Absolutely! It's insane that they are asking us to vote for or against a "new, ground breaking, innovative" contract that hasn't even been written yet. We've been given information about salary increases, I guess in an attempt to buy our votes, and told that if we vote no there will be no increase in pay. When I looked closely at the numbers the proposed pay scales offer some individuals will be given a $25,877 increase over 3 years while others will net less than the 4.5% cost of living adjustment promised. These initial 3 year salary increases have NOTHING to do with student achievement or employee excellence. That doesn't enter into the equation for years to come. For those of you who may think we'd be fools or worse to reject this contract, ask yourself if you'd sign a 3 year employment and wage contract without knowing what the terms are.

Absolutely! It's insane that they are asking us to vote for or against a "new, ground breaking, innovative" contract that hasn't even been written yet. We've been given information about salary increases, I guess in an attempt to buy our votes, and told that if we vote no there will be no increase in pay. When I looked closely at the numbers the proposed pay scales offer some individuals will be given a $25,877 increase over 3 years while others will net less than the 4.5% cost of living adjustment promised. These initial 3 year salary increases have NOTHING to do with student achievement or employee excellence. That doesn't enter into the equation for years to come. For those of you who may think we'd be fools or worse to reject this contract, ask yourself if you'd sign a 3 year employment and wage contract without knowing what the terms are.

Should the vote be delayed on teacher contract?

That depends on who you are asking. If you ask a teacher then the answer is yes. Teachers should have been given more time to discuss the tentative agreement with BTU representatives and, more importantly, with each other. Teachers should have opportunities to discuss the tentative agreement with other teachers system wide, not just in their individual schools.

Sure, there was a meeting on October 11 from 5 pm to 7 pm which was held by the BTU but teachers were only informed of the meeting 5 hours before it took place. The BTU is holding another meeting today (October 12) from 5 pm to 7 pm but that was also announced the day the meeting is taking place.

This takes us back to the question asked. If you were to ask the school board, Dr. Alonso, or the BTU, they would say no, the vote should not be delayed. There is a simple reason for this. The more time teachers get from the initial press release to the voting date, the more informed they become on the tentative agreement. And the parties mentioned above do not want that.

The link below takes you to a page on the BTU website where you can click on Letter from President English that teachers received in their schools. In the letter, Ms. English states that teachers “will be paid for professional development based on research, practice, and common sense.” Ms. English failed to mention what these professional development opportunities are and how teachers will be paid for them. Ms. English also states that teachers “will be paid for successful evaluations that are fair and accurate.” Ms. English did not point out that this evaluation system does not exist yet.

http://md.aft.org/btu/index.cfm?action=article&articleID=df710faf-edff-4ada-86bc-440dbe9749de

Of all the articles written in The Baltimore Sun, the BTU decided to post a link on their website to only the article titled Contract Would Protect Teachers from Principals' 'Arbitrary' Decisions. The BTU did not bother posting a link on their website to the article titled City Teachers Protest this Week's Vote on New Contract. A link to that article is below.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/education/bs-ci-teacher-contract-protests-20101011,0,5740884.story

Teachers were kept completely in the dark during the 8 months of negotiations of the tentative agreement and then were told to make a decision in a couple of weeks. I don’t think it’s too much to ask for a few more weeks to look over the tentative agreement in detail with teachers from all over the school system, especially since the teachers are asking for it.

It took them 8 months to create the contract and we only have 2 weeks to understand it and make a decision. Of course the vote should be delayed - it shouldn't have been this rushed to begin with. There should have been adequate time before the vote for each school to have a representative come and answer questions. This has not been done even after repeated requests from staff at specific schools. The union should have also notified its members of the Monday and Tuesday night meetings prior to the day of to allow people time to plan to attend.

The new contract gives teachers tens of thousands of dollars more in salaries in return for participation in professional development classes, as-yet unspecified extra school duties, and student achievement. While more money sounds nice, the rushed vote bothers me.

Teachers didn’t know merit pay was even on the negotiating table until the contract was unveiled September 29th. All the specifics, most glaringly how teachers are to be evaluated or earn merits, haven’t been figured out yet. It seems to me that if this is truly a good contract, it would withstand the test of time and some serious community-wide discussion. But BTU is holding the vote quickly anyway, waving huge raises and a $1500 signing bonus if we ratify it.

If teachers vote yes, Baltimore commits $60 million dollars in extra teacher-pay for a program that has been proven not to work.

A week before the new contract was announced, Vanderbilt University released what Education Week lauded as “the most rigorous study of performance-based teacher compensation ever conducted in the United States.” The results of the study? Merit pay for teachers has absolutely no effect on student achievement.

The official BTU reason for the two-week turnaround on the contract is that every minute counts in putting together the yet-unnamed evaluation process by which teachers will earn their merit pay. Really? A couple of extra weeks for everyone to think about this is really going to make a difference?

So why the rush? Is this election-related? Is O’Malley going to use this against Ehrlich? Or is it National? Is Education Secretary Arne Duncan going to be a guest on Oprah again next week and laud the BTU as an example of a ‘good’ union? (as opposed to those ‘bad’ unions which use a democratic process in negotiating contracts?)

Reasons aside, let’s take a look at history. This country has been burned on a number of rushed votes over the last ten years. Homeland Security, the War in Iraq, the Federal Stimulus Package… the thrust of these decisions can be defended depending on one’s political leanings, but no one can defend the often egregious mistakes that came to light long after the ink was dry.

One major question that has been left unanswered is how Baltimore is supposed to pay for $60 million in extra teacher salaries. According to one BTU representative, the Federal Education Jobs Grant, meant to shore up communities and prevent teacher lay-offs is supposed to cover the first three years of the grant. That’s great. We don’t have lay-offs in Baltimore, so teachers all get raises. But what happens after that?

The new contract gives teachers tens of thousands of dollars more in salaries in return for participation in professional development classes, as-yet unspecified extra school duties, and student achievement. While more money sounds nice, the rushed vote bothers me.

Teachers didn’t know merit pay was even on the negotiating table until the contract was unveiled September 29th. All the specifics, most glaringly how teachers are to be evaluated or earn merits, haven’t been figured out yet. It seems to me that if this is truly a good contract, it would withstand the test of time and some serious community-wide discussion. But BTU is holding the vote quickly anyway, waving huge raises and a $1500 signing bonus if we ratify it.

If teachers vote yes, Baltimore commits $60 million dollars in extra teacher-pay for a program that has been proven not to work.

A week before the new contract was announced, Vanderbilt University released what Education Week lauded as “the most rigorous study of performance-based teacher compensation ever conducted in the United States.” The results of the study? Merit pay for teachers has absolutely no effect on student achievement.

The official BTU reason for the two-week turnaround on the contract is that every minute counts in putting together the yet-unnamed evaluation process by which teachers will earn their merit pay. Really? A couple of extra weeks for everyone to think about this is really going to make a difference?

So why the rush? Is this election-related? Is O’Malley going to use this against Ehrlich? Or is it National? Is Education Secretary Arne Duncan going to be a guest on Oprah again next week and laud the BTU as an example of a ‘good’ union? (as opposed to those ‘bad’ unions which use a democratic process in negotiating contracts?)

Reasons aside, let’s take a look at history. This country has been burned on a number of rushed votes over the last ten years. Homeland Security, the War in Iraq, the Federal Stimulus Package… the thrust of these decisions can be defended depending on one’s political leanings, but no one can defend the often egregious mistakes that came to light long after the ink was dry.

One major question that has been left unanswered is how Baltimore is supposed to pay for $60 million in extra teacher salaries. According to one BTU representative, the Federal Education Jobs Grant, meant to shore up communities and prevent teacher lay-offs is supposed to cover the first three years of the grant. That’s great. We don’t have lay-offs in Baltimore, so teachers all get raises. But what happens after that?

I don't know about you, but I would feel very uncomfortable being paid through the largesse of a company that has children bent over sewing machines in China, and pays our students' parents a salary that keeps them in poverty.