It is time to stand and fight for our union and our beliefs

Sunday's viewpoint in the Houston Chronicle featured a point and counter-point regarding the recent consultation policy that was being considered by the board prior to being pulled off the table by formally supported board president Larry Marshall.

It is very important that we begin to pay close attention to the players out there interested in doing nothing more than placing a knife in our back. Too often we find ourselves justifying our right to advocate on your behalf as many would like nothing better than to paint us and you as anti-student, which is the furthest from the truth it could be.

My response below is intended to bring to light the fact that it isn't just Republicans that work against us, there are Democrats willing to harm us as well. Our members must be more visible in both parties and willing to question positons that impact our work.

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Joe Williams, executive director of the so-called "Democrats" for Education Reform, is nothing more than a modern day carpetbagger quick to embrace and capitalize on the plantation mentality so prevalent in Southern education bureaucracies when it comes to their labor relations with rank and file teachers and school employees. The argument made so often by DFER that unions are the problem in education lacks merit when you consider the South is practically a union contract free zone and that our school systems often display overall inferior performance when compared to systems in other areas.

A recent reports released by MGT of America ranked the Maryland state education system as one of the top performing systems in the country; Maryland is also ninety-seven percent unionized. A quality report completed by the research wing of Education Week listed Maryland as the third highest functioning state education system in the country behind New York and Massachusetts, two other highly unionized states.

DFER, the newly hatched caucus within the Democratic party for the charter movement and other like minds are as interested in creating systems free of oversight making it easier to get the six-figure salaries they weren't able to get in the public system as much as they are concerned about student performance. It is amazing how many of these former teachers and principals call themselves superintendents because they oversee less than a dozen campuses and pay themselves on par with an urban superintendent overseeing tens or hundreds of campuses. The fact of the matter is that the majority of studies consistently show that public schools perform at or above their charter school counterparts. The kicker is that we do so with one arm tied behind our backs. Public schools are mandated to teach every child, not pick and choose the children that best fit their program or those students most ready to learn.

True Democrats should be wary of Republicans in sheep’s clothing as many of them seem to be looking for a new political home after the last eight years on easy street. It seems at least one HISD board member has made a quick turn to the left and landed in a caucus within our party that is ready, willing and able to provide asylum to spouses of former Bush benefactors. Lack of appropriate funding, bureaucracy on steroids, and failure to truly listen to those on the front lines of education are the true impediments to education reform.

Zeph Capo
Legislative Director
Houston Federation of Teachers

Educators Need A Single Voice In Consultation

Since the 1980’s I have been the chairman of the Houston Federation of Teacher’s Consultation Committee and have represented HFT in consultation with HISD since then. When I began doing consultation, HFT had one seat in the consultation meetings, the Congress of Houston Teachers had two, and the local TSTA affiliate had four. At that early time, HFT was already advocating a consultation process where the employees had the right to chose an exclusive representative. Just a few years earlier TSTA had been the exclusive representative until HFT and CHT were able to win their seats in a proportional election. In 1995, the last time an election was held, HFT won three seats and the CHT and TSTA each won one seat. Other organizations, while on the ballot, failed to win enough votes to earn a seat in consultation. Since the 1995 election HFT has almost doubled in size to nearly 7000 employees, the large majority being teachers, while the other organizations have seen a decline in membership. I’d be very surprised if one of those organizations had even 300 members. The way the current system works, it makes no difference how many seats an organization has, in practice each group is given an equal voice, equal opportunity to prepare an agenda, and an equal opportunity to be “the voice” of teachers. It is time to end the consultation system that gives an equal voice to all employee organizations. A system that allows a large unified voice to be undermined and fragmented by smaller, less diverse, and less representative groups. HISD employees need a single voice speaking on their behalf.

HFT asked the administration to present to the HISD Board of Trustees a proposal that would allow HISD employees to decide by ballot what type of consultation system they wished to have. The ballot would have contained two questions. First: Do you wish to have an exclusive consultation voice or continue with the current proportional system? Second: Which organization would you elect to be that exclusive voice? Each interested organization would appear on the ballot including a “no voice” choice. Obviously if the employees said no to exclusive consultation the results of the second vote would be moot. The Federation fully expected to win both of those votes. Organizing teachers to turn out and vote in elections is one of the things we do best. Despite our confidence in the eventual outcome, we are always seeking to increase employee unity. Last month the HFT Executive Council approved a proposal to the Congress of Houston Teachers, which would have ensured CHT a direct voice in consultation regardless of the outcome of the vote. Under this proposal CHT would have been given an advisory seat on the HFT Executive Council, a permanent place on the HFT Consultation Committee, and a permanent seat on the HFT consultation team in the monthly meetings with HISD administration. For reasons known only to them, the CHT governing board turned this proposal down allowing HISD to continue to play organized teachers against each other. Divide and conquer has been an effective strategy of the strong against the weak since the beginning of time.

It is sad that HISD Board President Larry Marshall has decided to pull this policy proposal from the agenda. He along with the other eight trustees owe their positions to the concerned citizens who have taken the time to go out and vote. All the Federation has asked HISD to do is to allow their employees to vote. Unfortunately Mr. Marshall and the majority of the board are unwilling to believe that their employees can responsibly exercise that most basic of all American privileges.

Andrew Dewey

Executive Vice-President

Houston Federation of Teachers