Celebrate Freedom Week Day 1! Due Process Bill Moves!

Mar 14, 2016 by kneacomm

Celebrate freedom week was instituted by the Kansas Legislature in 2013. The purpose was to mandate that students be taught specific aspects of Kansas and United States history. Setting aside the fact that some in the Kansas Legislature seem to have lost sight of the participatory democracy at the heart of free society, we encourage you to come and remind them that celebrating freedom means EXERCISING YOUR RIGHTS.

Many school districts are currently on spring break offering an excellent opportunity for teachers, parents, and families to come to the statehouse and engage their representatives. Each morning this week, a KNEA staffer will be available at about 9:30 a.m. in the statehouse to help you connect with your representatives. Take advantage of the time and plug-in.

Today marked the final leg of Game On for Public Schools’ walk to Topeka. Started by a parent, Heather Ousley, from Merriam, Kansas four years ago, this advocacy event has grown massively. This year, three groups of walkers from Kansas City, Manhattan, and Emporia spent the weekend walking to Topeka to highlight the plight of public schools in Kansas. Walking the final mile to the statehouse were a group of public education advocates approaching and perhaps exceeding 1,000 parents, teachers, school administrators, board members, and most importantly kids. This group seized an opportunity to stand up strong for public education. Now is the time to follow-up their efforts and keep a visible and vocal presence in the statehouse this week.

Click Here to view a photo essay from today’s public education rally at the statehouse.

Education in the A & M Report

The House Appropriations Committee this morning heard reports from Rep. Amanda Grosserode (R-Lenexa), chair of the Education Budget Committee and Rep. Ron Highland (R-Wamego), chair of the House Education Committee on the discussions held in their committees on the Alvarez and Marsal Efficiency Study.

There were three recommendations that were particularly controversial; two were in the Education Budget Committee.

The first proposal would have the state sweep unencumbered cash balances from school districts. A&M suggested that fund balances could be capped at 15% and have a minimum of 10%. The sweep in the recommendation would provide a one-time influx of cash. A&M also said that such an action should not be taken until the legislature introduced year-to-year stability in school funding.

Grosserode reported that the committee should not proceed with this recommendation without first gathering a lot more information and balances that were more up to date.

The other proposal deals with requiring school districts to make purchases via the Department of Administration’s procurement list. Grosserode reported that the committee has proposed legislation to require districts to use the procurement list unless there is an existing contract or the district is making the purchase via a service center or the district can source the item within 1% of the price on the procurement list.

Highland reported on the proposal to create a state-wide health insurance plan for school employees. Highland said the state should proceed very cautiously as there were so many complications to consider. As with the cash balance proposal, the committee suggested a lot more data was needed including how benefit plans interacted with salaries in teaching. The expected a lot of push-back from teachers and school districts should they move forward with this proposal at this time.

Chairman Highland also reported that they were recommending that the state go ahead with recommendation to establish a centralized grand writing function to capture more grant money for schools.

House Education Committee Deals with Anti-due Process Bill

The House Education Committee went ahead with plans to gut a Senate Bill (SB 136) and fill it with the contents of House Bill 2531, stripping community and technical college instructors of due process protections.

Rep. Ed Trimmer (D-Winfield) successfully amended the bill by adding in a requirement that those colleges utilize the e-verify system to ensure that they were hiring only legal workers. After the amendment passed, a motion to reconsider was offered by Rep. Kevin Jones (R-Wellsville). The amendment was reconsidered and passed yet again.

Rep. Valdenia Winn (D-Kansas City) offered an amendment to move the effective date to July 1, 2018, two years from now. Winn argued that this would give the colleges and their employees time to negotiate their own due process provisions. Many of the opponents said they would never deny due process protections so the Winn amendment would let them demonstrate such a commitment. The Winn amendment failed.

The bill, as amended, was then passed out of committee and will go to the full House for consideration.

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A couple of years ago a Kansas legislator heard an anecdote about a high school student who couldn’t recite the preamble to the constitution or maybe he couldn’t identify the primary author of the Declaration Independence and so a bill was passed creating “Celebrate Freedom Week” under which every public school would drop everything for one week and focus exclusively on study of the founding documents of our great participatory democracy.

Well, recently we have seen some interesting examples of legislators who apparently don’t fully understand how a participatory democracy works.

Just three recent examples.

Senator Masterson abruptly cancelled a hearing on a bill he introduced that would transfer education finance from the Department of Education under the State Board of Education to the Department of Administration under Governor Brownback. Citing the large number of emails he received from Kansans and referring to at least some of them as “vile,” he angrily pulled the bill out of discussion.

Senator Julia Lynn announced that a bill would pass her committee before the hearing on the bill was over. She did not let even one opponent of the bill speak before declaring that it would pass. Why should people who have a viewpoint different from Lynn’s have the opportunity to be heard?

Representative Highland mysteriously put a bill up for a hearing that had already been passed. Why have a hearing on a bill that is current law? Well, one reason is to catch the folks you don’t want to hear from off guard. Bring in the bill, carve out its contents and replace it with something you want but will generate strong opposition. It’s called a “gut and go” and it’s a shifty maneuver that has been frequently used. And it usually keeps the public away from the meeting in which it is done – no one there to witness the action, no one there to weigh in with the committee.

So you see, some Kansas elected officials have a personal agenda and things like “constituents” just get in the way. They don’t want you to know what’s happening. In the Highland case mentioned above, it took heavy questioning from a member of the minority party to get Highland to admit his intentions in public.

As Brownback and his ideological soulmates in the Kansas legislature have tightened their grip on government, the people have been getting less say in what happens. Dramatic policy changes are enacted via gut and go with no public notice. They are passed as floor amendments to other bills without ever getting a hearing. And there are controversial deals being made out of the public eye.

Participatory democracy would just get in the way of ideology.

Next week is a critical week in the 2016 legislative session. Things are wrapping up and the ideologues are teeing up their anti-education, anti-union, and anti-government bills for quick action.

This would be a great time to host a “Celebrate Freedom Week” for the Kansas Legislature!

Most school districts are on spring break next week. Why not help celebrate freedom by coming to the Statehouse in Topeka and giving the Senate and House a lesson in participatory democracy?

If you’re a teacher or parent of a student, wear your school colors! Bring your children – what a great lesson it would be in civics and democracy!

On Monday, parents from all across Kansas will converge on the capitol in support of efforts by Game On for Kansas Schools to raise awareness of the crisis in our public schools and to demand that legislators step up and support public education. They’ll be joined by members of Kansas NEA, the Kansas PTA, Kansas Families for Education, and others to make their voices heard. Won’t you join them?

KNEA President Mark Farr will be in the capitol every morning at 10:00 am just inside the security entrance on 8^th Street to greet you and welcome you to Topeka. Other KNEA activists will be with him.

So let’s stand up for Kansas next week. Let’s stand up in support of Kansas schools and children. Stand in support of safe roads and highways. Stand in support of our seniors and those with disabilities. Stand in support public safety. Stand in support of our communities and our shared Kansas values.

Be a participant in our democracy.

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Transparency (n.) – when Kansas extremist legislators admit to open attacks on public education.

Mar 10, 2016 by Mark Desetti

House Ed Returns to Their Extremist Agenda Tomorrow; Plans Include Stripping Due Process Rights from Higher Ed Instructors!

House Education Committee Chairman Ron Highland (R-Wamego) announced publicly today that he will bring SB 136 back into committee for a hearing tomorrow. This made many of us curious given that SB 136 contains only current law on collective bargaining – it is the bill that contained the education community’s PNA proposal that passed in another bill.

Now why would a committee have a hearing on a bill that already passed, albeit under a different number? The only reason is that one intends a “gut and go.” Highland, under questioning from Rep. Valdenia Winn (D-Kansas City), admitted that he intended to gut SB 136 and insert the contents of HB 2531, the anti-due process bill. So this bill will be coming out of the House Education Committee yet again tomorrow.

But in addition, we’ve just learned that he will also bring back HB 2292, the bill repealing Kansas learning standards! Look for amendments to this bill and then sending it back to the floor.

CLICK HERE to Keep the Pressure On! Don’t be silenced!

True to Her Word, Senator Lynn Pushes Anti-teacher Bill out of Committee

Waging her war on Kansas teachers, Senator Julia Lynn (R-Olathe) railroaded Senator Jeff Melcher’s (R-Leawood) anti-teacher bill designed to stop collective bargaining for teachers in Kansas out of committee this morning. She had to cut off a Democratic senator from trying to make an amendment; she had to cut off KNEA General Counsel David Schauner’s response to a committee member’s question, but she got her way.

Senate Bill 469 would require the recertification of all teacher representative organizations every three years. This would be done via elections run by the Kansas Department of Labor.

Among the provisions specifically written to diminish teacher rights to representation are:

The Department of Labor would be required to conduct nearly 300 representation elections. If the department were unable to conduct all of these elections due to manpower constraints, those districts in which elections were not held would automatically be decertified. Teachers would be statutorily denied a representative for at least 12 months and lose their contract protections.
SB 469 mandates elections through the Department of Labor but requires the teachers to pay the Department for those elections – a classic “unfunded mandate.” Even if there was no challenge in the election, teachers would be billed by the Department of Labor for an unnecessary election.
Under this bill, representation would be denied unless one organization received more than 50% of the votes of all eligible voters. If people chose not to vote, it would essentially be counted as a vote for no representation. If the Senators on the Commerce Committee were held to the same super majority standard in their elections, not one would be serving in the Senate today – even the two who were unopposed in their last election! Those Senate seats would remain vacant until the next election, denying representation to all the voters in those districts.

Make no mistake about this bill. Its sole purpose is to deny teachers representation and ensure that collective bargaining cannot take place. The only proponents for the bill (other than Lynn, Melcher, and other anti-union, anti-teacher legislators) were the Kansas Policy Institute’s Dave Trabert, the Koch-founded Americans for Prosperity, and the Association of American Educators, an alleged teacher organization funded primarily by right wing foundations for the purpose of ending collective bargaining.

The Kansas AAE has successfully de-certified a few KNEA locals using the process currently in law and then left those teachers to fend for themselves at the bargaining table. Passage of SB 469 would assist KPI, AFP, and AAE in eliminating collective bargaining for nearly all teachers without having to do any work whatsoever.

Opposition to the bill came from all Kansas education organizations (KASB, KNEA, USA, KSSA), a number of private citizens, and other labor organizations.

The bill will now go to the full Senate for consideration sometime next week.

Sen. Masterson Pulls SB 311 in Response to Overwhelming Public Criticism

Citing public outcry and bad press, Senator Ty Masterson (R-Andover) abruptly cancelled the hearing on SB 311 which would transfer education funding from the Department of Education to the Department of Administration. Masterson said it was impossible to have a rational discussion of the issue given the level of negative press. The hearing drew a large number of opponents ready to testify. There is enormous suspicion about the motives behind a bill that would take school funding out of the department controlled by the State Board of Education and shifting it to a department controlled by the Governor.

This should not be surprising given the number of attacks launched on schools, school administrators and board members, and teachers by this legislature.

This year we’ve seen serious consideration of HB 2457 transferring millions of dollars into unaccredited private schools via tax credits, SB 469 intended to destroy teacher organizations, HB 2292 eliminating Kansas education standards, and HB 2531 denying due process to community and technical college instructors.

And it’s not over.

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Take Action on Payroll Deduction; PNA Movement; Lots of Action in House

Mar 19, 2015 by Mark Desetti

Senate Committee strips public employees of rights

The Senate Commerce Committee went out of their way today to strip Kansas public employees of the right to control their own paychecks and prevent state and municipal employees from having a real voice in their wages, hours, and working condition.

On a motion of Senator Denning (R-Overland Park), the Committee gutted House Bill 2096 and inserted into it the contents of SB 179, ending the Public Employee Relations Board and enacting severe limitations on collective bargaining rights for state and municipal employees, and Senate Bill 212, prohibiting all public employees from paying association or union dues via payroll deduction.

By putting these two anti-worker bills into the House bill, they successfully stop the House from any ability to have the bills heard in committee or ended. The House can only vote up or down on the bill on a motion to concur in the Senate changes. This end run around the legislative process is commonly known as railroading or ramrodding. It was used to pass the school finance bill that ends the current formula and cuts funding for most school districts.

This bill is the latest in the war on public employees being waged by conservatives in the Legislature. So far they have prohibited public employees from using payroll deduction for PAC contributions, ended fair dismissal rights for teachers, attempted to repeal the professional negotiations act, reclassified state employees to end fair dismissal rights, and now voted to dismantled protections in PEERA (bargaining for state and municipal employees) and ban payroll deduction for dues.

This bill now goes to the full Senate for consideration. If it passes the Senate, it will go to the House. We are almost out of time for consideration so the votes are likely to happen in the next couple days.

Make yourself heard!

Click here for a roster of Senators with phones and emails!

Phone them and leave a message. THEY MUST HEAR FROM KANSANS EVERYWHERE!

Once you have phoned, send an email.

Click here to access the KNEA legislative email portal.

Talking points you might use:

I do not need big government to protect me from my own decisions. I work hard for my pay and I should get to decide for myself how to manage it.
HB 2096, as passed out of the Commerce Committee, prohibits me from making voluntary payroll deductions. How can government restrictions on my choices possibly be good policy?
Local communities and local governments should be free to make their own decisions about how to manage employee relations and payroll systems. HB 2096 undermines local control.
This bill is mean-spirited and unjustifiable. I ask you to stand up for the people who police our streets, fight fires, teach our children, and serve our state and community. VOTE NO on HB 2096.

Senate Ed Committee again takes up PNA

Earlier this session both the House and Senate passed bills that would amend the Professional Negotiations Act.

The plan passed by the House, HB 2326, is the one that was crafted collaboratively by KASB, KNEA, USA/KS, and KSSA. It changes some dates in the law, requires salaries to be negotiated annually, and allows both the board and the bargaining unit to choose five additional topics to negotiate from the current list of mandatorily negotiable items.

The plan passed by the Senate, SB 136, changes the dates in the law, requires salaries and hours to be negotiated annually, and allows both sides to bring three additional topics from the list of mandatorily negotiable items.

No action has been taken by either chamber on the other chamber’s bill. So today, the Senate Education Committee took the Senate’s version and put it into the House bill, HB 2326.

The now amended House version will go to the Senate floor. If it passes the Senate (and it did as SB 136 on a unanimous vote), it will go over to the House for a vote to concur or non-concur in the changes. If the House concurs, the bill goes to the Governor; if they non-concur, they’ll go to a conference committee on the topic.

House Ed Committee dispatches five bills

The House Education Committee did some heavy lifting today, taking up five in the backlog of bills they have to handle.

Senate Bill 8 simply repeals an outdated requirement for school district audit teams in the Division of Legislative Post Audit. The bill is non-controversial and was passed and placed on the House consent calendar.

Senate Bill 93 cleans up a higher ed provision for performance based funding in CTE programs at the community colleges. A bill last year applied to all the community colleges except Johnson County which had been expected to be dealt with separately. Since the separate bill did not pass, this bill simply adds Johnson County Community College to the list of colleges eligible for the funding.

Senate Bill 70 requires that all school employees be subject to fingerprinting and background checks every five years (upon license renewal for teachers). Teachers have already been fingerprinted and have undergone background checks but not all other school employees. The bill generated a lot of discussion regarding the cost and of such frequent checks and whether or not they should also require them of volunteers and college students who have contact with children.

The most discussed issue was the cost and who should pay the bill. In the end, the bill was amended so that the roughly $50 fee could be paid by either the employee or the school district (it will be a local decision) and that the innovative districts were treated the same as all other districts. Originally teachers in innovative districts had the fee paid for them.

This bill now goes to the full House for consideration.

House Bill 2139 was the bill ending in-state tuition for the children of undocumented aliens. This bill generated lots of passionate discussion with Representative Valdenia Winn (D-Kansas City) calling it “racist, sexist, fear-mongering.” Representative Chuck Smith (R-Pittsburg) stood up strongly for the children telling the committee, “These are OUR children and I strongly oppose this bill.”

Representative Hedke offered an amendment that would grandfather in all such students down to current year high school sophomores and then disallow the in-state rate in the future. This amendment passed on a 10-9 vote with Chairman Highland breaking the tie.

Representative Trimmer (D-Winfield) offered an amendment that would require businesses to use the E-verify system to ensure they were not hiring illegal aliens. The rationale is that if there are no jobs being offered to them in Kansas, they won’t come and the whole issue of in-state tuition is moot. This was a really interesting amendment in light of today’s action by the US Attorney on several businesses in Kansas allegedly paying illegals aliens.

Before the Trimmer amendment was voted on, Representative Dierks (R-Salina) made a motion to table the bill. “I think,” Dierks said, “that we will regret voting for this bill.” The motion to table passed, putting the bill on the shelf.

The last bill taken up was Senate Bill 60 which would allow homeschoolers and private school students to participate in KSHSAA activities in the public schools. One of the big issues in the bill is how to assess the academic performance of home schooled students as required of public school students participating in such programs.

Rep. Tony Barton (R-Leavenworth) offered an amendment that would exempt Sedgwick, Shawnee, Johnson, Douglas, and Wyandotte Counties from the bill. The amendment failed.

Trimmer then made a motion to table the bill until next session when a subcommittee could be formed to study and make recommendations on assessing the academic performance of students who wish to participate in these activities in the public schools. The motion to table passed and the bill is on the shelf until next year.

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Collective Bargaining Comparison

Mar 2, 2015 by Mark Desetti

Click the “Read More” link below to view a comparison of the two collective bargaining bills working their way through the legislature right now.

Celebrate Freedom Week Day 1! Due Process Bill Moves!

Click Here to view a photo essay from today’s public education rally at the statehouse.

Education in the A & M Report

House Education Committee Deals with Anti-due Process Bill

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Transparency (n.) – when Kansas extremist legislators admit to open attacks on public education.

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Take Action on Payroll Deduction; PNA Movement; Lots of Action in House

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Collective Bargaining Comparison

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