Join CTA/SCCSCC at a special screening of the movie "Race to Nowhere: The Dark Side of America's Achievement Culture."

 

We will have two showings at the Bluelight Cinema in Cupertino:

 

5 p.m., Wednesday, March 30

5 p.m., Wednesday, April 13

 

Use the attached flyer to invite your family and friends, fellow teachers, and even administrators! (However, please note that space is limited.)

 

Tickets are just $5/person and will be sold in advance ONLY by calling Jackie at Bluelight at 408-255-5002.

For more information about the movie, click here: http://www.racetonowhere.com/.

For information about Bluelight Cinema, including directions, click here: http://www.bluelightcinemas.com/.

 

Call and buy your tickets today!

 

 

                                            PARCEL TAX UPDATE

 

Hello members,

 

Phone banking will begin this Sunday March 6^th. It is important that we fill our phone banking slots. We have cell phones for you to use at the CEA office. Unfortunately our website doesn't go live until Thursday (www.yes4cupertinoschools.org). I am listing links for the first few nights. These links ARE live. Please sign up at your earliest convenience.

 

 

Week 1

Sunday, March 6 - Lawson

 http://www2.mysignup.com/cgi-bin/view.cgi?datafile=lawson1

 

Monday, March 7 - Miller

http://www2.mysignup.com/cgi-bin/view.cgi?datafile=miller1

 

Tuesday, March 8 - Stocklmeir

 http://www2.mysignup.com/cgi-bin/view.cgi?datafile=stocklmeir1

 

Wednesday, March 9 - Sedgwick

 http://www2.mysignup.com/cgi-bin/view.cgi?datafile=sedgwick1

 

Thursday, March 10 - District Office

 http://www2.mysignup.com/cgi-bin/view.cgi?datafile=districtoffice

 

 

Thank you in advance for your participation.

 

Neal Wooley

Parcel Tax Co-chair

Your help is needed now to stave off additional devastating cuts to public education and other public services. Get in touch with your state Senator and state Assembly Member at their district offices and urge them to support Gov. Jerry Brown's proposed budget that would protect public education from more cuts.

Also urge your lawmakers to extend the temporary taxes or put the issue before the voters during a June special election. Lawmakers have a choice between extending the temporary taxes or authorizing billions of dollars more in devastating cuts to public schools and other public services.

Background:
To prevent a potential cut of $2 billion or more to our schools, the Legislature must agree to extend the temporary taxes or to place a measure on the June ballot to allow voters to extend them. Either option takes a 2/3 vote of the Legislature to achieve the goal, and it will require at least three Republicans in the state Senate and two in the state Assembly to join with all Democrats to extend the taxes or put the measure on a June special election ballot.Your efforts can help convince both Democratic and Republican lawmakers to pass the governor's proposed budget and extend the temporary taxes. The governor's proposal will help erase the state's $25 billion budget deficit while protecting schools and other essential services from further cuts.

Key Points:

·         K-12 schools and colleges have already been cut over $20 billion over the last three years--$1,900 per K-12 student.
·         Class sizes are soaring, programs are disappearing and entire school years are shrinking in many school districts.
 ·         More than 30,000 California educators and 10,000 other public school employees have been laid off over the past three years.
·         The governor's plan to extend temporary taxes for five years will help prevent further cuts to schools, public safety, health and other vital state programs.
 ·         Without an extension of current revenues, public schools and colleges will lose more than $2.3 billion. 
·         The governor's balanced budget approach will help protect students and essential services, create jobs, and stabilize the economy. 

Here's what you can do to help!

Contact your legislators in their local offices by phone and use our CTA legislative portal to contact them, too. Find it at htttp://www.capwiz.com/nea/ca/issues/alert.
Urge your legislators to support the governor's budget plan and extend the temporary taxes.
 If they are unwilling to do so, ask them to let the voters decide by putting the issue before the electorate as a June 2011 ballot measure.  

Then close the loop by e-mailing lfeldman@cta.org to let us know: 1) Who did you meet with or reach by phone or e-mail? 

2) What was the response?  Will the lawmaker support the governor's budget?

For more information, contact Legislative Advocate Estelle Lemieux or GR Communications Consultant Len Feldman at 916.325.1500.

Workers are Under Attack: Stand with Educators Fighting for Their Rights!

Wisconsin Governor Walker continues to push his anti-worker agenda as he refuses to negotiate.  Educators in Wisconsin have repeatedly stated that this fight is not about pay and benefits - it is about the right to be heard. 

This week, Governor Walker showed his true colors - an ideological agenda to silence workers.  In a taped conversation with someone posing as his supporter, billionaire David Koch, the Governor bragged about using layoff threats to bully and intimidate working families into submission.

While the nation seems to have its eyes and ears on Wisconsin, attacks are happening all across the country.  Teachers, school support staff, nurses, firefighters, and middle class workers and families are under relentless attack in state after state by an unprecedented, well-funded, and coordinated national campaign.  But, as the fight continues, workers and their supporters are standing up and demanding to be heard.  Rallies with unprecedented turnout have been held in states across the nation.  Read about rallies around the nation. 

The labor movement in this country has been responsible for safety standards, the minimum wage, fair employment practices, and more.  For educators, our collective bargaining rights allow us to raise concerns about class size, school safety, and other important teaching and learning conditions.  To express your support for workers' rights across the country, please sign our national petition and follow the latest news about the attacks on our rights.

Back to Top

Tell the Senate to Stand Strong against House-Passed Education Cuts

The House of Representatives has passed a "continuing resolution" (CR) for the rest of the current fiscal year (FY 2011).  The draconian education cuts contained in the House CR would dash the dreams of countless American students, put additional strain on state budgets already cut to the bone, and stall the engine that drives our economy.  Thousands of students would lose Title I services and Head Start slots;  local tax burdens would increase as education costs are shifted to state and local levels; millions of students would lose Pell Grant assistance; and thousands of education jobs would be lost.  See how much your state would lose.  See how your representative voted. 

But, the fight is not over!  Congress returns on February 28 with a looming deadline, as the current CR is set to expire on March 4.  The House will have to negotiate with the Senate and the President in order to craft a CR that can be enacted into law.  Your voice is critical as negotiations continue - particularly to tell the Senate to stand firm against the cuts. 

Take Action TODAY:  Tell the Senate to reject the House-passed education funding cuts and to invest in education for our nation's future. 

Back to Top

Cheers and Jeers

Cheers to:

The American public, who, according to a new USA TODAY/Gallup Poll strongly oppose laws to take away collective bargaining and silence workers' voices and rights.

Jeers to:

The 235 Members of the U.S. House of Representatives who voted against the interests of children, educators, and our nation when they passed the full-year continuing resolution (CR) for the rest of this fiscal year.  The CR contains draconian cuts to programs like Title I, IDEA, Pell Grants, and Head Start that will crush the dreams of millions of students and take our nation backward. 

Here is the web page for the parcel tax: www.yes4cupertinoschools.org

Negotiations Update 2.16.11.pdf

golden_ticket.pdf

gsw2011flyer.pdf

Sample blog post: Briggs and Domingue review of teacher effectiveness study

 

Los Angeles Times teacher effectiveness study deeply flawed

 

A widely reported analysis done of teachers in the Los Angeles Unified School District is a deeply flawed measure of teacher effectiveness, according to a review released today.

 

On Aug. 14, 2010, the Los Angeles Times published a controversial article that highlighted the results of a study conducted by Richard Buddin, senior economist at the RAND Corporation. Buddin's analysis, "How Effective Are Los Angeles Elementary Teachers and Schools?" erroneously asserted that teacher quality can be validly measured using student performance on the math and reading portions of the California Standardized Test. The L.A. Times also published a database of LAUSD teachers by name and their individual effectiveness ratings, which were based on Buddin's flawed analysis.

 

A review of Buddin's analysis was performed by Derek C. Briggs, chair of the Research and Evaluation Methodology Program at the University of Colorado at Boulder, and Colorado-Boulder doctoral student Ben Domingue. Key among their findings was that Buddin's approach, known as "value-added modeling," failed to consider several critical factors that impact student achievement, such as long-term achievement patterns and influence from their peers.

 

Buddin's model leads to overly broad and simplistic generalizations about teacher effectiveness, often resulting in negative consequences for many potentially effective teachers and their students, Briggs and Domingue found. Buddin's value-added approach can lead to a number of false positives and negatives - many teachers may have been falsely categorized as either effective or ineffective.

 

Briggs and Domingue developed a stronger alternative model that included students' long-term achievement patterns and peer influence. The researchers then compared the results of their model and Buddin's, and found that only 60.8 percent of teachers would retain the same effectiveness rating in both models for math outcomes, while only 46.4 percent of teachers would retain the same effectiveness rating for reading outcomes.

 

Notably, Briggs and Domingue found that Buddin's model could not be independently replicated, casting serious doubts about the validity of the entire analysis. Ensuring research can be fully replicated, which Buddin's could not be, is one of the very foundations of the scientific research model.

 

The New York City Board of Education is planning to follow Los Angeles' lead and publish ratings of 12,000 New York City teachers, based on an approach similar to Buddin's.

 

It would be highly irresponsible for the New York City Board of Education to publish flawed teacher rankings based on faulty research.

 

It's important to find valid, complete ways of measuring teacher quality that are based on more than just standardized test results. Test scores are a mere snapshot of student achievement; they should not be the primary measure of teacher effectiveness, and they certainly shouldn't be used to rank teachers in such a public manner. 

Cupertino Education Association

Executive Board Meeting

Monday, February 7, 2011

CEA Office  4:00 PM

 

 

I.               Meeting called to order by Dave Villafana at 4:04 PM.

II.             Amendments to the Agenda - none.

III.           Approval of January 10, 2011 Minutes - Linda moved to approve, Barbara seconded.  Motion carried.

IV.            Discussion Items:

A.     Parcel Tax - As of 10AM today, the parcel tax became Measure C.  There have been 7 PTAs that have met and donated $999 toward the funding the campaign.  Neal is working on a Measure C newsletter with talking points and other information regarding the parcel tax and those will be distributed to members.   Neal meets again with the committee on Wednesday the 18^th.   Begins in March with phone banking.  Dave suggested we get jackets for executive board members.  He passed out a suggestion.  We need to consider it and get back to him.

B.     Site Visitations - Dave let the district know that we will be going out on one day after vacation to visit sites.  We will need full day subs for that day. 

C.     Bargaining - Neal discussed the changes to the contract.  Discussion regarding changes to FAC language.  Discussion about changes to Willie Brown language.  Also discussed changes to the language for catastrophic leave. 

D.    Kindergarten Executive Board Member - The next step is for the members to approve the change to the CEA by-laws to create the Kindergarten Director beginning in the 2011-2012 school year.

E.     Layoffs - On Friday the district will make a decision on who will receive layoff notices.  March 4^th will make a difference too because that will be the date the governor will/won't get his tax extension measure on the ballot. 

F.     State Council - Big discussion at the meeting this past weekend about teacher evaluation and how we want it to be configured.  There is a survey on the CTA website regarding how we want teacher evaluations to be done.  State council is looking at getting rid of second grade testing.  Dean Vogel was voted in as the new CTA president and will begin in June.   They have adopted the common core standards and are working on the assessments for them and then will work on the materials.  This process will take about 5 years. 

G.     Legislative Brunch - Janice suggested that we take reps in addition to executive members, but also some parents could be invited.  The board thought this was a good idea.  We cover the cost for folks to go.  

V.              Information Items:

A.     Recognition Dinner at Michael's Shoreline on May 3, 2011.

VI.            Meeting adjourned at 5:48 PM.

 

Cupertino Education Association

Representative Assembly 4:00 PM

Monday, January 31, 2011

CEA Office

 

 

I.               Meeting called to order at 4:01 PM by Dave Villafana.

II.             Amendments to the Agenda - Add Principal Survey (IV.F.), Pink Cards (IV. G.), and Health Care Costs (IV. H.)

III.           Approval of November 29, 2010 Minutes - Moved and seconded.  Motion carried.

IV.            Discussion Items

A.     Kindergarten seat on the Executive Board - Took a roll call yea/nay and the yeas carried the motion.  We will add the position to next year's Executive Board.

B.     Budget update with discussion on furlough days - There is a huge range of what our deficit can be over the next year depending on what the state budget ends up being.  The district gave a list of what we would have to cut if the worst case happens (10 furlough days, eliminate 5 counselors, larger class sizes, etc.).  Discussion on furlough days.  We have to better inform the community, as does the district.  Dave took down straw poll results from each school.   Suggested that the bargaining team look into a sliding scale with percentages, rather than days.   Encourage those who get pink slips to come in to phone bank to help work to save their jobs, too!

Budget update: If the parcel tax passes it will cover $4 million.   If CUSD would be fully funded we would have $6,000/student.  Right now we get $4,900.   We are not guaranteed that the extension of state taxes will get on the ballot for June.  It has to be agreed to by 2/3 of the legislature.    

C.     Calendar/Bargaining - Neal discussed the calendar that was just approved for next year.  The district CAN unilaterally adopt a calendar without our approval.   The bargaining team looked at many years of district calendars and except for a few anomalies the calendar has remained the same start date (3^rd week of August), end date (2^nd week of June), February break and April break.  By having the two days off during the Thanksgiving week saved the district $25,000.   

D.    Dues to PAC - If members don't do anything then $2 per month will be diverted to the CEA PAC fund.  If they do not want that to happen, they should fill out the pink form.

E.     News Corp - not discussed.

F.     Principal Survey - The surveys should be filled out in a professional manner and feelings should be taken out.  Use specific examples when filling it out.  The surveys will be edited (items that do NOT relate to the principal's job will be taken out).

G.     Pink Cards - They are cards that remind members of the chain of command for CEA.  There is one per member for each site.

H.    Health Care Costs - The committee asked the district to continue to look at the possibility of CUSD joining another large group to help cut costs.  Member suggested coming up with a tip page on how members can save money on their health care costs (i.e. use generics, etc.).   The understanding of our committee member (Diane Hembry) is that Rick Hausman and possibly Nancy Johnson have their health care completely paid for.  These are two district members of the committee and there is obviously not much buy-in for them.  

I.      Parcel Tax - David Warner moved to approve the parcel tax, Neiman seconded.  Motion carried.   We got $4.4 million dollars on the last parcel tax.  The parcel tax, if it passes this time, would be $4.4 million in addition to that.  We will need everyone to show up to phone banking!!!!  Phone banking should start in early March.  Voting will be by mail and ballots are due May 3.  Sign ups for phone banking will be announced soon.  

V.              Action Items - none

VI.            Reports - none

VII.          Meeting adjourned at 5:26 PM

Negotiations Update 1.28.11.pdf