.Letters for the week of October 27-November 2, 2004

Kudos for our story about the TSA's crackdown on unions. An altogether different response to Chris Thompson on Oakland schools.

“Stickin’ It to the G-Man,” Cityside, 9/22


Flying backward
It is really frightening what is happening to labor and civil rights under this administration. If only more journalists would do such a great job of researching and doing background work on their stories, maybe the Bush administration couldn’t get away with it so easily.

Samantha Draper, Sacramento


Protect the public, keep your rights
G-men and women all over the country are losing rights to free speech, to defend themselves with accusers, and in other ways. The drive to a kinder border and pay-for-performance is driving down morale and the working professionals’ ability to do the job they need to do. Let’s get back to protecting the public, and keeping the same rights the general public have.

Charles Showalter, president, American Federation of Government Employees, National Homeland Security Council 117, Aliquippa, Pennsylvania


Kennedy si, Reagan no
An excellent article … as usual. However, you say that federal workers got collective bargaining rights in 1980. I thought they got them in the 1960s when President Kennedy signed an executive order.

Dave Anderson, Boulder, Colorado

EDITOR’S NOTE
The right of federal employees to engage in collective bargaining was indeed first granted by President Kennedy in a January 1962 executive order. However, because it was an executive order and not a statute, it could have been revoked by a subsequent president until the passage of the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978, which went into effect in 1980.

“A Fan’s Nose,” East Side Story, 9/22


Pay for the violence
I read your article about the heckling A’s fans and the Texas Ranger. I myself am not a fan of any sports that invite violence. Heckling is part of violence, but the Rangers are PROS. They get paid millions of dollars. They should pay for the violence.

As for those “immature” adults, they shouldn’t play victims. For Pete’s sake, if the victim has a broken nose, dizzy spells: Stay home! That’s what I do. I rest up, then fight the world.
Cathy Morrell, Hayward

“Publisher for the People,” Feature, 9/29


Research wants to be free
I am a hospital librarian struggling with journal subscription prices. As we are not a teaching or research institution, the basic research articles published on BioMed Central and PLoS are not as urgent to our daily clinical patient-care needs as the articles still published mainly in the “core” clinical journals of major publishers and societies. But the current situation with print subscription price increases and licensing of electronic full-text is putting the squeeze on our ability to provide even the most current “core” clinical literature to our physicians in-house.

The open-access movement is part of the very large issue of electronic publishing that affects all types of libraries, whose missions are to provide access to information, both current and archival, to their respective users. It deserves wide attention, and your article is a welcome contribution.
Shirley L. Maccabee, librarian, Mt. Diablo Medical Center, John Muir/Mt. Diablo Health System, Walnut Creek


Tone down the arrogance
I am the executive director of an organization whose members are eleven nonprofit scientific societies, most of them quite small. Their collective annual budgets would fit into the PLoS annual budget with room to spare. We don’t begrudge PLoS their success, but we do not care for their arrogant proselytizing for mandatory open access.

They claim that if they can do it, everyone can do it. Well, not everyone has a $9 million grant to publish two monthly journals for three years. Most small nonprofit scientific societies publish on a shoestring, barely break even, and derive all or nearly all of their revenue from library subscriptions and the journal-based memberships. They do not have George Soros’ foundation backing them and subsidizing the publication charges of those authors who cannot pay. They simply waive those charges in the interest of publishing the literature. And they don’t charge $1,500 per article, either. They don’t have corporate sponsorship. They also don’t throw fancy cocktail parties at Union Station in Washington, DC, or hire expensive lobbying firms. They don’t have a staff of fund-raisers.

Again, kudos to PLoS for providing scientific literature for free. It is a good thing. But just as we can’t all have houses as clean as Martha Stewart’s, because we don’t all have millions to hire people to clean our home, we can’t all be PLoS. Everyone would like to be able to do what they do, but not everyone can, and unless PLoS wants to share some of those riches, they should stop trying to force everyone else to do as they do.
Ellen Paul, executive director, The Ornithological Council, Chevy Chase, Maryland

“Teachers Can Only Blame Themselves,” City of Warts, 9/29


Hillside teachers will quit
Chris Thompson’s article is yet another anti-teachers’ union missive. Why are we, as staunch union members, so universally reviled? How is it our fault that the health insurance companies have doubled their rates nationwide? And how are experienced teachers in the flatlands going to make up for lack of cash, decrepit schools, and all the other problems of the urban poor? If experienced teachers are forced to change their assignments at the will of the state administrator, and if many experienced teachers are reassigned to flatland schools, what happens to the children in the (formerly) higher performing schools who suddenly are faced with an abundance of inexperienced teachers?

Teaching is a difficult and stressful job. With the increased requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act, the proposed decreases in salary and benefits, and the constant public pressure to fix all social ills, not to mention the threat of forced reassignment (How frequently? What grade level?), soon there may be no more people willing to teach.
Celeste Fendell, Oakland


Flatland teachers will quit
Saying that the more experienced teachers are a part of the problem because they do not want to be involuntarily transferred to “flatland schools” is dead wrong. Teachers are fighting for seniority rights because if the district has no contractual obligation not to transfer teachers involuntarily, it is the teachers in the flatland schools who will be affected. It is they who will be transferred because the reason for transferring people comes up when/if schools fail to pass tests.

The issue of test scores is not one that plagues “hill schools.” Their scores are usually pretty high. Without protections guaranteed by a contract, the new teachers in the flatland schools will find themselves “reconstituted,” transferred, disciplined and, I might add … fed up and leaving Oakland. A problem with schools in general comes from the fact that almost 50 percent of teachers leave the profession within the first five years. Many flatland schools have upwards of 30 percent new teachers EVERY YEAR. With high-stakes testing, and the pressurized atmosphere in the classroom promoted by Ward — not to mention the takebacks in the contract — there will never again be a core of experienced teachers in Oakland for any of the schools.
Michael Strange, Berkeley


Dedicated teachers will quit
In response to “Teachers Can Only Blame Themselves,” California is now at the bottom nationwide in the amount spent per pupil for K-12 education. Does Mr. Thompson really think we should blame the teachers for this?

My sons have been educated by fine teachers at an Oakland public school for six years. Without exception, the women who have taught my children could have succeeded at any career they chose. I am grateful that they chose to teach. If Dr. Ward is successful in forcing them to transfer to any school of his choosing, dedicated teachers will finally give up teaching. Dr. Ward knows that the exodus of experienced teachers will help pay the bills. But it will be the children who pay them. If we want to attract and retain quality teachers, we have to compensate them fairly.
Karen E. Katz, Oakland


Veterans and newbies will quit
Here we go again — yet another clueless opinionator weighing in on education. I don’t know what Ms. Quintana said, and I really don’t think her statements made much difference in the decision to bring in a state administrator other than to provide political cover for some in the legislature. Personally, I liked Chaconas and believe that he was committed to improving education, especially for disadvantaged children. The best thing he did for Oakland’s students was to give the teachers a raise. For me personally, it meant that I really could consider staying in Oakland rather than moving on to a wealthier district. The raise put a stop to the annual bleeding of Oakland teachers.

We have a state administrator in Oakland not because of what was said about Chaconas by Ms. Quintana, but because of years of fiscal mismanagement. (I do not lay that at Mr. Chaconas’ door.) We teachers had nothing to do with that. To blame us for the mess we’re in is ridiculous.

What really got to me though was Mr. Thompson’s assertion that veteran teachers desert flatland schools for hill schools because “no one wants to teach at ghetto schools.” Where did he get this information? Did he actually talk to teachers? Has he conducted a poll? Or is this the bill of goods Ward is selling so he can bust the union? Talk to any veteran teacher and they’ll tell you they have seen it all — from phonics, to whole language, to phonics again. Name your flavor of the month, and I guarantee Oakland has tried it. The latest flavor is something called Results Based Budgeting. In theory, each school gets absolute control of its budget. In practice, this will mean that veteran teachers, because they are paid more, become less attractive employees. Principals could be put in the position of choosing between a twenty-year veteran and class size reduction or a library or enrichment, etc. Ward does not care where veteran teachers are teaching; he cares about paying back the loan. Eliminating seniority will give him the same ability to discriminate against older employees that is found in the private sector.

Not only will you see veteran teachers leaving in droves, you will see younger ones declining to come, or leaving after a few years. In other words, we will be back where we were before Mr. Chaconas came in. New teachers will get their start in Oakland, then leave after a few years. Already I am hearing from colleagues that are looking in Hayward and elsewhere, not because they want to desert “ghetto” schools, but because they can’t get a fair shake in Oakland. (And believe me, people are not exactly beating down the door to replace them.)

I teach in a flatland school in the Fruitvale district, and I wouldn’t teach anywhere else given the choice. I have seen veteran teachers leave — many for retirement, others for other flatland schools, and still others for careers out of education. I want to stay in my school, but the district’s plans may force me to leave. If I have to pay an ever-increasing amount for the privilege of working in Oakland, it will be with a heavy heart that I look elsewhere, and there are options out there. Recently, I ran into an acquaintance who left teaching to take up dog walking. Not only is her job easier, it pays more. I find it ironic that we value our nation’s dog walkers more than our teachers.
Lauren Kayed, Berkeley

CORRECTION
In “Monster Mash” (Calendar, October 20), we reported that filmmaker Jesse Kerman had been killed on a movie set. In fact, Kerman is alive and well and living in Oakland. We regret the error.

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