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The Starting Line – Teachers Group Cries Foul Over Concession Vote

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June 25, 2012 – Seven thousand members of the San Diego Education Association, a group you’re probably familiar with as the “teacher’s union” starting voting on a new contract yesterday and already questions are being raised about the fairness of the voting process. The vote is to decide whether to approve a tentative revision of their contract with the San Diego Unified School District that calls for teachers to defer scheduled pay raises in order to save the jobs of nearly 1,500 district employees facing layoffs due to the District’s ongoing budget crisis. Teachers will be given five unpaid days off, with 14 more furlough days to be added if Gov. Jerry Brown’s proposal to raise taxes fails at the ballot box in November. The SDUSD Board of Trustees voted to approve the contract last Thursday.

The Breakfast Club Action Group, a dissident bloc of teachers which has actively campaigned against the agreement, complained on Sunday via a blog post and email that many SDEA members were being disenfranchised by the requirement that they vote in person within a three-day window ending Tuesday. They also pointed out that a basic security measure SDEA has taken with paper ballot elections in the past has been discontinued for this election.   [Read more…]

Teachers Are People Too: Some Musings on Education “Reform” and Gender

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By Kelly Mayhew / Special to San Diego Free Press

Vilification of teachers belies the hard work and preparation it takes to educate our children.

Counter to many parents and education reformers, my husband and I are staunch supporters of not only public schools, but of public school teachers. As a community college instructor myself—a professor of English at City College—I recognize the challenges facing folks who devote themselves to serving everyone who walks through their doors. They do this because: a) public schools, unlike charters and privates, can’t turn any kid away; and b) most teachers I know believe in the mandate that we should serve everyone.   [Read more…]

The Starting Line – San Diego Teacher’s Union Dissidents Mount ‘Just Say No’ Campaign on Concessions

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June 20, 2012 – Today’s Big Story is the deal announced yesterday between the San Diego Education Association (SDEA) and the San Diego Unified School District (SDUSD). Negotiations over the past three weeks produced a proposed settlement that would purportedly save (SDUSD) $68 million, return 1372 pink slipped teachers to classrooms in September, defer a series of pay raises promised by the district two years ago, and extend five unpaid furlough days for an additional two years. Two weeks of additional furlough days would be added next year if two new state tax measures fail in November’s general election. The anticipated settlement comes just days before the Board of Education is scheduled to adopt a final budget for the 2012-13 school year. It must be supported by more than 50 percent of union members, plus school board approval. The SDEA will begin a campaign this week to educate teachers about the agreement via phone calls, electronic posts and meetings. One gets the sense from press accounts that this is all but a done deal…

But wait a minute!… The Breakfast Club Action Group, a dissident teachers group spawned by concerns that the SDEA leadership was being less than forthright with the rank and file union members, is crying foul. Saying that the SDEA leadership approved the pact in a session closed to membership, the group posted an essay on its website calling the proposal a “horrible deal” that amounts to a 17.42 % pay cut and disputing the claim that the number of rescinded pink slips is real.   [Read more…]

The Starting Line—Peed Dribbles Past Kreep in Closely Watched Judicial Race

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June 13, 2012- Observers are keeping a close eye on late election results at the San Diego County Registrar of Voters office, with a couple of close races hanging in the balance as 17,700 provisional ballots are counted. The closest contest is the race for Superior Court Judge # 34; Garland Peed is clinging to a 79 vote lead over right wing activist and birther Gary Kreep. In the hotly contested race to see who will challenge incumbent Congressman Brian Bilbray in the 52nd district, former City Councilman Scott Peters holds a 803 vote lead over former Assemblywoman Lori Saldaña. 5PM UPDATE: Kreep now leads Peed by 216 votes; Peters lead over Saaldana narrows to 737 vote-word is that she is conceding. There are 13,500 provisional ballots left to count.

Looking at the primary from the other side of the aisle… Local conserv blog SDRostra has a couple of post-election articles up that, along with the additional comments posted, should be mandatory reading for San Diego politicos. The Oracle Speaks has local pollster John Nienstedt sharing his observations about local primary contests from a (successful) political consultant’s point of view. And Tweets Don’t Equal Votes takes a look at the social media efforts of the Nathan Fletcher campaign; be sure to read through the comments on this one.   [Read more…]

Ramona School Board Finds Easy Target: Public Unions

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By Dave Patterson / Special to the San Diego Free Press

Nothing bold, nothing new.

The seminal message delivered at the Ramona School board meeting on June 7th, 2012, was that the problem is the unions. While concessions from the unions will certainly be part of it, the real solution is much more complex. Too bad that the Administration and all but one of the school board members were willing to turn away from the reality, and instead cast a stone at a politically reliable target, public unions.

Dawn Perfect, the lone dissenter in approval of the 2012~2013 budget, remarked courageously that the administration had failed to produce a plan toward future solvency, paraphrasing here. The County schools executive told the board that the deficit projections are “huge” for years 13~14, and “beyond belief” for 14~15. They warned that if the school board fails to reign in the budget the state will take over and everyone will lose, particularly our children.   [Read more…]

California Primary: San Diego Conservatives Are Celebrating Way Too Early

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Since Primary election eve, when the results were coming in, San Diego conservatives have been celebrating their perceived “victories”. Me thinks they are celebrating way too early, as the results are not as favorable to the GOP and their extremist friends as they think it was. Check this out.

First, the California Primary was one of the lowest voter turn-outs in history – 36% – if not the lowest. Low turn-outs tend to favor conservatives, whereas large turn-0uts favor Democrats and liberals. And Democrats did stay away from the polls, as there was no big-ticket item on the ballot. Sure, Barack Obama was on it but he was a shoe-in. And Senator Dianne Feinstein was on it as well, but she didn’t have any serious challengers. Yes, there were two state-wide measures – and one of them – Prop 28 – which does aid democracy just a tad -passed handily – but how can anyone get excited about a tax on tobacco.   [Read more…]

First Cuppa Coffee – April 11, 2012: San Diego Drag Queens and Fat Cats Edition

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The University of San Diego has a real-life controversy on its hands… It’s not like the fake manufactured crises that its well-heeled financial backers like to generate… In better times they call them debates, institutes or forums, and spend copious amounts of cash on them hoping that the great policy conclusions that emerge will reflect positively on the University. This time around USD’s marvelously wealthy groupies are throwing cash at stopping something from happening at the school.

It seems as though USD Pride, a student organization, has organized a Drag Show on campus, wherein boys will dress up as girls and vice versa. It started out as a bit of harmless fun designed to heighten awareness, yada, yada, yada. Now thanks to an article on the California Catholic Daily website (owned by the Reader’s Jim Holman), the angry alumni are circling the wagons, passing out petitions and yearning for the good old days when men were men except when they dressed up as women to sneak into the San Diego College for Women (true fact). The minions at the Daily website are screaming about “Perversion at its highest level” and saying mean things like “USD stands for Undeniable Satanic Destruction”. The drag show will take place at the University Center, Forums B/C. 7 – 9 p.m. There is no cover charge.
  [Read more…]

A Hopeful Youth Town Hall Meeting at Jacob Center in Lincoln Park

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This old dude was so tired that evening but there was no way I was going to miss a Town Hall Meeting with such a compelling theme as “Silence is Worse than Violence” – especially considering that a number of youth leaders decided that such a gathering was needed to begin a conversation for solutions to the problem. I love it when our children take the lead.

The night was kicked off with a bumping rap about how, “We got to rise up above it” followed by a spoken word piece about love and respect and honoring our ancestries and histories. Amen.

That set a tone that was soothing to my aging bones and the featured speaker and moderator of the evening, Kevin Powell, a prominent voice in the hip hop generation, jumped right in without missing a beat with anecdotes about the rough edges of his youth and how he turned it all around and has devoted his life to positive hopeful causes like ending violence, in keeping with why we were all gathered at the Joe & Vi Jacobs Center.   [Read more…]

SDSU president’s salary should be on par with the UC Chancellors

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SDSU is one of the largest universities in California, and is competing academically on a level more comparable to the UC schools than the CSU system, despite the numerous obstacles thrown in its way. So why is SDSU still treated by the state government as a lesser institution? And why should the university president be any less valued than some of his UC counterparts given the growing reputation and increased stature of SDSU?

There was a story in the LA Times the other day about how California Governor Jerry Brown’s appointment of Herbert L. Carter to the CSU Board of Trustees was rejected by California Senate Republicans, largely because he voted in favor of paying newly hired San Diego State University president Elliot Hirshman a $400,000 annual salary.   [Read more…]

Student Walk-Outs Planned at City College, SDSU, and UCSD for March 1st

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As part of the March 1st National Day of Action for Education, three area college campuses are planning student and faculty walk-outs tomorrow, the first day of March. Students at City College, San Diego State University, and University of California at San Diego have all joined in this national day of demonstrations, and each campus […]

How About Telling Our Children the Truth?

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Thoughts Stemming from 9-11 My radio alarm woke me up with someone summarizing a study that found that a significant number of schools have not done much as far as engaging students in learning experiences involving 9-11. Because it’s too “controversial.” Is that not sad? That reminds me of a man on TV, not too […]

State of Emergency Rally, San Diego – Friday, May 13 from 4-6 p.m.

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Embarcadero Marina Park North 500 Kettner Blvd, San Diego More than 2,000 educators, students, parents, union members, business and community leaders – arriving by car, trolley, bus and train from throughout San Diego, Imperial, and southern Orange and Riverside counties – will participate in a huge rally between 4:00 and 6:00 p.m. at San Diego’s […]

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