The word came “over the transom” just a few minutes ago: Park Ridge-Niles Elementary School District 64 and the Park Ridge Education Association (“PREA”) have a deal!
The official announcement reportedly is due out later today, although we wonder whether it will contain detailed terms or, instead, keep them under wraps for another week or so in order to reduce the time the taxpayers have to mobilize opposition before the contract is ratified by the PREA membership and then approved, along with the District’s new budget, at the next Board meeting on September 24th at Franklin School.
Having observed the way D-64 and the PREA traditionally announce their contracts, we can expect the standard love fest between/among the respective negotiators, highlighted by rounds of mutual self-gratification masquerading as adulation.
Expect D-64 School Board president John Heyde to praise the PREA negotiators for their hard-but-reasonable bargaining on behalf of all the Districts wonderful teachers, while the PREA leadership reciprocates with kudos to the D-64 negotiators for their hard-but-reasonable bargaining on behalf of the District’s taxpayers. Both sides, naturally, will pay the necessary lip service to their boundless concern for the well-being of the D-64 students, presumably punctuated with at least one or two invocations of the “it’s for the kids” cliché.
Although we have neither seen nor heard the details of whatever agreement these merry co-conspirators have cooked up, there are a few easy ways to determine whether the taxpayers have been sold out by the seven School Board members who are supposed to be looking out for our interests: John Heyde, Scott Zimmerman, Sharon Lawson, Eric Uhlig, Pat Fioretto, Dan Collins and Tony Borrelli.
The first is the length of the contract.
Anything over 2 years is a “teachers” contract because it is designed to lock in teacher-favorable terms no matter how bad the economy gets. Judging by most polls, surveys, and the predictions of many of this country’s prominent economists, a big recovery is not even on the horizon. And anybody who thinks that a Mike Madigan-controlled General Assembly is going to pull Illinois out of its glide path toward figurative, if not literal, bankruptcy is snorting bath salts.
The second clue to a Board sell-out is whether the new contract retains a “negotiations-are-secret” provision.
That’s the kind of provision in the just-expired contract that kept these negotiations under the public’s radar. Public employee unions – especially those who claim to be doing the angels’ work, like police, fire and teachers – don’t want the gullible public finding out about any of their demands that might be viewed as unreasonable or greedy, much less watching and listening to those demands and counter-demands in real time. If the new contract has that same secrecy provision in it, we’ll know we’ve been had.
The third clue will be whether the Board will actually provide a detailed post-mortem account of the various “bid” and “ask” terms of the negotiations.
Keeping secret the information such as PREA’s initial wage demand and the District’s initial wage offer, followed by the counter-asks and counter-bids, is essential to D-64 and the PREA manipulating public opinion. That kind of play-by-play account of the negotiations is frowned upon by both sides because that would reveal too much about the less-than-angelic bargaining strategies of the “angels,” and the windsock-like resoluteness of our tough-as-mashed-potatoes School Board negotiators.
But where the rubber always meets the road is how much the raises will be. And, rest assured, there will be raises.
We’ll know the Board has sold us taxpayers down the river if they describe the raises in terms of: “X % in Year 1, Y% in Year 2, etc.” That’s because those announced percentages almost always refer only to “base” salary increases, not to the additional components of teacher compensation known as “step” and “lane” increases that drive up the price of poker without public recognition.
For those of you who haven’t been paying attention, or who have been suckered by the D-64/PREA wind-talking all these years, “step-and-lane” are the pre-programmed, scheduled annual increases that have been built into recent contracts to ensure routine annual raises for employees simply for seniority (“step”) and/or for accumulating credits toward an advanced academic degree (“lane”).
D-64 teachers, administrators and Board members don’t like to talk about those increases, which we understand have been averaging 2% over the past several years. For example, if the new D-64/PREA contract provides for a Year 1 base salary increase of, say, 2%, after figuring in the step and lane increases the average teacher will actually be getting a 4%+ increase – to go along with the 8-9 month work year and those outstanding benefits such as tenure, health care, minimal-to-non-existent performance standards, and the still-guaranteed defined-benefit pensions with their cost-of-living adjustment that actually rewards retirees for the otherwise dubious condition called “inflation.”
Should just the base salary increase be reported, that will be a clear indication that Heyde and Company believe the teachers deserve to remain at least the 25th best-compensated elementary school teachers in the state, notwithstanding that the measurable educational performance of their students is not within hailing distance of a 25th-in-state ranking.
And it will be a clear indication we’ve been sold out by the School Board. Again.
UPDATE: Looks like we guessed right on the 2% raise. Assuming we can trust whatever they are saying – and when it comes to D-64, we subscribe to the motto of the late and lamented Chicago City News Bureau: “If your mother says she loves you, check it out.” – the annual increase will average 3.6% guaranteed for the next four years.
How many Park Ridge working folks (yeah, you folks with the jobs that require you to work a full 11 months or more, not 8 or 9) are guaranteed a 3.6% pay increase for the next four years? Heck, how many of you are even guaranteed a job for the next four years?
We particularly like the quotes in the H-A article from PREA and D-64.
PREA President Erin Breen: “This agreement is a win for all stakeholders in the Park Ridge-Niles community.”
Any time a taxpayer hears the word “stakeholders,” he/she can be sure that somebody in government is grabbing for his/her wallet.
Board President John Heyde: “This longer agreement offers the Board and our teachers a stable foundation for planning while focusing on improvements in teaching and student learning.”
A “stable foundation” for planning what, John…how students can continue to underperform while the teachers remain the 25th highest paid in the state and the administrators remain the 4th highest paid?
Not surprisingly, D-64 isn’t giving its taxpayers the courtesy of posting the draft contract because [insert explanation of your choice here], but they have posted a “Fact Sheet” containing what we can only assume are the minimum number of “safe” facts they think they can get away with posting in order to claim they are being “transparent.”
To read or post comments, click on title.
13 comments so far
Assuming the worst. How unlike you! The fact that we’re mere blocks from Chicago yet light years ahead in quality of education (I know you claim otherwise) — and that ,unlike their city counterparts, my kids are sitting in a classroom learning right now — is relief enough at this point.
EDITOR’S NOTE: We calls ’em as we sees ’em.
“Light years ahead”? Really? Whose performance rankings are you looking at: Supt. Bender’s?
Best baby-sitting deal around: about $4/hour (if you pay $4,000/yr in D-64 property taxes), and they’re actually being taught something!
A couple of questions from a procedural point of view:
Does D64 know what the amount of property taxes they are going to receive prior to negotiations (i.e. therefore a budget)?
Do they know how much they are going to raise their portion of the tax bill prior to the contract being signed or afterwards, when both sides have agreed (they must have a maximum, but hopefully they look at it from a budget neutral position)?
EDITOR’S NOTE: We assume so, but we never bet on what a majority of the D-64 Board knows and doesn’t know about its finances at any given time.
2 2 2 2 plus steps of 1.6. 4 years? Just long enough so that the next board can do nothing if the economy continues to lag and Madigan shifts all the pension debt back to the district. We are screwed. How will any of us be able to afford our property taxes (let alone a new sewer system)? PR residents cannot afford this And please do tell if the contract calls for secret union talks again in 2016.
EDITOR’S NOTE: PREA President Erin Breen: “This agreement is a win for all stakeholders in the Park Ridge-Niles community.” Any time a taxpayer hears the word “stakeholders,” it’s time to grab your wallet and hold on tight.
Board President John Heyde: “This longer agreement offers the Board and our teachers a stable foundation for planning while focusing on improvements in teaching and student learning.” A stable foundation for planning what…how students can continue to underperform while the teachers remain the 25th highest paid in the state, and the administrators remain the 4th highest paid?
And you can bet your boots secret negotiations have been preserved.
Anon. 3:04 pm yesterday asks two really smart questions. We should ask them at the whatever upcoming school board meeting features the seven’s rubber-stamp approval. Here is a third question: We know there’s a deal from reading the local newspaper (see link below), and from the post above, but when are we going to see the actual contract? I fear that we will show up and ask good questions having as a basis only some board-authored list of talking points, maybe not even deal points. SHOW US THE CONTRACT.
http://parkridge.suntimes.com/15112322-781/tentative-contract-reached-for-district-64.html
EDITOR’S NOTE: Sounds like you’re channeling the CarFax commercial, FWT. But you’re right.
And guess what? No contract is posted on the D-64 website, just a link to a one-page “Fact Sheet” that discloses a few additional facts about the deal, including that the new starting salary for a teacher with a BA and no experience will go “from $44,883 to $45,780 (2%).” Funny how neither the PREA nor D-64 mention it’s for 8-9 months of work.
I thought you might appreciate the irony.
In yesterdays Sun Times (page 2) is an article relating to the strike. Along with the article, is a photo of striking educators holding up their fists and signs with such pride as one signs reads…
“We need Teachers not Tests”
and right along side of that is another sign that reads…
“We will remember you at the voting day”
Soooo….figured out what’s wrong with this picture yet?!?! Hint: it helps if you read out loud.;~) …And yes I did laugh.
EDITOR’S NOTE: We’d guess that an examination of all the signs would reveal a number of spelling, punctuation and other gaffes. We’ll chalk up your example to a brain cramp that occurred somewhere between “at the voting booth” and “on election day.”
I’ll chalk up my example as the “rule” rather than the “exception” when it comes to the actual level of education that the children are receiving. Yet somehow it is accepted and even expected and deserving of a raise?!?!
Sad.
EDITOR’S NOTE: And the taxpayers/voters (to paraphrase Einstein’s definition of “insanity”) just keep electing these go-along-to-get-along School Board members while somehow expecting different results.
Research published in a not-too-long-ago Atlantic magazine (pretty mainstream for those who can read) summarized research that showed no correlation between advanced degrees and teaching skill improvement at the K-12 levels. But it makes sense to reward more schooling when schooling is what you do for a living. Ask the fish,”how’s the water?” and the fish will say, “What water?” Meanwhile, as long as parents are specifically enjoined from requesting certain teachers for the following year and are discouraged from complaining about lousy teachers, the accountability that makes decent wage packages acceptable will be missing. There seems to be some fear that parents will want only easy graders or some such based on what their kids want. In most cases a striving and aspiring demographic like ours would rather reward teachers with high standards — but who can actually get kids to love learning — something every organism is hard-wired to do until they’re bored to death.
For my money — what’s left of it — I’d rather have administrators study hard how great teachers do what they do. We have plenty of examples but no connection between great teaching and great rewards. Instead, we reward seniority and advanced degrees.
EDITOR’S NOTE: And let’s not forget tenure, in order to protect the academic freedom of those grammar school teachers who espouse controversial theories of third grade history, or fifth grade geography.
There is so much that seems wrong about how D-64 operates, and these negotiations are a kind of poster child for those questionable operations. Here we have the already-highly paid teachers getting an average 3.6% pay increase guaranteed for 4 years. I would love just to know I will be employed at the same job 4 years from now. To know that AND to know that I will also be making 14.4% more than I’m making now is beyond even a fantasy. As you wrote in the post, what planet do these people – and by “these people” I mean our school board members, not the teachers – live on?
EDITOR’S NOTE: By law, they must live within the D-64 boundaries – but we suspect they actually live in a different dimension, something like The Twilight Zone where common sense is unknown.
I understand and share many of your frustrations. Yes our school system is flawed and yes the administration is most certainly overpaid but I’m tired of teachers being the target of so much scorn.
This “lazy, greedy fat cat” portrayal perpetuated by you and much of the media is simplistic and false. I’m sure you’ll gleefully rip me for saying it but their work is important. Often they are far more than educators. They are substitute parents and mentors and counselors, not just in the inner city but right here in D64. If we don’t compensate our teachers fairly then our kids lose. Really, we all lose because where will the next generation of leaders and thinkers and creators come from? Private schools are not an option for most people.
Where’s the outrage at Wall Street? I can guarantee their raises are much bigger than our teachers’ are projected to be. At predatory lenders? At all the others to blame for this economic recession? Teachers are not the problem here.
You are on the right track in putting our state’s legislators on the hook for so much of our fiscal mess, including education. Illinois is now 50th in the nation for what the state governnment kicks in towards education. Illinois has cut $800 million to education since 2008. We need school funding reform badly. And until that happens the only way to ensure that our kids don’t fall through the cracks is to pay the price via our property taxes.
EDITOR’S NOTE: This is not a question of “frustrations” but of sound public policy.
We do not have “scorn” for teachers, nor have we portrayed them as “lazy, greedy fat cat[s].” We simply aren’t buying the teachers union propaganda portraying their members as self-sacrificing angels doing the angels’ work with no regard for their own interests because all that matters is that it’s “for the kids.”
We save our scorn for our elected officials on the D-64 School Board who seem to start from a point of “We’re definitely giving you teachers more money without holding you to any standards of performance or improvement – the only question is how much we can get away with giving you.”
For you to even write the words “If we don’t compensate our teachers fairly” demonstrates your disconnect from the reality of those teachers already being the 25th highest compensated in the State of Illinois while their students rarely crack the top 100 performance rankings for just Chicagoland. Where’s the accountability for that mediocrity? Thanks to our lost-in-the-funhouse School Board, it’s been and remains MIA.
If you want to express your “outrage at Wall Street,” call up Dick Durbin and Jan Schakowsky. Or call Sen. Dan Kotowski and Rep. Rosie Mulligan to beef about the State’s 3 decades-plus of fiscal buffoonery. But none of that excuses those fiscally-irresponsible, go-along-to-get-along D-64 Board members for once again selling out the taxpayers.
I don’t see anything about teacher evaluations….I must have missed it. Can you help?? Thanks
EDITOR’S NOTE: It goes without saying: all “outstanding.” That’s why the compensation’s so high.
The taxpayers of D64 are not Wall street. We all love teachers but why should they be elevated above the families that they work for? Most of us have no economic security. Many have no raises and no guaranteed retirement. Some of us have no jobs. The ones who do work 12 months a year struggle to save for the tax bill, let alone save for retirement. I believe the average individual income in PR is well below the average teacher pay. And yes, we all serve as mentors and counselors to our neighbors, families and children around us. No one’s job is less important, whether you are a garbage collector, a brick layer or a business person. The difference is the union mentality ( we get more because we can ). Corrupt union leaders and liberal politicians who despise free market principles and merit based performance have reigned for far too long. Teachers, you have been duped right along with the rest of us.
EDITOR’S NOTE: We generally agree with your comments until the end. The teachers knowingly cut their deals with the devil – that combination of their own unscrupulous leaders and Illinois’ corrupt politicians – and now they’re paying for it with the disrespect and opprobrium of the public. Unlike the rest of us who simply pay and pay, the teachers receive.
“…..and now they’re paying for it with the disrespect and opprobrium of the public”. Too funny!!! You say paying for it as if something has changed. There is also a implication that this group is somehow a majority of the public.
Neither are true. There has always been a people against teachers and/or public education as a whole but teachers still have the majority of voters supporting and respecting them.
As an example, the Chicago teachers are polling at 47% sypport t0 39% against even in a strike whith kids not in school. A second example would be the referendum years back here in PR. I dare say that if a similiar referendum or polling data were available for D64 the majority would support the teachers.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Just like all those voters in Wisconsin?
Too bad the D-64 Board is run by gutless PREA sycophants who don’t have the basic integrity to conduct negotiations in the open rather than in secret, much less to put the new contract to the voters in a referendum in April like the PREA is putting the contract to a vote of its members.
How about those voters in Ohio??
EDITOR’S NOTE: Wisconsin’s closer, as evidenced by the fact that its pro-union legislators hid out here in Illinois.
And for what it’s worth, Wisconsin’s federal courts are part of the same federal Circuit as Illinois’ and Indiana’s – while Ohio’s are in a different Circuit.
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