniques. After 12 weeks, the students showed a 24 percent decrease in aggression and an overall reduction in depression-like symptoms — plus a 15 percent improvement in math scores!
Annie Holmquist | June 29, 2015
We’ve all winced at the numbers. U.S. students rank 17th, 26th, and 21st on the reading, math, and science portions of the PISA exam – well below many of their international peers.
But even while we recognize that these numbers are bad, many of us secretly reassure ourselves that such is not the case with the local schools which our children attend. Surely the American children struggling to keep up with the rest of the world are in other communities besides our own, right?
Not necessarily. As recent test scores demonstrate, students from well-to-do suburban and rural areas might not be doing as well as we imagine.
A case in point is the Kettle Moraine school district, located on the outskirts of Milwaukee. The district’s superintendent describes Kettle Moraine as “‘a very good school district.’” In this district, “only about 10 percent of the 1,300 students at Kettle Moraine High qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, and about 90 percent are white.” And with the high graduation rates and ACT test scores which many of its students achieve, one would have to agree that Kettle Moraine’s students seem to be ahead of the pack.
However, Kettle Moraine recently had the opportunity to take the OECD Test for Schools, an exam which channels the official PISA test, but adapts it for individual American schools to see how competitive they are on the global stage. As it turns out, students from the high-achieving Kettle Moraine district weren’t leading the global pack in a key area. They were behind.
https://www.better-ed.org/blog/even-best-american-schools-can%E2%80%99t-compete-globally
Everything that the council is doing affects our schools
Schools are the largest part of our tax bill – that is a fact. That does not mean that the schools are not accountable.
It will be a gross overreach for the state to mandate full day kindergarten. I am starting to agree with Rick Perry that we need to abolish the Department of Education. Government is best which governs least.
Many parents actually enjoy spending the AM/PM with their children. We had activites and time with friends when the kids were in kindergarten. My kids did very well in elementary school, high school and college. Your kids will not go to Harvard because they had full day kindergarten.
NYC has preschool and middle school after care programs. The need for these programs in a city is not the same as for programs in Ridgewood. In the city the schools are the place where many students receive two meals a day and get health screening. Working parents do not have the time for homework and reading to the kids. Children need the time in school as a social safety net.
I paused my career to be home with my kids and never regretted it. If working parents need babysitting then they should hire someone. My taxes should not go to support someone’s child care needs. Maybe dad/mom can work from home or with flex time. You will never look back and say that you wished that you spent more time at work.
JUNE 9, 2015
BY ILLINOIS REVIEW
Who poses the biggest threat to America’s economy by striking deals with crooked politicians? Big Oil, Big Pharma, or Big Unions? Daniel DiSalvo, political science professor at the City College of New York, gives the answer.
Shari Puterman, Asbury Park (N.J.) Press11:12 a.m. EDT May 15, 2015
ORANGE, N.J. — A New Jersey teacher has been fired after having her students write “get well” cards to a man convicted of killing a Philadelphia police officer in 1981.
Marilyn Zuniga, a third-grade teacher at Forest Street Elementary School in Orange, was first suspended April 10, after her students wrote to former Black Panther Mumia Abu-Jamal. Orange School Superintendent Ronald Lee confirmed Zuniga was fired.
Abu-Jamal is serving a life sentence for the 1981 murder of Officer Daniel Faulkner. He was recently admitted to a Pennsylvania hospital after suffering complications from diabetes. He has since been released and remains incarcerated at State Correctional Institution – Mahanoy in Frackville, Pa.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/05/15/student-pen-pals-police-killer/27365079/
You would think he would be all over this discussion with his crying and complaints about Teachers pay, benefits and pensions.
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Where is his vitriolic claim that the “Union Thugs” in the NJEA are destroying the state? Why have we not seen his post on this discussion that because of the NJEA Union Thugs businesses are leaving the N.J. and so are residents!
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And how many times did we hear “N.J. Has the highest Property Taxes in the Country” because of the Public Safety wages and benefits, and lets not forget pensions? Shouldn’t he be here making the same claim about the BOE budget?
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I will tell you why we hear crickets and nothing from him on this discussion, he doesn’t care about the BOE budget. That isn’t important to him. What is important to him is vilifying Public Safety employees, specifically Police and Firefighters. That’s what he is all about, nothing less and nothing more.
APRIL 21, 2015, 1:45 PM LAST UPDATED: TUESDAY, APRIL 21, 2015, 10:08 PM
BY MELISSA HAYES
STATE HOUSE BUREAU |
THE RECORD
The New Jersey Education Association will no longer work with Governor Christie on revamping pension and health benefits for public employees, ending what the governor had called an “unprecedented accord” at the heart of his plan to reform the system.
Instead, the NJEA said on Tuesday that it would focus on a lawsuit filed by more than a dozen unions that challenges Christie’s decision to significantly cut the state’s pension contributions. A Superior Court judge has sided with the unions, ruling Christie must make the larger payments, and the state Supreme Court will hear the governor’s appeal next month.
“If we had it to do over again, we would never have signed the memo describing concepts we discussed with the commission,” NJEA President Wendell Steinhauer said in his statement, referring to the panel the governor appointed to make recommendation shoring up the pension system. “It was misrepresented by the governor, and that distracted everyone from the real priority: requiring the state to fund the pensions for which our members have paid their share on each and every payday throughout their careers.”
Christie, who had trumpeted the deal with his biggest political foe, turned to social media to respond to the union and to attack Democrats who joined the unions’ lawsuit and called for him to make larger pension payments.
https://www.northjersey.com/news/njea-breaks-with-christie-on-pension-and-benefits-changes-1.1313853
Governor Christie pushed teachers — a union key to his pension reform plan — to agree to benefits changes Tuesday as his administration argued in a court filing that a judge “fabricated a constitutional right to pension funding.”
Christie is working to overturn a Superior Court ruling that requires the state to adhere to a law he signed four years ago requiring increasing payments to the pension fund.
At the same time, Christie is pushing the public to back his plan to overhaul retirement benefits for all public employees, a plan that requires changes not only to pensions but to medical benefits. Changes in health care benefits will mean savings that can be applied to pensions, Christie has argued. (Hayes/The Record)
NJEA experiences an honest moment, admits not giving a damn about school quality
March 13, 2015
By Matt Rooney | The Save Jersey Blog
You and I know that the New Jersey Education Association (NJEA) cares about two things, Save Jerseyans: preservation of their power, wielded through the accrual of money and politics.
Kids, parents and yes, teachers, be damned. But they don’t always come right out and say it.
Sometimes they do. Who can forget how back in 2012 then-NJEA Executive Director Vincent Giordano went on TV and told New Jersey’s poor families stuck in crappy public school districts sorry, “life’s not always fair.”
Next up: at the 2015 NJSCERA Conference on Virtual & Blended Learning held on Wednesday, the NJEA’s Marguerite Schroder (note: their website says she’s a “student organizer” but, no offense, she looks a little long-in-the-tooth to be a student so I’m not exactly sure what her duties include… maybe it’s like community organizing?) admitted to Bob Bowdon of the pro-school organization Choice Media that NO, her organization wouldn’t support a non-unionized school even if it was high quality:
https://savejersey.com/2015/03/njea-union-school-new-jersey/
