June, 2008
Volume 16, Issue 10
MCALLEN AFT NEWS
MAKING A DIFFERENCE
WORKING OUR HEARTS OUT
Thank you to all of you who signed our petitions for the health clinic. The negotiation process is going on with three (3) vendors who are preparing and turning in their offers.
The Devil’s in the details so we will keep you informed. We are hoping that offers will be in by next Wednesday (June 11, 2008). As soon as we see results, we will let you know. Our Tuesday weekly email will keep you on top of things—hope you are a McAllen AFT member to get the latest news.
You have consistently told us your issues are better benefits and better wages. We will continue to look forward and focus on YOUR bottom line.
We have worked hard to watch your Teacher Retirement Account. As you know, Governor Perry wants to turn your TRS account into a 401K and you put in money and the state stops. The Governor needs money for roads, bridges, and prisons. For a long time the Governor has wanted to empty out the TRS account and put an IOU (just like Social Security—if you don’t know there is just an IOU in our Social Security accounts). The average teacher’s TRS pension is $1800 a month—that’s not much.
Enclosed with our newsletters is a letter from Dr. Chapa thanking you for thinking of him in naming the fifth elementary school. Dr. Chapa is an outstanding citizen, military veteran and leader in developing the Veterans Memorial in McAllen.
Dr. Chapa was a teacher, principal, asst. superintendent, and interim superintendent in McAllen.
We have know him for 35 years and wish to honor him and the devotion he has displayed towards the children, staff, and employees of MISD.
AFT VIEW OF STANDARDS
While Texas’ math standards clearly define what students are expected to learn, its English, science and social studies standards need improvement, according to a state-by-state report released by the American Federation of Teachers (AFT). The report also offers advice for states whose standards need work.
The AFT evaluation of standards was based on whether they were detailed, explicit, grade-specific and focused on content.
U.S. HOUSE VOTES FOR FACILITIES
Texas, like many other states, is way behind on the funding our schools need for repairs, renovation, and new construction. But significant new funding for facilities would be provided under a bill passed this week (June 2-6, 2008) in the U.S. House by a vote of 250 to 164.
The legislation--H.R. 3021--would provide$6.4 billion per year nationwide for energy-efficient school construction.
The issue goes now before the U.S. Senate. Expect a heads-up from national AFT legislative department when it's time to send your message in support of H.R. 3021 to the two U.S. senators from Texas.
To see how your member of Congress voted, check here: http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2008/roll379.xml .
The short version of the vote: All Democrats from Texas voted for the bill (except for Rep.Jackson Lee of Houston, who was absent); all Republicans voted against (except Rep. Michael McCaul of Austin, who voted for it).
DROPOUT DATA IN DISPUTE*
With much fanfare Education Week has published a new report lamenting low graduation rates across the nation, citing Texas for a particularly low (68.5 percent) high-school graduation rate.
However, the methodology of the Education Week has come under serious challenge from four well-regarded researchers, who have labeled the new report "exceedingly inaccurate."
The critics, two from the University of Chicago and two affiliated with the-based Economic Policy Institute, say that Education Week's misuse of the data understates graduation rates by 9 percent overall and by 14 percent for minorities.
Two flaws in particular stand out, the researchers said.
First, Education Week assumed that the number of students entering high school in a given year was simply the number enrolled that year in ninth grade, thus ignoring the common practice of grade level retention in ninth grade.
The effect was to skew completion rates downward.
The Education Week critics also noted that the new report completely ignored completion of high school by some students via adult education and other less conventional avenues.
This problem could have been corrected by supplementing enrollment and diploma data with information from household surveys. But the Education Week report failed to look at household surveys.
*Education Week is a nonprofit, tax-exempt organization based in Bethesda, Md. Its primary mission is to help raise the level of awareness and understanding among professionals and the public of important issues in American education.
Education Week covers local, state, and national news and issues from preschool through the 12th grade. They publish Education Week, American education's newspaper of record, the Teacher Professional Development Sourcebook, Digital Directions, edweek.org, teachermagazine.org, and TopSchoolJobs.org. They also publish periodic special reports on issues.