Guess the High School teachers want to offer themselves up to the inevitable public flogging as well:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/education/ontario-high-school-teachers-set-to-take-job-action-nov-7/article4680679/comments/

Looks like we will be getting a Conservative government again. The unions have now greased the skids for a long slide. Leaves us with the NDP holding the union bag so to speak. Can’t imagine the NDP riding this one anywhere but down. The Liberals have joined former NDP leader Bob Rae in the unions eternity vilification box.  If organized labour think things are tough wait until choice becomes the law.

Membership could standup and tell their leaders what to do. I am not holding my breath.

Teachers vote for the most militant leaders to head their unions.  I wonder what they’ll do in the future? 
Union leaders and politicians can promise teachers anything.  The unions voted in the Liberals who gave them huge wage increases and dumbed down curricula and testing at the grade school level; then borrowed $$ to pay for these salary and benefit increases.  They under McGuinty mismanaged the province so badly that we now have huge deficits and debts.  I wish that the psu’s would think before using their power to put politicians into power because they make unaffordable promises to them, and who also seem to lack the ability to properly run the province.  This also happened under Bob Rae’s leadership.  Teachers and the rest of the psu’s:  if there’s no money coming from the tax base, then these promises cannot be kept.  If your leaders were smart rather than militant, they’d realize that we’re all in this together, and discouraging good education because it makes teachers have to put in too much effort in the long run hurts everyone because then there’s a shortage of skilled people to generate tax dollars needed to support your lifestyle.  Also, are you proud of the man you’ve put in power as our premier?  He’s simply turned his back on everyone and walked away.  If he had stood his ground and accepted responsibility for his actions I would have respected him, but right now, he appears to be devoid of morals or ethics.  You simply voted for him because he jumped into bed with your unions, but you never looked deeper.

Rather bizarre the thinking of unions and educators are one and the same. No differences. But when I got thinking about it, in the historical aspect, it is one and the same in the 21st century. Once upon a time, in the 19th century, public education began in England as the means to educate the poor. The great unwash masses, a great social experiment and to remedied the social problems of the time.

Hammond, ”  ?Contrary to the minister?s statement today, ETFO provided advice ? not a directive ? to members about the fall progress reports,? said Hammond in a statement. ?We?ve also made it very clear that where students are having difficulties, teachers provide more detailed information to parents.?

Just advice eh?  On the ETFO site, a example of the profit being made, at the expense of the students and their futures. The 2012 annual report of the ETFO -  http://annualmeeting.ca/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/AnnualReport2012.pdf

Earlier today, I ran across an item that no one within the public education system and more so for the teachers’ union would like to discuss.
Mickelson ExxonMobil Teachers Academy
http://www.exxonmobil.com/Corporate/community_math_academy.aspx

Did a bit of research today, the amount of monies from corporations to fund teachers and their training development is in the millions. To do that, a corporation would have to have the full approval of the teachers’ unions. In Canada, millions of dollars are given to teacher development, and it would not surprised me in the least, if the ETFO teacher development and training are not funded or sponsored by major corporations. Yet, ETFO, like other teachers’ unions are opposed to any direct corporation funding of the schools. No playground equipment if the corporation are insisting to have their name engraved on the play equipment, but all is right in the world, where unions roll out the red carpet for corporations for the dollars to fund teacher development and training.
http://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/pmate-ppmee.nsf/eng/wz01022.html

In the teachers’ union world, no problem for union leaders to give out the orders no extracircular activities, minimum reporting. The usual operating MO on their part, and more so for the 21st century public education model, that has no choice but to go to a public school, Students don’t count, and they have not counted from the very beginning of the emergence of the public education model.

What does count, who is holding court with the education stakeholders, administering to their needs and wants. The public has become the unwash including the students who are part of the unwash.

Going back to what Hammond has said to the press, there is little differences between the 19th century and the 21st century education stakeholders, in their actions and behaviours. Always at the expense of the students they serve. Outcomes?  It did not matter back in the 19th century and nor does it matter to the teachers’ union brass, who are availing of a teacher academy fully funded by a major corporation. but hates the corporation guts, if they decided to buy textbooks for schools of the “Jump Math” kind.

During my search, I ran across this article, done sometime in the 1990s - ” The observation procedure was applied in 74 selected classrooms in 28 schools, and in one program for students sponsored by a major corporation. “
http://www.deanproject.eu/turkish/pdfs/23004.pdf

The content of the study really doesn’t matter, but what is important is the global corporations active hand influencing education directives directly to teachers and the unions. Playing backroom poker, at the expense of the students and their futures. I say this, because the OECD report makes a statement that I have never read or seen being denied within the public education system. “In particular,  the emergence of a “learning
economy”, in which continual learning is an increasingly important part of work, is expected to have profound implications for the design of initial
education. This study explores some of those implications by examining the work of innovative teachers, who participate in the learning economy in two ways: as professional employees seeking to keep their own practice abreast of new knowledge and changing conditions; and as instructors preparing the next generation for a lifetime of learning.”

In 2012 - the chickens are coming home to roost?  I never did see my children as part of a learning economy, Yet my children are paying the price for their education, and at the expense of my pocketbook. No wonder, why my child and like other struggling students are not getting the correct help for their learning struggles. It would not be fair to the little dears, if they had no need to partake in the learning economy, of remediation of the 3 Rs, after 12 years of schooling. Not fair, according to the cook book recipes of equity and social justice being pushed by the teachers and their unions.

Guess who’s in the top 1%.  I was actually surprised.
http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/newsgraphics/2012/0115-one-percent-occupations/index.html

Doretta,

I think you may be misreading the data a bit.  Just about every occupation will have its outliers.  We do know that there are some very well paid people in EVERY profession - that’s all this chart is showing you.  Really, it’s just common sense.

If you actually dig into the numbers, you see quite a different picture.  As you cursor over the boxes, you see the percentage of people in each occupation that are in the ‘1%’.  Only 0.9% of teachers are in the one percent.  It is interesting that 2.7% of insurance salespeople are in the one percent - that is THREE TIMES the number of teachers, and insurance sales does not have the educational requirements of teaching.

The results are even more dismal when you compare teaching to other occupations with similar educational background.  14.6% of lawyers are in the 1%.  That means that they are over SIXTEEN TIMES more likely to be the top income earners.  Doctors:  27.2% - or over THIRTY TIMES more likely to be rich.

Heck, to find occupations similar to teaching in the US, you have to look at:  records processors, secretaries, and bookkeepers.  Even nannies in the US are three times more likely to be in the top 1%.

However, I assume that you were trying to show that American teachers are grossly underpaid.

To make an assumption - that teachers are grossly underpaid is rather foolish, when it is dealing with households of the 1 percent. There is no access to the other data - such as marrying into the 1 percent, or being part of a privately run family business, but their job is waitress or waiter.

In today’s Star - “Ontario high school teachers are planning to ?up the heat? in negotiations with the government by taking job action, including not talking to parents or administering standardized tests.

Ken Coran, president of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation, said Friday he?s instructed some 60,000 OSSTF members, who are in a legal strike position, also to cease attending staff meetings by Nov. 7.”
http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/1278392—ontario-high-school-teachers-to-up-the-heat-in-row-with-province

“Broten added the Putting Students First Act, a new anti-strike law that cuts benefits and freezes the wages of senior teachers, allows the government to intervene through regulation, not legislation, if teachers take such action.

?At this point, we are monitoring closely to see how local unions operationalize job actions and will assess options,? said Broten.

Coran scoffed at Broten?s suggestion teachers can be regulated through the Act to resume such duties.

?If (the Act?s) even legal,? quipped Coran, whose union is among three others that claims it infringes on the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.”

Rather ironic, the big public sector unions stood on the sidelines, watching the private unions being torn asunder, in the pass 30 years. Watch too, when a few other provinces of smaller stature, legislated the public sector unions back to work.

” What makes recent cases so different and so dangerous is that governments are bypassing the arbitration route and writing the terms of settlement into the legislation. When it happens again and again, collective Canadian governments are, for all intents and purposes, rendering collective bargaining dead.”
http://www.policyalternatives.ca/publications/commentary/back-work-legislation-threat-democracy

Hasn’t the public sector unions sealed their fate, when they stood on the sidelines, watching the private unions being torn asunder. The miners go on strike, the scab labour replaces them. Oh I forgot, the public sector unions were to busy accounting for every minute, to be bother with the miners and other low brow work careers,

Now the stars are aligning up, to make a guest appearance on the public sector unions in 2013. Just in time, for the other trade agreements of the CETA kind and Asian kind. Who knows what kind of ugly prizes await for the public sector unions, that emerges from the trade agreements, but the private unions can give the public sector a few tales of ugliness.

Yeah, “Teachers are thus getting a double whammy from their union. Not only are they being prevented from serving their students as well as they wish to, but also they are getting a black eye courtesy of their union. ”  One would think that comments from the teachers’ union would not be the order of the day, ” ?It just blows my mind that the government can?t realize there?s more than one way to solve a problem,? said Coran. ?It?s what we teach our students and maybe it?s time for the government to practice higher order thinking.?

It blows my mind, what is the definition of higher order thinking under the public education umbrella. Fighting over salary freezes of two years, and cuts to the perks, is just the tip of the ice berg, considering Europe and the world wide recession and the newer, not signed trade agreements.

Rather scary…........considering the public sector unions can hold the public hostage. The public they serve. And in another 20 years or so, no public sector union will be allow to strike, and that will be compliments of the trade agreements and governments of any political stripe. But no, the teachers’ unions are far too busy using their political and social capital, to protect the present, without regard to their futures. So much for higher order thinking…...

Just finished an education show in Baltimore-I am of the impression that most teachers care,they are impotent,clogs in the wheel of the education bureaucracy.
It would be nice to see them create an association rather than join a Union,like psychologists-they standardize their costs to the public that way and keep a professionalism in their industry.
The machinations of thug like Union bosses are a total disconnect with teaching as a profession.
If a teacher gets emotional rewards helping students on weekends and after school or coaching basketball they shouldn`t be handcuffed by union rules.

God,we wish you`d be brave and confront the Unions and rally against them.It`s such bad news.Am I being naive as usual?

Nancy,

Speaking of assumptions ...

I’ll assume that you understand the bell curve, and the implications of being more than three standard deviations above the norm.

What is wrong with the world, and more so with the 21st century education system model, the tendency to jump to solutions based on assumptions, derived from the data streams or lack of the data.

What really blows me away, the number of grade 1 students that are assigned the label of ‘slow student’, without the measures of objective data. Convenient, for school administration and school budgets, but at the expense of the students and their futures. Bonus, it creates a lot of busy work in the future for the educators, at the expense of the taxpayer’s purse and the parents’ pocketbooks.

Wayne since you brought up the bell curve, isn’t it convenient for the operations and practices of the public education system,  to grade on the curve? “The grading method can thus be tuned to determine the frequency distribution of the grades in advance, and if the intervals are already fixed at the beginning of a course, then so is the number of students who will receive each grade.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grading_on_a_curve

Union brass, loves this type of grading and the practices that goes with it, no-zero policies, social promotion, no retention, small classes that all help to create the positive image that the union and its members are meeting the objective and goals of their superiors and meeting expectations of parents and society. Bonus, the union brass can extract the stuff for negotiating at contract time.

However, the chickens have come home to roost, figuratively speaking. The teachers’ unions are now caught in their own web,  that was meant to encase everyone else that are not part of the union. The line in the sand has been drawn by the education stakeholders and the political counterparts. Trouble is the line being drawn by the union brass is within the web of their own making. It certainly leaves the classroom teachers caught in a situation, that no one should be in. Push the students and parents who are still entrapped in the web, one day in the near future, the students and parents will push back.

If the union carries out their plans on speaking to parents only in the normal operating hours of the school day, trouble will land on the individual teachers’ door steps. More so for the schools, who are prone to follow the edicts of the high command - the union brass.

In Malkin’s post - ” Personally, I see a huge distinction between the teachers? unions and the teachers. I think that most teachers want to co-operate with the provincial testing. I think that most teachers hate having to curtail their extra-curricular volunteering. I think that most teachers want to give full reports to parents. But they have to toe the party line if they want to teach in publicly-funded elementary schools.”

I highly doubt, parents are going to be willing partners in the political games of the union brass. Nor will the parents actively support to help teachers to keep within the normal operating hours of a school, without some kind of motivating reward.  There is no rewards for parents to follow the teachers’ union party lines, since the union is asking parents to remain in the web, trapped along side with the union members and the union brass who willingly walked into their own web. After negotiations, the unions get to leave, but the parents, students and society are still trapped with no exit to leave. Individual teachers should see it for what it is, and tread carefully.