The “Outstanding Teachers for All Oakland Students” tax, as the name implies, would raise the wages of the school system’s more than 2,000 teachers — but not its custodians, its secretaries, its teachers’ aides, or its attendance clerks.

Which, of course, raises the question of equity: For the school system to improve, shouldn’t all school employees benefit equally?

Most of the speakers at last night’s hearing — which drew a decent sized crowd for Aug. 4 — seemed to think so. But Noel Gallo, the only school board member who supports OUSD’s latest parcel tax initiative, made an intersesting counterpoint.

Gallo said the board and the district have long acknowledged the importance of improving teaching quality in Oakland. If it’s truly a priority, he argued, the district should throw its resources behind it — and not spread its money too thin. Read the rest of this entry »

Monday night update: State Administrator Vince Matthews put the parcel tax on the November ballot, despite the school board’s advisory measure to delay the initiative until it was vetted by the board and the public, possibly in 2009. Read the story here.

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As usual, the news didn’t stop while I was away. I checked my mail this morning, still a bit foggy from vacation, to discover that the state administrator might put a parcel tax election on the Nov. 4 ballot! And that the special meeting to discuss the issue is scheduled for 4 p.m. this afternoon!

The proposed levy is titled the “Outstanding Teachers for all Oakland Students Tax.” It would cost property owners $120 each year (per parcel) for 10 years. According to the version posted on the meeting agenda, 85 percent would go to teacher compensation, and 15 percent to charter schools.

It seems as though the additional funding would ease ongoing contract negotiations by giving the district the means (and the directive) to give its teachers more competitive pay. But the Oakland teacher’s union appears poised to oppose the tax initiative. Read the rest of this entry »

Cranky Teacher’s post reminded me to check in on the teacher contract negotiations, and I can attest to the accuracy of his statement (not that I ever doubted it).

The school district did, earlier this month, present salary cuts and reduced “prep” time for teachers as one way to cut the budget by $23 million, said OUSD spokesman Troy Flint. And, I should note, the three-year budget projections presented last week by CFO Leon Glaster included no changes to the salary schedule.

That’s a far cry from the 20 percent raises proposed by the teacher’s union. Here’s an excerpt from bargaining update sent out to teachers late last week:

The SA team presented its proposal including these blockbusters:
• “Rolling back” salaries and possibly freezing positions on the salary schedule.
• Allowing site administrators at secondary schools the “flexibility” to assign teachers six teaching periods per day—a 20% increase in workload
• Providing elementary teachers with only one—unstaffed—prep per week, and eliminating staffed prep.

School board members appear to differ on the role they should play in these inevitably tense negotiations. Read the rest of this entry »

The teacher’s unions in Oakland, Fremont, Hayward and San Leandro — among others — have decided to stand with their trade union friends who sweep the floors, answer phones, help classroom teachers and build things.

The move to join the AFL-CIO was announced this afternoon. Sharon Cornu, of the Alameda Labor Council, tells me it will create more leverage for teachers and other employees in Oakland’s upcoming contract negotiations, and that the various groups of workers will now “speak with one voice.”

The Oakland Education Association is still a part of the National Education Association, but a recent agreement between the NEA and the AFL-CIO allowed local bargaining units to link directly to the mammoth union federation.

What difference do you think this affiliation will make in the way teachers and other workers are represented? Does everyone agree it’s a good idea? How do you think it will play into the contract negotiations?

image from daily.dose’s site at flickr.com/creativecommons

Dozens of employees in matching T-shirts caused a bit of a stir at the last school board meeting. They spoke out about their ever-increasing responsibilities, they demanded pay raises, and they weren’t shy about applauding (or, at one point, tittering at) various comments by board members.

If my headline hadn’t given it away, I bet you’d never guess who those employees were. Yes, they were school principals – mobilized, united and tactfully frank about the challenges of their jobs.

This is particularly fascinating to me, as I’m usually hard-pressed to get a peep from a principal – on the record, anyway – about anything remotely controversial or subversive. Yet here they were, asking for 20 percent raises and talking about burnout. (Their contract has not expired, but the salaries can be re-negotiated each year.)

Today, I spent the morning tagging along with Kimi Kean, the principal of ACORN Woodland Elementary School in East Oakland, to see what a principal’s day is like. Read the rest of this entry »