Hundreds of FBISD Teachers Laid Off, Jenney Gets 5 Year Contract

"I'm clear about which way the community wants the vote to go, and I voted that way.  I respect the votes of the other board members. But they see a different district than I do. I see a district of low morale, a district where they have laid off more than 400 people, where people are afraid to speak, where students are continually being rezoned, where they try to blame the state for all ills." - Jim Babb, FBISD Board Member

Fort Bend ISD chief gets 5-year contract extension

by ZEN T.C. ZHENG, HOUSTON CHRONICLE published January 12, 2011 12:24 pm

Fort Bend school district Superintendent Tim Jenney's contract has been extended through the end of 2015.
On a 6-1 vote, with trustee Jim Babb opposing, the school board approved the move Monday, Jan. 10.
Jenney was hired by the district in 2006 on a four-year contract that has been renewed yearly. School board president Sonal Bhuchar said that under the new five-year contract, Jenney will be evaluated annually.
A district news release issued Tuesday states Jenney will take a "$34,000 reduction in compensation" for the 2011-12 school year as part of the new contract.
The cut, however, is not for Jenney's base salary, which stands at more than $260,000. Bhuchar confirmed that the money is part of a job-performance-based $70,000 annual bonus that Jenney has been receiving.
While the $34,000 is being cut for the first year, that portion of the bonus will be reinstated each year after that and paid to Jenney's state retirement system account. While $36,000 out of the $70,000 bonus will still be tied to his job performance, the $34,000 payment toward the retirement system no longer will be, Bhuchar said.
She said the board extended the contract because of Jenney's achievements since he was hired.
"Significant gains have been made in our students' test scores every year, with more than 80 percent of our campuses now rated recognized or exemplary," she said. "We have also shown significant progress in closing the achievement gap between student groups."
She also praised Jenney's willingness to take the $34,000 cut for the first year of the new pact in light of the district's budget crunch.
Babb, however, said the $34,000 cut is deceptive because it doesn't apply to Jenney's base salary. He said his vote against the contract extension represents the will of the community he represents.

Teachers in Middle of Political Battle Between Business and Unions

No Unions, Government by the Rich, For the Rich

By Ken Bernstein, Special to CNN

Editor's note: Kenneth Bernstein is a National Board certified social studies teacher at Eleanor Roosevelt High School in Greenbelt, Maryland, where he serves as the lead union representative for the teachers. He blogs as "teacherken" at Daily Kos and has written for The New York Times, Teacher, and Huffington Post. He is a 2010 Washington Post Agnes Meyer Outstanding Teacher.

 

CNN article on Wisconsin protests. 

 Recent weeks have seen attacks on public employees in several states. In New Jersey, Ohio, and Wisconsin, newly elected Republican governors are seeking to remove the right to collective bargaining, except perhaps on wages, and to eliminate or shift a major portion of the costs for pensions upon the workers.

Longstanding procedures that guarantee due process for experienced teachers, commonly called tenure, are being targeted for elimination.

Let's be clear what is going on. Only three of the top 10 spenders in the most recent elections were unions. Among the others were organizations representing business interests, such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and individual corporations themselves. Both corporations and unions were unleashed by the Citizens United decision.

If unions can be broken in the public sector, this will further tilt the political playing field on behalf of corporate interests and their Republican allies. This will also silence one of the few remaining vehicles that advocate on behalf of ordinary people in this country.

Too few Americans know labor history and how they have benefited from the efforts of unions.
--Kenneth Bernstein

Too few Americans know labor history and how they have benefited from the efforts of unions. We have a 40-hour work week, defined benefits, higher wages, paid vacations and sick leave, largely as the result of union activity in the 20th century. We built a middle-class society in the period after World War II, also a period when the work force was, compared with today, heavily unionized.

Public employees, especially teachers, are usually better educated than their peers doing equivalent work in the private sector, but usually have lower salaries. Benefits, including pensions and health care, are part of what they receive in lieu of higher salaries.

It is worth knowing that average salaries and incomes are higher in states that are more heavily unionized. Simultaneously, if one insists upon using test scores as a measure of academic performance, it is worth noting that states with unionized work forces perform at a higher level than right to work states, according to studies and analysis. We have known for years that there is a strong correlation between family income and performance on such measurements.

There are serious financial stresses on state and local governments. States have seen revenues drop as a result of job losses. This has led to lower revenues from sales and income taxes.

And we will have a government of the corporations, by the already powerful, for the wealthy.
--Kenneth Bernstein 

The Daily Show take on the Wisconsin educator protests.  

Rachel Maddow's in depth take on the undercurrent of politics behind the Teacher Union fight in Wisconsin. 

Rick Perry's Texas Open For Business, Residents Left Out In The Cold

Study: Texas Railroad Commission's rulings often favor utilities | News | News from Fort...

The study was conducted by policy analyst R.A. Dyer, a former Austin correspondent for the Star-Telegram. In all but one of the examined cases, the study says, the commission rejected the overall revenue requirement proposed by the hearing examiners in favor of a revenue requirement granting the company more money.
In a 2004 case involving TXU, which has since been merged into Atmos, the examiners recommended that the North Texas utility receive a $19.7 million rate decrease. Instead, commissioners awarded an $11.7 million increase.
Additionally, said the study, the commissioners also shifted some of the burden for gas rates from the utility's industrial customers onto its residential customers. As a result, residential bills went up 4 to 5 percent, while commercial customers received an 8.4 percent rate cut and industrial customers' rates were cut by 27 percent.
The commission, in its statement, said that commissioners decided "to end a decades-long practice of having the industrial customers subsidize the cost of residential customers. Residential rates reflect the fact that they are more numerous and use less natural gas per customer than commercial customers."

Read more: http://www.star-telegram.com/2010/12/13/2701665/study-texas-railroad-commissions.html#ixzz1FDeTa9wY

What Will Fort Bend ISD Do If The State Cuts Education?

No matter what happens in the Texas legislature, Tim Jenney is intent on justifying the immense number of layoffs in 2009-2010 in Fort Bend.  Now he says that we're better prepared for budget cuts and if and when they happen he'll say "I told you so".  Let's be clear.  The decisions to lay off hundreds of FBISD employees, to cut all overtime pay to custodians, to cut time off of bus drivers' sick days, were the decisions of the FBISD board and Tim Jenney.

Supt. Tim Jenney says, "Although Texas school districts have been warned for several years that this shortfall was coming and to be prepared for deep cuts in the state’s funding for school districts, none of this bodes well for public education; and once again we will be preparing for budget reductions to fit the different scenarios. However, because we implemented a Reduction-In-Force (RIF) last year, we hope adjusting to the shortfall this year will be less harsh on all of us this coming budget season. In fact, it is our intent to handle most staff level reductions through attrition. Nevertheless, the one consequence of this approach is that we will need to use substitutes in many situations for the rest of the year. While this may not be the most desirable approach, it does allow the district to manage or reduce the number of staff members without having to use a Reduction-In-Force."

As all teachers know the trickle down theory in education: Taking from teachers hurts everyone in the classroom, especially the students.

We can't afford to cut education - from First Lady, Barbara Bush

“We’ve cut taxes for small business, balanced our budgets, and set aside $8 billion for a rainy day.”  That's what Rick Perry said in his commercial while running for governor of Texas on September 14, 2010.  Unfortunately, Perry was about $27 Billion off the mark.   After he was reelected, reality set in.   Perry now has to decide how to fix this deep hole in the Texas budget.  And he wants to do it without raising anyone's taxes (after all, it's Texas) and without getting into that great rainy day fund.  No, Perry and the Texas congress would rather cut everything from social services, education, health care and anything that the good people of Texas truly care about on a day to day basis.  Just as long as Texas stays "open for business".   

This article from the Houston Chronicle by former First Lady, Barbara Bush, gives a sobering perspective on education in Texas and Governor Rick Perry's purposed budget cuts.  

By BARBARA BUSH-HOUSTON CHRONICLE

Feb. 5, 2011, 4:30PM

No one envies our governor and state legislators as they set to the daunting task of trying to figure out how to close the state's biennial budget gap that some estimate is as high as $27 billion.

For the good of our state and our future, I urge them to do everything they can to protect our students.

However, not all the challenges facing our schools are about shrinking budgets. The education of our children is a partnership — a partnership among the schools, the parents, businesses, churches and the rest of the community.

Right now that partnership is failing. Our schools are in crises:

•  We rank 36th in the nation in high school graduation rates. An estimated 3.8 million Texans do not have a high school diploma.

•  We rank 49th in verbal SAT scores, 47th in literacy and 46th in average math SAT scores.

•  We rank 33rd in the nation on teacher salaries.

•  Despite our outstanding universities and colleges, we also lag behind in several critical higher education criteria. For example, California has nine nationally recognized research institutions, New York has seven and Pennsylvania has four. With the University of Houston's recent designation by the Carnegie Foundation as a top research institution, Texas, the second largest state, has four.

In light of these statistics, can we afford to cut the number of teachers, increase class sizes, eliminate scholarships for underprivileged students and close several community colleges?

At a time when the United Way estimates that the price tag for dropouts to Texas taxpayers is $9.6 billion every year, can we really afford to cut state funding for our students?

The answer is a resounding "no."