“The local president of the Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario said the teacher unions have sent out their endorsements this way for years, and there was never a complaint until now.

But “I see John’s point,” said James McCormack.

And if the board wants the union to stop, “we have no problem with that.”

Although the cards name the endorsed candidates, they don’t tell teachers how to vote, he said. Instead, they “strongly encourage” each teacher to vote for the candidates he or she thinks is best.

To make the endorsements, representatives of all three unions get together and send out a questionnaire to candidates. They also interview each candidate. In order to be endorsed, a candidate must get the nod from each of the three union representatives, McCormack said

Unions have a right to communicate with their members in the workplace, to tell them about everything from upcoming meetings to professional development opportunities. Employer resources are often used to reach them — whether it’s an email system, a bulletin board on a wall, or an internal mailing.

“What we’re talking about is a bargaining unit’s right to communicate with its members,” said John Shewchuk, senior manager of public affairs at the Waterloo Catholic District School Board.

Shewchuk said the Catholic teacher union is allowed to stuff mailboxes at each school, but board resources aren’t used for that.”

What I disagree with, that the union should used they own resources to communicate, rather than using the board’s resources. They are getting a free ride, where someone else is paying the bill. If a union wants to used the board’s resources, they should be paying the board for doing so..

What Shewchuk states on endorsement; “
Although the cards name the endorsed candidates, they don’t tell teachers how to vote, he said. Instead, they “strongly encourage” each teacher to vote for the candidates he or she thinks is best.

To make the endorsements, representatives of all three unions get together and send out a questionnaire to candidates. They also interview each candidate. In order to be endorsed, a candidate must get the nod from each of the three union representatives, McCormack said”

If that is not telling teachers how to vote, I do not know what is. Especially when, they do not include all candidates, and all three reps must agree on each endorsement. Real cute.

This has been to arbitration in many times. When boards agree to allow the federations and unions to use the board mail system to communicate with members, they give up any say as to the content of that communication. Boards have allowed this for many years and if they were to disallow it now arbitators would soon find against them for violation of “past practice.”

You can argue all you want, Dean/Doug.  Does it make it right?  No.

Malkin’s post rings true with me.

How do you think People for Education managed to get their message through schools? Same route - board mailing systems and tagged on to the union rants or posted with the union news on the staff room wall.

All of this “sunshine” on the questionable practices need to be distributed widely. Is there a link to Doretta’s radio spot?

I fail to see anything wrong with this. The union is using rights they negotiated with democratically elected boards to communicate with members.

The boards collect all the union dues as payroll deducton and writen one check to the union. This has been going on since the 1940s.

Governments all over Canada and the democratic world made it a condition of working in public schools that teachers must join the union.

You are fighting battles that were won before you were born.

No doubt the obligation to belong to a union only if it is a “public school” fuels a large amount of the hostility displayed toward schools outside the public system.  Organizing all sorts of private schools would be far more work than having a monopoly, as exists in the public system.

I finally understand the “Doug/Dean” reference; the guy posting as “Doug” over at The Retired Educator certainly does echo “Dean” over here.

Not reassuring behaviour from someone old enough to know better!

Ha Doug ever enabled reader comment over at his ezine?

I bet unions in other departments of government, are to used their own mail resources, rather than piggy-back unto the government’s own resources.

I also wonder how secure e-mail is, using the board’s computers and resources. These days, e-mail is leaked out, especially the kind that many may find very interesting.

O/T - for those watching TV tonight, the 8:00pm (Ontario)
episode of 20/20 is about Charter Schools.

Interesting 20/20 wasn’t what I thought it would be but it was a good show all the same.

It was about a charter school for kids who are victims of bullying. A very interesting concept but I couldn’t help wondering after I watched why it always is that the victim has to leave the school and not the bully.

The inaction and circling of administration wagons is the same in Ontario for parents.

Abolish Regional School Boards – Let’s Return to “Past Practice”

I frankly did not know there was such a clause as “past practice” which pertains to employer/employee relations and governance issues.  I know in law that “precedent” is a discrete factor in legal issues. And I know about “best practice”.

Thank you, Dean, for “past practice” into our conversation.

So, if past practice is to be a feature in education discussions, let’s bring forward the practice of school boards as in the days of the one-room schools. There – in my opinion –
is the ideal manner of governing a school.  The parents hire/fire and provide oversight about the adequacy of the curriculum being administered.

In an earlier post I mentioned the 2460 school boards in New Zealand, made up of mostly parents of each school, with the principal, a teacher, an in higher grades a student.

See my essay referred to: http://genuine-education-reform-today.org/2010/10/15/regional-school-boards-dysfunctional-2/

“Well before American charter schools, New Zealand went much further in granting power to individual schools by abolishing all regional school boards and making each public school independent, with local parent and teacher involvement in decision making.  Although not called charter schools, each school does have a charter under which it operates with a board of trustees and has a high degree of autonomy.” (Wikipedia)

As far as oversight, or “who guards the guardians” question, the above Wikipedia article says it all.  The schools operate under a charter, a contract.  A central government monitors for accountability. Parents are not disempowered and dispossessed of their rights and duty to supervise their children’s’ education.  And the teacher unions do not run the boards as they do here—in BC anyway.

What is the outcome?  New Zealand scores as well as Canada in achievement scores.  More education dollars reach the classroom rather than being siphoned off by the BLOB (*BLO*ated *B*ureaucracies).

New Zealand has returned to “past practice” with good results. 

If you think it’s all hunky-dory and easy sailing for these 2460 school boards, think again.  They grapple with the same issues we deal with here but with a more hands-on approach – parents being right in there, not at arms length. Trustees say they spend on average only 4 hrs a week on board matters.

For some flavor of what the school trustees have to deal with see the agenda of their last annual meetings: http://www.nzsta.org.nz/about-nzsta/conferences/2010-christchurch-conference/

Read about the history and mission of the New Zealand School Trustees Association here: http://www.nzsta.org.nz/about-nzsta/

New Zealand does not do nearly as well as Canada on OECD tests. Canada is second in the world tied approx. with Korea and only very slightly behind Finland.

Yes, this quote from Tunya is an interesting way to compare provincial school boards.

“The orientation and training of trustees is a massive endeavor with frequent workshops, conferences and certified trainers. “Our training is practical, relevant and empowering”, says the school trustees’ association, NZSTA. Their credo: Effective governance: no excuses, no exceptions, high expectations.”

It is interesting because I have seen little evidence of effective governance: no excuses, no exceptions, high expectations, in the operations of our provincial boards. It is a sense of entitlement, when teachers’ unions are allowed to used the school boards courier system, and any other board’s resources, for union business. At the end of the day, the free courier system, takes money away from the students and their learning needs.

The trustees should develop a backbone, when it comes to teachers’ unions piggybacking unto the board’s system of operations. But than again, after reviewing the Ontario Public School Boards’ Association (OPSBA), the school board governance and operations makes it difficult to develop a backbone against powerful interests such as the teachers’ unions, and furthermore, stymies innovation, new practices, and restricts school reform practices by politicizing the processes.

http://www.opsba.org/

Nancy, these privledges are “negotiated” freely given “in exchange for some other consideration” the boards traded this, since it const very little with mail going anyway, to piggyback union mail. The boards “got something they wanted in exchange” for this.

It was all done many years ago. It would be very difficult for the boards to change now since it is in every contract across the province. It is not a nice favour that the boards extend to the union.

It is difficult because the very nature of the board’s governance and operations promotes and caters to the people who work within the education field. In the case of union contracts, at the end of the day what is being traded off comes with a price tag - less direct funding for our children’s education, and more to pay for the perks and salaries of those who worked in the education system.

It is not a coincidence, that school boards and their trustees are being severely restricted by powerful interests using the political route. It prevents innovation at the local level, and in so doing prevents trustees from becoming mavericks for effective school reform.

The unions using the boards’ mailing system (which our tax dollars fund) are not negotiated freely simply because so many of the trustees are bought and paid for by the unions.  Just because it’s been done forever, and it’s legal does not mean that it’s fair, right nor democratic.

So it was agreed to by democratically elected trustees who are overseen legislatively by democratically elected MPPs and it has been through our democratically overseen arbitration system set up to establish fairness but it is not necessarily democratic or fair or right.

Oh I see now. Stuff you don’t like is undemocratic no matter what. I wish I had seen that earlier.

Being elected, does not mean the processes or persons will hold democratic principles and uphold them as their guide for decisions. This can be demonstrated across the political spectrum, but than again, it is only people who used the excuse as being elected, ,to defend bad decisions.

hahaha!  Don’t make me laugh!  There’s nothing democartic about the teachers unions buying trustees—and worse, our laws allowing such a thing.  Damn!  A neighbour came over about an hour ago.  He’s illiterate.  What’s this fine young man going to do with his life!  I’m very upset right now, but you and your union, ‘D’ are dispicable, and the media are cowardly!