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© 2011 The Union Label Blog & Grassfire Nation
A story by Susan Edelman in the New York Post is getting traction with news outlets and their readers, because of the issues at stake involving millions of dollars of waste in New York’s notorious Department of Education.
You may have previously heard about the infamous “rubber rooms” to which teachers were assigned pending resolution of cases, in which the teachers were accused of some infraction, ranging from teacher incompetence to alleged child abuse. Here is a video about those rubber rooms which have now been closed.
Despite the closing of rubber rooms, however, and claims by officials that hundreds of cases that were pending, have been resolved, the story in the NY Post contends that teachers continue to be “reassigned.” Essentially there are no more rubber rooms, but teachers are still being assigned to do menial tasks, to do nothing, or to do clerical or secretarial functions.
The NY Post Edelman story makes a case in point about Alan Rosenfeld, who, by the way, could have retired already, “…continues to collect a $100,049 a year salary plus health benefits, a growing pension nest egg, vacation, and sick pay…” (see EDELMAN)
Edelman makes the case about New York tax payer money waste:
“Mayor Bloomberg and Gov. Cuomo can call for better teacher evaluations until they’re blue-faced, but Rosenfeld and six peers with similar gigs costing about $650,000 a year in total salaries are untouchable. Under a system shackled by protections for tenured teachers, they can’t be fired, the DOE says….”
The key phrase in that quote is “Under a system shackled by protections for tenured teachers, they can’t be fired, the DOE, says.”
Admittedly some progress has been made. Joe Coscarelli’s article in The Village Voice explains:
“The Department of Education recently returned 474 local teachers to the classroom in an attempt to rid New York City of the infamous “rubber room” sitters, in which educators accused of misconduct sit around and do nothing while collecting a full paycheck. The New York Post reports today that 159 disciplined teachers paid fines — some as high as $15,000 — to get back to work. Some were still ordered to training or to be tested for alcohol and drugs, but many just handled something “like a parking ticket,” with the average charge coming to $7,500.”
But this “progress” was apparently made after exposes brought to light the waste and alleged injustices, and corresponding outrage and activism forced administrative action by state officials.
Still the problem continues.
Taxpayers continue to pay for, not just alleged incompetence by teachers, but for the blatant pretended resolution of the problem of a racket of convenience and easy money, brokered between Government and a Teacher’s Union, a mix that provides a recipe for continued corruption, and politics as ususal that is emblematic of a system that will continue to foster corruption, until tax payers take it upon themselves to intervene en masse to effect change, and restore control to the people that system is supposed to serve.
Vanguard of Freedom Network / Patriot Action Network / Liberty News Network
Democratic State Representative Terri Austin is a lifelong educator who represents an area of Northeast Indiana that includes portions of Madison and Hamilton Counties. According to her official biography, Representative Austin:
…earned degrees from Ball State University and Butler University as a teacher of elementary education, special education and educational administration and supervision. She served in public education for more than twenty years and has been an adjunct professor at Anderson University.
In other words, she’s a lifelong teacher and therefore, a union member. To her credit, she isn’t one of the Indiana “Fleebaggers”, but she has no problem spouting the party line and lying obfuscating on behalf of her colleagues. and according to an email she’s alleged to have sent out, must not have done very well in 5th grade civics class. Here’s what she had to say:
Dear Friends,
Since last Tuesday, I have received hundreds of communications regarding the recent actions at your Indiana statehouse. Whether you support or oppose my decision, as a constituent and public school educator, you deserve to know why I felt compelled to slow down the consideration of a legislative agenda that will have a long-term impact on Hoosier families, Hoosier workers and Hoosier students.
“Why did the House Democrats leave?”
This session began with a great hope of working with our colleagues across the aisle to develop a plan for job creation, move our public schools to the front of the class and draft a fiscally responsible state budget. Although there were promises of working in a bi-partisan manner from the House Republicans, the recorded votes on the House floor and in the standing committees did not reflect those actions.
Please understand that Democrats did not cross our arms and say “no” to everything that was proposed by our Republican colleagues. Even if we disagreed on a bill, positive and compromising alternatives were offered to improve and/or moderate the consequences if we felt they were harmful to our districts and our constituents.  Most times those ideas, offered in good faith, were summarily dismissed. In fact, over 7 out of every 10 votes cast so far this session were made along party lines. Amendments offered by Democrats were rejected time after time, and in some cases were even denied the opportunity to be presented.
Over the last couple of weeks the barrage of controversial and critical bills, put on the calendar at the last minute, hampered the ability of legislators and the public to understand the details of these bills much less consider their long-term consequences.  Although the “Right to Work” (RTW) bill has been depicted as the primary reason for the “time out”, it was a whole list of concerns. This time out has given the public and legislators the time to learn about the content of these bills.
Legislators and the public were not fully educated on several bills that were moving like a runaway freight train. As can be noted by the thousands of citizens who have demonstrated at the statehouse and rallied in their communities, the public is becoming more aware of these issues, and they are speaking up. The focus of this time-out should not be the absence of the House members but the potentially damaging impact of these bills.
“You walked off the job for which you were hired.”
I have been given the great privilege of serving the citizens of Districts 36, and I do not take lightly the trust put in me to represent you and your families.   I have great respect for our legislative institution and its rules, and the choice we made to slow down the House action is an understood part of the process. To remain out of the House chamber should be used rarely and done only after careful consideration. We know that Speaker Bosma and other House Republicans understand this, because when in the minority, they used this Constitutionally-granted ability in 2001 and 2004.
I have been working at the Capitol and in Illinois every day. I have been spending days in meetings discussing and debating our list of concerns, communicating with the public to explain the issues, and working on possible amendments or changes to bills for when we return. Like my colleagues, I have chosen to not receive my daily pay for the days our caucus is away from the statehouse.
“So, what is your goal? RTW has been taken off the table by the Governor and Republican leaders.”
Again, RTW has been portrayed as the reason for leaving, but it was only one bill in a list of several that raised concerned.
As a lifelong educator, I have serious concerns about several “education reform” bills and their consequences public education.
Here are six:
*    HB 1479 would allow for the immediate state takeover of six Madison County schools. This would include Pendleton Heights, Highland, East Side Intermediate, North Side Intermediate and Elwood Community High School. A for-profit management team could be appointed, teachers and administrators replaced, and a new school board to oversee each individual school. Funds for all of this would come from the state budget allocation given to the school district.
*    HB 1003 would establish a voucher program for private and religious schools, and would increase the state income tax credit for individuals and corporations who give to scholarship granting organizations. It is important to note that this same tax credit is not available to individuals or corporations who want to donate to public school foundations or public schools.  The voucher program would drain precious dollars away from existing schools, programs and improvement efforts. This is on top of the $600 million dollars in cuts from Governor Daniels over the past two years.
*Â Â Â Â HB 1585 would allow the State Board of Education to waive any law (or rule).
*Â Â Â Â HB 1260 addresses school employee health plans and mandates certain provisions to force cost savings.
*    SB 575 limits collective bargaining to wages and wage-related benefits. It removes collective bargaining for curriculum and instructional matters,
*    SB 1 repeals the minimum salary law which provides that teacher training and experience are counted as the base pay for teacher salaries. The bill permits no more than one-third of a teacher’s salary to be based on experience and allows NO EXTRA PAY for advanced degrees.   Career teachers with master’s degrees could lose more than $10,000 in pay-and often MUCH more than $10,000. This bill also allows for up to 50% of teachers in a charter school to be unlicensed.
I do not see how any of these bills will help us reach our primary goal…. Raising student achievement.  The letters and emails of support that so many of you have sent are truly appreciated. This is not an easy time and for those who remain in Illinois it has been a tremendous sacrifice.
However, House Democrats stand united in our support for public education and for working families. We have always been willing to work in a spirit of compromise and collaboration. But it must be a two-way street.
I apologize for the length of this letter, but there is no simple and short explanation of this matter. It is my hope that through earnest discussions between Republican and Democrat leadership, a compromise can be reached, and we can return to the statehouse.
Sincerely,
Terri
P.S. Please feel free to share this with your colleagues. If I can provide you with additional information about other bills, please let me know.
Now, in fairness most of this message was a cut-paste job from the standard message all of the Indiana House Democrats sent out (See Rep. Peggy Welch’s statement here) with Rep. Austin adding her own personal comments to that boilerplate message.
I have neither the time nor the patience to refute this utter piece of shit ridiculous propaganda piece, but there’s one part that bugs me to no end. Allow me to re-quote the offending part:
“and the choice we made to slow down the House action is an understood part of the process”
Allow me to assist Representative Austin:
ma·jor·i·ty
/məˈdʒɔrɪti, -ˈdʒɒr-/ Show Spelled[muh-jawr-i-tee, -jor-]
–noun, plural -ties.
1.the greater part or number; the number larger than half the total ( opposed to minority): the majority of the population.
2.a number of voters or votes, jurors, or others in agreement, constituting more than half of the total number.
3.the amount by which the greater number, as of votes, surpasses the remainder ( distinguished from plurality).
4.the party or faction with the majority vote: The Democratic party is the majority.
In other words, Republicans in the Indiana State House are in the “majority”, a happy accident that came about because THE VOTERS OF INDIANA WANTED IT THAT WAY. Demcrats were in the majority from 2006-2010, during which time they served as a roadblock to actual progress and economic development in the state of Indiana. Because of that, voters threw pat Bauer out on his hair and put mature adults Republicans in power.
Didn’t we learn all of this back in 5th grade civics? Was Representative Terri Austin out sick that week?
According to Wikipedia:
Astroturfing is a form of advocacy often in support of a political or corporate agenda designed to give the appearance of a “grassroots” movement. The goal of such campaigns is to disguise the efforts of a political and/or commercial entity as an independent public reaction to some political entity—a politician, political group, product, service or event. The term is a derivation of AstroTurf, a brand of synthetic carpeting designed to look like natural grass
Note the section that reads “designed to give the appearance of a grassroots movement” as you read this CraigsList ad that was originally posted here.
Today is the day our new ACORN Watch Section goes live, and the timing couldn’t be better. I’ll explain why shortly, but first let’s talk about the new ACORN Watch Section here at the Union Label Blog.
As we all know… unions are some of the most corrupt organizations in the country. Union thugs work to limit free speech by blocking the initiative process, they scam union members by using dues for fraud type transactions and political activism, and they corrupt the American political process on all fronts.
This is why we at the Union Label Blog have worked hard to keep the union news flowing, and our stats are showing that people are indeed interested to hear what we have to say.
Because of this growth in traffic and attention, we’ve decided to add a section documenting election fraud via ACORN, an organization that is doing everything possible to cheat the American voters out of fair elections.
Some ACORN allies will preach about the organization being there for the low income families who need help, but they refuse to include anything about ACORN’s massive election fraud campaigns, attacks on free speech, and internal fraud/corruption.
Which brings us back to the perfect timing of taking this new section live… and this is extremely important for those of you who might think ACORN is looking out for your best interest.
Wade Rathke, who founded ACORN in 1970, left his position as the organization’s chief organizer after an embezzlement scandal that occurred eight years ago surfaced last month involving his brother and the group’s finances. ACORN’s national board asked Rathke to step down from his position about a week ago. Rathke’s brother, Dale, embezzled almost $1 million from the community group but the crime was handled internally and not reported to the police, allegedly at the behest of Wade Rathke.
The founder of ACORN and his brother were scamming members of the organization for years!
According to the New York Times column on the story, the organization hid the fraud from the board as well as its members because it was afraid of giving groups who might feel this is unacceptable, you know… as in… MOST AMERICANS, ammunition to fire at ACORN.
He said the decision to keep the matter secret was not made to protect his brother but because word of the embezzlement would have put a “weapon†into the hands of enemies of Acorn, a liberal group that is a frequent target of conservatives who object to its often strident advocacy on behalf of low- and moderate-income families and workers.
And apparently a lot of the staffers who were either aware of the rip off eight years ago when it started, or were actually a part of it, are still working at ACORN.
But the fact that most of the handful of people who did not disclose the fraud when they learned of it eight years ago still work for Acorn or its affiliates concerns many of the group’s financial supporters.
Have no doubt folks, ACORN is a big scam, an insult to Americans, a hindrance to the American voting process, and this sort of thing will only continue to get worse moving forward.
If you want to keep up to date with union corruption, as well as the ACORN scam of America, please sign up for e-mail updates and RSS feeds on our site.
Stay tuned for more!
-Eric Odom
The Union Label Blog has non-stop coverage of the SEIU convention this week. You’ll want to subscribe to our RSS feeds to get the updates as they happen.
The following is a list of our posts on the convention so far.
Continue reading »
Class is in session. The topic? Union tax grab 101.
Courtesy of Citizen Outreach.
