The Seattle School Board is set to vote on the new three-year teacher contract Wednesday. Yes, the same contract that will use student test scores as a trigger to evaluate teachers when their students score badly. But for it to work, the school district needs funding from a $48.2 million levy that will go before Seattle voters in November.
The district estimates that it will need about $19 million of the levy money over three years to carry out parts of the new teacher-evaluation system, offer promotions and stipends for high performing teachers, and give all teachers a one percent raise in 2011 and 2012. It is also applying for federal grants. However, if the levy fails to pass or the grants don’t materialize, none of these things will be possible.
Glenn Bafia, director of the Seattle Education Association, which had a contentious negotiation over the new contract with the district, stressed that the union strongly supports the tax. “A lot of the premises in the negotiation depend on it,” he said.
If you don’t know much about the schools tax, now would be a good time to read up on it. For starters, it’s a three-year operations levy that will pay for day-to-day expenses like teacher salaries, books, and other operating costs.
But, wait a sec—you say—didn’t Seattle voters already approve two school levies for $700 million last February to cover all this stuff? Yes, we did, but catastrophic state budget cuts to public education (per pupil spending was reduced by $32 million over the last two years, and Seattle estimates a $27 million budget deficit in 2010-2011), led to the legislature changing the law so that school districts could ask citizens to fill the hole.
While some citizens’ groups support it, there are those who vehemently oppose a third levy this year, arguing that there is very little of the tax money that will actually be used in a classroom.
Throw in a highly unpopular school superintendent (the teacher union gave her a vote of no confidence last week) and a district that was chided by the state auditor’s office for lacking control over public funds, and things don’t exactly look too rosy.
Earth to Riya Bhattacharjee:
The new contract will not, repeat, not, use student test scores to evaluate teachers, except very indirectly. Please stop repeating bullshit.
Maybe we should do the same thing with King County Sherrif’s office …
i have to piggyback on @1 here – you’re way off on this (except for the fact that MGJ is extremely unpopular). teacher evaluations will be based on classroom observation only. test scores may only trigger more observations, but only under an unlikely set of circumstances.
teachers are not getting a 1% raise – only a 1% raise of the TRI pay, which is a small percentage of overall salary.
if the levy doesn’t pass the school district loses some things they want to do as well – like expand MAP testing (you know the test made by the company that MGJ sits on the board of?).
i’ve got the new contract highlights, which includes all this information – you want a copy?
please ignore that 2nd “only” in that first paragraph, please.
and that 2nd “please”. good lord. i need to start drinking, STAT.
Superintendent is very popular with parents especially after putting the final nail in busing with neighborhood schools.
The Superintendent gets a near unanimous vote of no confidence from the teachers. Are the latest state test scores rising? No. Are the building conditions in our district getting better or worse? Worse.
The State Auditor’s most recent audit of SPS was devastating (and that’s what you should tell your readers to read first). The audit called out both the district and the Board for poor management. To whit:
“The District’s Board and Management have placed public resources at risk. We noted
several instances in which public assets were misappropriated or susceptible to
misappropriation due to lack of effective policies, management’s failure to enforce
existing policies and/or inadequately trained staff.
We recommend the Board and Management familiarize themselves with and follow state
laws and regulations. We also recommend the District establish effective internal
controls to ensure the District is operating in accordance with the law and in a manner
that safeguards public resources. The Board and Management should be more involved
in District operations.”
You can’t get more damning than that.
As is pointed out in the thread, voters already voted for 2 school levies this year, now here’s a third. What makes it even more troubling is that the City’s Families and Education levy is coming up next year. THAT levy funds programs right in our schools (like the Teen Health Centers in all the high schools). If voters get voter fatigue on school levies and that one fails, we will have real problems.
Visit http://enforcetopdownreform.blogspot.com…
for the real story on the levy.
This is not about hurting kids. It’s about making sure that dollars are going into the CLASSROOM and not to hire more consultants to work at SPS headquarters. It’s about
making the district administration and School Board show accountability for our tax dollars BEFORE we give them more.
SchoolsFirst claims we need to pass the Supplemental levy to offset state cuts to the district. If that’s the case, then why did the district just prove that they do NOT want to offset those cuts, but instead to promise MORE spending in new areas with the money.
Projected annual budget gap was $27M. Levy is to bring in $16M. But they intend to spend $6M on new curriculum work and now agreed to spend more than $6M per year on the teachers contract? Doesn’t that increase the annual budget gap? Saying NO on the levy will save money. How absurd. Must be that reform math.
Remember, this is a tiny levy, only 2% of the budget. The levy lid was temporarily increased to that districts could ask for a little bit of emergency cash — Not to start new projects when they don’t have enough money for the projects they already have going.
Oh wait. See the audit. Since the auditors found that the financial reporting is so full of errors no one has a reliable picture of the district’s finances, maybe they DO already have the money they need.
SchoolsFirst claims we need to pass the Supplemental levy to offset state cuts to the district. If that’s the case, then why did the district just prove that they do NOT want to offset those cuts, but instead to promise MORE spending in new areas with the money.
Projected annual budget gap was $27M. Levy is to bring in $16M. But they intend to spend $6M on new curriculum work and now agreed to spend more than $6M per year on the teachers contract? Doesn’t that increase the annual budget gap? Saying NO on the levy will save money. How absurd. Must be that reform math.
Remember, this is a tiny levy, only 2% of the budget. The levy lid was temporarily increased to that districts could ask for a little bit of emergency cash — Not to start new projects when they don’t have enough money for the projects they already have going.
Oh wait. See the audit. Since the auditors found that the financial reporting is so full of errors no one has a reliable picture of the district’s finances, maybe they DO already have the money they need.
@6, super. Wow! You could not be more wrong. There hasn’t been any busing in Seattle for decades. Pick up a newspaper from this century.