Federal Update - May 23, 2008
Brought
to you by your voice at the national level,
the Association of American
Educators.
Legislation That Proposes Mandatory Monopoly Bargaining Stalled in the Senate
Expansive Collective Bargaining Bill in Iowa Vetoed by Governor Culver
Study Finds “Boys Crisis” Unfounded
Voucher Programs for Foster and Disabled Children Ruled Unconstitutional
A Debate Over What an F in School Means
Governor Schwarzenegger and Other State Officials Argue in Defense of Homeschooling
Legislation That Proposes Mandatory Monopoly Bargaining Stalled in the Senate
A bill that makes mandatory monopoly bargaining for state and local police, firefighters, and other public-safety employees was the focus of the Senate’s attention during the week of May 12. If passed, the bill will require localities with a minimum population of 5,000 to bargain with unions representing police, firefighters, and other public-safety employees. Unions would be able to negotiate for a plethora of items including pay, benefits and work rules.
In some states public-safety employees engage in collective bargaining but never before has there been a federal mandate that forces employers to bargain with the unions representing public-safety employees, therefore, raising concerns about the constitutionality of the bill. The Tenth Amendment states that, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” These concerns have prompted the U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey, U.S. Department of Labor Secretary Elaine Chao and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff to send a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell informing them that a bill containing the current provisions would not be supported by the Administration.
The Public Safety Employer-Employee Cooperation Act of 2007 (HR 980/S 2123) was debated in the Senate recently after a cloture vote allowing discussion of the bill was passed in the Senate on May 13. HR 980 passed the House on July 17, 2007 with a vote of 314-97. The bill has been laid aside while Senator Edward M. Kennedy, chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, and Sen. Michael B. Enzi, the ranking Republican come to an agreement to limit amendments.
For more information about the bill, please read the following article titled, “Senate Drops Labor Bill, Turns to War Spending Measure,” at http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?docID=cqmidday-000002878579.
Also please read the article from the Wall Street Journal titled “The Union Police,” at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121055247300183929.html?mod=googlenews_wsj.
Expansive Collective Bargaining Bill in Iowa Vetoed by Governor Culver
This year in Iowa the state legislature passed a collective bargaining bill that would have greatly expanded the issues for which labor unions are allowed to bargain including class sizes, preparation time, work shift schedules and insurance carriers. The bill also contained provisions allowing for binding arbitration which would have left Iowa taxpayers vulnerable to higher property taxes in order to pay for provisions in the collective bargaining agreements imposed on them by an unelected adjudicator.
The bill was hastily pushed through the Democrat controlled General Assembly this spring while most people were out of the state on spring break. The lack of public input on the controversial bill caused Governor Culver (D) to threaten to veto the bill which he did on May 14. “While I've always been a strong supporter of worker rights and collective bargaining, a close examination shows it is not in the best interests of taxpayers of Iowa to let this legislation become law,” Culver said.
“Culver took the time to have an open discussion about this bill, unlike his counterparts in the House and Senate,” said House Minority Leader Christopher Rants (R-Sioux City). “Standing up to his own party illustrates how truly awful this legislation was.”
The Professional Educators of Iowa, an AAE partner, has praised Governor Culver for his decision and responsible leadership. “This highly flawed and force-fed bill would have neglected the rights and desires of all non-union workers,” said Jim Hawkins, Executive Director of PEI. “The bill appeared to be a power-play to satisfy the pressures of unions to control our state's destiny.”
For more information about the Governor Culver’s veto, please go to http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-ap-ia-xgr-culvervetoes,0,1199431.story.
To read PEI’s response to the governor’s veto, please go to http://sev.prnewswire.com/education/20080516/DC2269716052008-1.html.
Study Finds “Boys Crisis” Unfounded
The idea that there is a “boys crisis” in education and that males are trailing females in academics is false according to a recently released study by the American Association of University Women (AAUW). AAUW studied 40 years of data from students in grade four to college and analyzed gender differences within different ethnic and economic groups. The group concluded that since 1975 girls did better on 29 of the 30 NAEP reading tests. Hispanic girls surpassed Hispanic boys on less than half of the tests and African-American girls outscored their male counterparts on 24 of the 30 tests. The group, however, concluded that the disparities found between genders in academics are small compared to the academic gaps between ethnic and economic groups.
“A lot of people think it is the boys that need the help,” co-author Christianne Corbett said. “The point of the report is to highlight the fact that that is not exclusively true. There is no crisis with boys. If there is a crisis, it is with African-American and Hispanic students and low-income students, girls and boys.”
“No one makes the absurd argument that ‘the progress of girls has come at the expense of boys,’”stated Judith S. Kelinfeld, a researcher from the University of Alaska-Fairbanks. “The policy issue is whether boys have gender-specific educational and emotional problems which need attention. Boys most certainly do.” Ms. Kleinfield went on to say that boys are more apt to be assigned to special education classes, get lower grades than females and make up the majority of suspensions and expulsions.
When it comes to the SAT and the ACT, however, men have scored higher on the verbal and math portion of the SAT and slightly higher overall on the ACT. The study also found that in states where NAEP scores are high, boys and girls both score high and vice versa in states with low-scoring NAEP scores.
For more information about the study, please go to the article titled, “Study Disputes ‘Boys Crisis’ in Schools’” at http://www.denverpost.com/education/ci_9315705.
Voucher Programs for Foster and Disabled Children Ruled Unconstitutional
On Friday May 15 an Arizona Court of Appeals ruled that the voucher programs for foster and disabled children in Arizona were unconstitutional because public money is given to parents to use to send their children to a private or religious school. The court stated that the programs violated the “aid clause” of the state Constitution that prohibits public money from being used to help churches, private schools or religious schools.
“Vouchers only divert funding and attention away from public schools,” said John Wright, the president of the Arizona Education Association.
Under the Scholarship for Pupils with Disabilities students enrolled in a public school in Arizona that have been issued an Individualized Education Program (IEP) are eligible to participate in the program. Parents of these students may apply for grants to send their child to another public or private school of their choice. The amount of the scholarship is either the cost of the child’s tuition and fees or actual per pupil cost or the amount prescribed for the student under his IEP. Whatever total is lower is what is given to the child.
The Displaced Pupils Choice Grant Program is available on a first-come, first-serve basis to students who have been in foster care any time before graduation. A maximum of 500 scholarships are awarded a year. The total amount of each scholarship is a maximum of $5,000 or the selected school’s tuition, whichever is less.
“The programs provide aid to children and families, not to private schools,” said Tim Keller, an attorney for the Institute for Justice, a public interest law firm. “Pulling the rug out from under these children is not only appalling and tragic, it is a radical departure from Arizona constitutional and policy history.”
The decision will be appealed to the Arizona Supreme Court by the Institute for Justice.
For more information about the Arizona voucher programs, please go to http://www.fox11az.com/news/topstories/stories/tucson-20080515-voucher-programs-unconstitutional.1044086a7.html.
A Debate Over What an F in School Means
For many years the majority of schools in the U.S. have given students scores between 0-100, reserving the right to give students low scores for incomplete or unsatisfactory work. However, some schools are now switching to giving students a minimum score of 50 regardless of the quality of their work in an attempt to give students a chance to raise their score in the class. Examples of schools implementing this policy are the Dallas Independent School District which does not allow grades to drop below 50 and the Lehn Middle School in Port Byron, NY that has a computer program that rounds all grades up to 50.
“It’s a classic mathematical dilemma: that the students have a six time greater chance of getting an F,” said Douglas Reeves, founder of the Leadership and Learning Center. “The statistical tweak of saying the F is now 50 instead of zero is a tiny part of how we can have better grading practices to encourage student performance.
Ed Fields, a founder of Hotchalk.com, a site for parents and teachers, is an opponent of the minimum-50 policy, believes it is grade inflation. “I certainly don’t want to teach my children that no effort is going to get them half the way there,” he stated.
For more information, please read the article titled, “At Some Schools, Failure Goes From Zero to 50,” at http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2008-05-18-zeroes-main_N.htm.
Governor Schwarzenegger and Other State Officials Argue in Defense of Homeschooling
It was decided in April that the controversial homeschooling case in California would be reheard by the Second District Court of Appeal in California. The court had ruled earlier that parents did not have a constitutional right to homeschool their children. The court has asked interested parties in the case to submit amicus briefs, which give the opportunity for parties not involved in the lawsuit to state their interpretation and position of the issue being decided. The California Attorney General Edmund G. Brown Jr. filed an amicus brief on behalf of the state and the governor in support of homeschooling by explaining that state law already gives parents the option to homeschool their children.
“Here, this court need not reach any constitutional issues because this petition can be decided entirely on statutory ground, “the brief said. “The Education Code provides a broad statutory basis for homeschooling in California, setting forth three different avenues through which parents may legally homeschool their children.
In California parents have the option of having their children taught at home with a licensed tutor or through a school independent study program. Parents also can homeschool their children if they have met the state records requirements to teach their children at home.
For more information about the case, please go to http://worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=64830.