Peace in education

[terrym]

What you are assuming Werner is that the Province is negotiating in good will for "all" taxpayers. This government does not do that. The negotiations and deals agreed to are crafted to appease the teachers who in turn support the government. Class caps is negotated not so much for quality of education but for job security and teacher head count. Wynne owes the teacher unions her entire career and let's not kid ourselves it has been pretty damn good for her and her partners. Contract negotiations are a shell game where they have to make it look good to the sheep but the realities of back scratching rule. This is a pretty good paper worth reading.

http://irc.queensu.ca/sites/default/...our-market.pdf

[trimmer21]

Disagree oddmott. 27 cheo nurses got their notices yesterday. Haven't heard of any teacher layoffs yet. Health care always gets hit hard because health care workers, well most of them are "caring people" and they tend not to be very militant with their strikes.

Kawartha-Pine Ridge has served notice to 180 contract HS teachers that they won't have a job this Sept due to school closings over enrollment drops. This should be interesting.

[krakadawn]

I checked with the ETFO branch for the Hastings Board today. Lay off notices coming as well. I inquired what strike 'pay' is available for elementary staff....approx. $75/week.

I also checked regarding benefits as someone said teachers have them to the grave....actually not, benefits cease as of retirement.

Teachers then pay 100% for whatever they wish

By the way it is central bargaining that is happening, whatever agreement is reached is for all Ontario Boards.

[Hunter John]

I checked with the ETFO branch for the Hastings Board today. Lay off notices coming as well. I inquired what strike 'pay' is available for elementary staff....approx. $75/week.

I also checked regarding benefits as someone said teachers have them to the grave....actually not, benefits cease as of retirement.

Teachers then pay 100% for whatever they wish

By the way it is central bargaining that is happening, whatever agreement is reached is for all Ontario Boards.

And that's why the elementary teachers are not going on strike as they didn't pay into the strike fund and don't want to work the picket lines for 75 bucks a week and are working to rule instead.

[JBen]

What you are assuming Werner is that the Province is negotiating in good will for "all" taxpayers. This government does not do that. The negotiations and deals agreed to are crafted to appease the teachers who in turn support the government. Class caps is negotated not so much for quality of education but for job security and teacher head count. Wynne owes the teacher unions her entire career and let's not kid ourselves it has been pretty damn good for her and her partners. Contract negotiations are a shell game where they have to make it look good to the sheep but the realities of back scratching rule. This is a pretty good paper worth reading.

http://irc.queensu.ca/sites/default/...our-market.pdf

Nice read Terry, though kind of would prefer if the hard targeting of teachers was lessened. Are they and their Unions masters of their own misery? yes, but mostly its the Unions and imo the greater "PS" that has really helped screw things up. Just look at Gs usual responces.

"Power to the people"
More correctly, "power to the select few in Unions"

Specifically, there are only 1.6 working teachers for everyretiree; there were $1.9 billion more in benefits paid to retirees than contributions received by working teachers in 2007; a typical new retiree in 2007 will have worked for 26 years, and isexpected to collect a pension for 36 years, which also includes the pension paid to a survivor;

Now expand that across the entire PS demographic.
Its insane and unsustainable (try though they might) and they really have no clue just how out of touch with reality things are...and ..How the world actually operates and more.

http://business.financialpost.com/ne...00-jobs-report

And they will fight tooth and nail, buck near all attempts to either get things under control or even try to move towards something more "equitable"

[werner.reiche]

...and the whole working to rule thing... are the board administrators that poor at writing contracts that what we normally expect of teachers is NOT in their job descriptions. That's just plain stupid for a union shop. That should be grounds for termination.

[Hunter John]

The whole system is broken Werner but I don't think anyone will try and fix it.

[pmannat]

We fixed it. Home school.

[JBen]

Tim Hudak and the Cons HJ?
There are plenty who see the need, (economist, Moodys, and an awful lot more) though their method (THs) may not be right or best either but you have to start somewhere. But the reality is its needed. Where exactly, how much, how deep.
Well 12 billions (the deficit) is a start.

Problem is, merely mention the words sanity or reality check and..................

[terrym]

The unions have more power than the government. The teachers got McGuinty booted out and have fought with every other government. What is needed is election financing reforms where the unions and their loop hole arms like the Working Families coalition get kneecapped. It's these loopholes that create the imbalances. It's no accident that the very first meeting Wynne had was with teachers and she reopened signed contracts and threw 1/2 Billion $$$ "more" dollars at them.
The teachers are masters at spinning public sentiment. The entire class size thing is mostly BS. Every one of them are the product of large classes yet they somehow managed to educate themselves. How big is the average University lecture or tutorial? Surely the material at that level is far more complex and would require lower teacher/student ratios no? They fight against EQAO testing but use testing continuously to teach. What they want is no oversight, and ever decreasing workloads. So far they are winning.