Defend Public Education NOW
Defend Public Education NOW is a group of activists dedicated to protecting & furthering democratically governed, teacher-student centered public education
We filed an ethics complaint against Representative Dean Fisher (R-District 53) with the Chief Clerk of the Iowa House.
We believe Fisher is acting unethical with respect to House Ethics Rules by attempting to cash in on private school vouchers through his Tama-Toledo Christian School, a private school he founded and now serves as Board President.
iowacci.ourpowerbase.net/civicrm/mailing/view?reset=1&id=6838&cid=82206&cs=3c47bc8c97f0144c0cea25…
We filed an ethics complaint against Representative Dean Fisher (R-District 53) with the Chief Clerk of the Iowa House.
We believe Fisher is acting unethical with respect to House Ethics Rules by attempting to cash in on private school vouchers through his Tama-Toledo Christian School, a private school he founded and now serves as Board President.
Will you add your name in support of our ethics complaint?
Fisher campaigned on private school vouchers, voted for them, and now he’s trying to cash in. He plans to use voucher money to pay the bulk of the school’s operating costs (up to $900,000 – $1.2 million of public dollars every year). If that’s not unethical, I’m not sure what is.
We asked the House Ethics Committee to tell Rep. Fisher he cannot discuss, lobby for, or vote on any future legislation that continues or expands voucher benefits.
Governor Kim Reynolds attempted to pass private voucher bills in 2021, 2022, and finally succeeded in 2023 (House File 68) after the unusual move of primarying several Republican legislators. After redistricting in 2022, House District 53 put two Republican legislators against each other – anti-voucher David Maxwell and pro-voucher Dean Fisher. Fisher received Reynolds’ endorsement and won.
We will be sure to keep you posted on how this develops. In the meantime, we want to show strong support for ethical behavior in the Iowa Legislature. Next week, we will be filing an addendum to our complaint with names of Iowans across the state to show they care about this too. Add your name here!
For an honorable legislature,
Tim Glaza
Special Projects Director
P.S. You can check out the full complaint we filed linked here.
iowacci.ourpowerbase.net
I wanted to let you know that this morning we filed an ethics complaint against Representative Dean Fisher (R-District 53) with the Chief Clerk of the Iowa House.
Florida law led school district to pull 1,600 books — including dictionaries
Florida law led school district to pull 1,600 books — including dictionaries
www.washingtonpost.com/education/2024/01/11/escambia-dictionaries-removed/
By Justine McDaniel and Hannah Natanson
January 11, 2024 at 9:02 p.m. EST
A Merriam-Webster dictionary at the publisher's offices in Springfield, Mass., in 2014. (Stephan Savoia/AP)
Dictionaries were removed from library shelves in a Florida school district last year as part of an investigation of more than 1,600 titles for mentions of “sexual conduct” that could violate a 2023 state law.
Webster’s Dictionary and Thesaurus for Students, Merriam-Webster’s Elementary Dictionary, the American Heritage Children’s Dictionary and other titles were pulled from schools in Escambia County, Fla., where officials are reviewing books for compliance with the law’s prohibition on materials with “sexual” content.
Also investigated were the World Book Encyclopedia of People and Places, the World Almanac and Book of Facts, and other reference books on topics including science, mythology and the Bible, according to a list published by the school district and circulated this week by PEN America, a free speech group that has sued the school board over the removals.
That dictionaries were included in the review process and triggered the “sexual conduct” criteria for a second look demonstrates how sweeping the state’s new rules are and how fraught the climate in districts has become, said Kasey Meehan, director of PEN America’s Freedom to Read program.
“This was just another example that illuminates the heightened atmosphere, the chilled atmosphere that we’re navigating,” Meehan said. “Librarians are feeling so pressured to err on such extreme caution that these are the types of books that are being pulled for review.”
The lives upended by Florida’s school book wars
Florida has been among states leading the national surge in schoolbook challenges that began in 2021, and Escambia County has become ground zero for book removals within the state. With the lawsuit against its school board proceeding in federal court, it has also become a testing ground for free speech advocates’ arguments against book restrictions.
The dictionaries were listed as having been under review as of Dec. 7, but they were no longer on an updated list Wednesday, indicating that they may have been returned to shelves. The list was updated a day after PEN America publicized the dictionaries’ inclusion; it still included some reference books.
An Escambia schools spokesperson did not answer questions Thursday from The Washington Post but sent a statement from Superintendent Keith Leonard that said the district remained “committed to adhering to all statutes and regulations, while also providing valuable and varied literacy opportunities for every student.”
“The dictionary has not been banned in our district,” Leonard said.
Some considered the fact that dictionaries were caught in the review’s net at all concerning.
“Dictionaries have always held an important place in our schools,” Greg Barlow, president of Merriam-Webster, told The Post in a statement. “They help all of us, including students of all ages, expand our knowledge, learn the value of words, and most importantly teach us how to communicate with each other.”
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“We absolutely believe that everyone should have access to them,” he added.
The review of the dictionaries is a small piece of the larger book ban uproar in Escambia. The district, home to more than 50 schools in the panhandle, began pulling books for review after Florida in May passed H.B. 1069, which also prohibits instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity for 8th grade and below.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) and his allies hailed the law as expanding “parental rights in education,” and have claimed that “pornographic and inappropriate” materials were being placed in schools.
“What we’ve seen in these libraries and in some of the books, there’s clearly a concerted effort to try to do indoctrination in the middle school grades,” DeSantis said at the May bill signing.
At the start of the school year this fall, Escambia closed some libraries and covered some bookshelves with black paper to protect students from “potentially objectionable or illegal content,” spokesman Cody Strother told local reporters.
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As of early December, the district had removed 2,868 copies of 1,607 titles as part of its review, Escambia’s coordinator of media services, Bradley Vinson, previously told The Post. The dictionaries were among them.
The Post reviewed 1,000 school book challenges. Here’s what we found.
On Wednesday, a federal judge ruled that the lawsuit against the school board could proceed, denying the board’s request to have the case dismissed.
In the suit, which was filed in May, PEN America, publisher Penguin Random House, parents and authors alleged that the board violated students’ First Amendment rights by “systematically excluding certain viewpoints and perspectives” from libraries, including those of LGBTQ communities and people of color. The group hopes a court will rule that the efforts to remove books in Florida are unconstitutional and thus send a signal to states nationwide.
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The school board, meanwhile, has argued that its actions qualify as government speech that’s not subject to First Amendment protections. And in removing board-purchased books from school libraries, its lawyers argued in a court filing, the board “hasn’t banned any books.”
The national wave of school book challenges began in 2021 as some parents took issue with the ways schools teach and discuss issues of race, racism, U.S. history, gender identity and sexuality. Since March 2022, the state has passed multiple laws making it easier for residents to review and object to books in schools and for parents to force schools to pull books from shelves — fueling efforts to restrict children’s access to books and the turmoil that often follows.
Escambia isn’t the only Florida district reviewing books. In at least two counties, school officials have directed teachers to cover their classroom libraries or empty their bookshelves to avoid possible penalties. In other cases, parental permission is required for books. Librarians say they have seen students stop reading.
A Post analysis showed that books with LGBTQ characters or protagonists of color were most likely to be challenged nationwide — and that the wave of challenges came from a small handful of highly active adults.
Half of challenged books return to schools. LGBTQ books are banned most.
Just 11 people were responsible for more than 60 percent of schoolbook challenges filed nationwide in the 2021-2022 school year, The Post found. Almost half of challenged books are eventually returned to shelves, The Post found, although LGBTQ books are most likely to be banned.
In Escambia County Public Schools, the controversy has been near-constant since September 2022, when English teacher Vicki Baggett filed objections to at least 113 titles, leading the district to place the challenged books in a restricted section that children could not access without parent permission.
In the following months, the school board voted to restrict or remove at least nine books, most of which dealt with LGBTQ themes or storylines. The board also voted to fire Superintendent Tim Smith in part for his refusal to unilaterally yank titles, Smith told The Post.
Students hated ‘To Kill a Mockingbird.’ Their teachers tried to dump it.
Other books removed for review, according to the district’s list, included classics such as “Dracula” and “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer”; titles by authors including Stephen King, James Joyce and Agatha Christie; and books relating to African American and LGBTQ experiences, AIDS and dating violence. It also included recently popular books by authors such as Sarah J. Maas, John Green, Meg Cabot, Nicola Yoon, Ta-Nehisi Coates and Celeste Ng.
Florida law led school district to pull 1,600 books — including dictionaries
www.washingtonpost.com
Dictionaries were removed pulled from shelves in a Florida school district where officials are reviewing books for “sexual” content.
Sexual misconduct scandals rocked this California university system. Top leaders escaped scrutiny
www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-12-14/csu-board-of-trustees-failed-to-prevent-sexual-harass…
The California State University Board of Trustees failed to prevent a sexual misconduct crisis at the 23-campus system they oversee. (Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times)
BY COLLEEN SHALBY, ROBERT J. LOPEZ
DEC. 14, 2023 3 AM PT
California State University was rocked last year by claims it mishandled sexual misconduct allegations, forcing a chancellor to quit and a university president to step down. Two outside reviews blamed the chancellor’s office and top campus officials for failing to properly investigate complaints or track repeat offenders.
But Cal State’s most powerful leaders — those on the CSU Board of Trustees, which oversees the 23-campus system — largely escaped scrutiny.
Interviews and university records reviewed by The Times show that trustees were warned as far back as 2014 that CSU wasn’t properly monitoring sexual misconduct complaints. As the public outcry grew last year, some trustees claimed they had been in the dark. Yet over nearly a decade, the board approved more than $13 million in settlements related to sexual harassment cases.
University administrators had promised the trustees they would improve their handling of sexual misconduct claims after a 2014 state audit found breakdowns in procedures. But trustees never requested updates in board meetings, nor did they ask about the status of campus reviews that were supposed to flag problems but were not completed, according to interviews and records of minutes from board meetings.
A second state audit and an outside review ordered by CSU found that administrators failed to investigate accusations of sexual harassment and sexual assault in many instances. Discipline wasn’t always imposed even when wrongdoing was substantiated and shoddy record-keeping persisted, according to the outside findings.
State lawmakers who spoke to The Times said that they don’t trust the board to make changes and are planning additional legislative oversight.
Some experts on higher education also said that the trustees had failed in their responsibility, ceding too much authority to the chancellor’s office, which runs the system and reports directly to the board. A Times review of video from a 2022 board retreat showed that even some trustees appeared confused about who wields ultimate control.
Long Beach, CA – Exterior of the California State University headquarters in Long Beach on Tuesday, July 11, 2023. July 11: in Long Beach on Tuesday, July 11, 2023 in Long Beach, CA. (Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times)
CALIFORNIA
CSU didn’t investigate some sexual harassment reports, track repeat offenders, audit finds
Cal State is the nation’s largest four-year public university, serving more than 450,000 students at 23 rural and urban campuses. It is considered a pillar of California’s economy and workforce, graduating roughly 130,000 students a year.
Its board of trustees, established in 1960, sets the budget and policies for the system, including admissions, campus infrastructure and collective bargaining agreements with faculty and employee unions.
Nineteen members of the 25-person board are appointed by the governor, and most serve eight-year unpaid terms. The board has six public meetings each year, but trustees don’t mingle with those who attend — access to the dais is blocked with a red-velvet rope — and typically don’t answer questions or directly address concerns raised by students, faculty, employees and others during public comments.
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Trustee Douglas Faigin agreed to be interviewed by The Times about CSU’s responses to sexual misconduct claims, and acknowledged that the board should have been more aggressive in its oversight of the chancellor’s office.
“In retrospect, that obviously would have been a good idea,” said Faigin, who joined the board in 2012 and is its longest-serving member.
VALLEJO, CA – NOVEMBER 14: The Golden Bear training ship in the Carquinez Straight with the Alfred Zampa Memorial Bridge seen in the background, and the campus of The California State University Maritime Academy seen in the foreground left, on Monday, Nov. 14, 2022 in Vallejo, CA. Students at Cal Maritime say that a longstanding toxic and misogynistic culture neglects to protect those outside the white male dominated-majority. The Maritime campus is unlike any other CSU – its students are cadets and wear uniforms and they are largely white and 80% male, with most getting jobs in the maritime industry. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)
CALIFORNIA
Newsom signs bill that requires CSU to report sexual harassment cases, following Times reports
He echoed written statements by other trustees, saying the board took action once it became aware of the gravity of the sexual harassment problem last year.
“We’re all appalled at what happened and what was allowed to happen,” said Faigin, former president of City News Service, which provides stories to media outlets across the country, including the Los Angeles Times. “We want to let people know we are serious about this and it’s going to change.”
Other trustees did not respond to calls and emails seeking comment on the board’s role in the scandal, or referred The Times to the chancellor’s office.
State Assemblymember Akilah Weber (D-La Mesa) said that no trustee “has been holding the chancellor or the individual campuses accountable.”
“It’s very clear that what we cannot do is take them at their word,” said Weber, who attended a recent legislative hearing on the issue, after which committee leaders accused top CSU officials of “evasive answers and a lack of transparency.”
Assemblymember Mike Fong, who chairs the Higher Education Committee, said the trustees should be more proactive.
“The CSU trustees are the first line of oversight. … They can and should be demanding that the California State University system implements the recommendations [from the audit] immediately and promptly, and with fidelity,” said Fong (D-Alhambra).
In recent years, the board had been made aware of troubling claims of wrongdoing, such as long-standing accusations of sexual misconduct at San Jose State that prompted an investigation by the U.S. Justice Department and led to a payout of more than $7 million to students and employees.
The board was also aware of a $600,000 settlement involving a Sonoma State provost who accused the school’s president of retaliation after she reported other women’s accusations of harassment by the president’s husband. And the board knew about a $2.75-million settlement with a Cal State L.A. athletics department official who accused the former athletic director of sexual harassment.
The issues became a public crisis for the trustees last year when news reports disclosed that then-Chancellor Joseph I. Castro had quietly negotiated a settlement when he was president of Fresno State with a top administrator accused of sexual harassment, bullying and workforce retaliation. Castro, who said he had relied on the advice of former Chancellor Timothy P. White and the CSU general counsel’s office, resigned amid the outcry.
Board Chair Wenda Fong has defended the trustees’ actions, saying they’d ordered “the most comprehensive, systemwide Title IX assessment ever conducted” at CSU or any university. (Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times)
Board Chair Wenda Fong, who has served as a trustee since 2018, said in a statement that the board took “prompt action” after the controversy with Castro and ordered “the most comprehensive, systemwide Title IX assessment ever conducted.”
Title IX is a federal law prohibiting sex discrimination. Most university employees are required to report allegations of sexual misconduct, including harassment and retaliation.
“No other public or private university has examined Title IX [policies] on this scale,” said Fong, a longtime television executive.
“Transforming culture is not easy or quick. It takes time and significant resources,” her statement said.
Since the ensuing scandal became public, Cal State has paid roughly $2 million for the systemwide review and other services, including hiring experts in crisis communications and consultants to advise the board on its leadership. The board also recently approved spending $36 million to hire additional staff members to address sexual misconduct, discrimination and retaliation complaints.
At a recent meeting, Fong said she requested that the chancellor’s office provide status updates in future meetings on how CSU is tackling recommendations from the recent reports in order to “regain the trust” of the community and the Legislature. The outside report by the law firm Cozen O’Connor, for example, called for creating a pool of trained investigators to assist campus personnel.
This year’s state audit recommended about two dozen reforms, including improving record keeping and tracking of cases throughout the system and requiring campuses to document when employees have been accused repeatedly of misconduct.
Former Chair Lillian Kimbell has served on the board since 2014, when systemwide flaws were presented to trustees. An attorney, she has worked as a legal counsel for a Democratic think tank and a media group. Her husband was a top aide to Gov. Jerry Brown, who appointed Kimbell to the board.
Kimbell did not respond to inquiries from The Times about whether she believed the board should have pushed for change sooner.
Lillian Kimbell, a CSU trustee since systemwide issues in handling sexual misconduct accusations were exposed in 2014, did not respond when asked whether she believed changes should have been pursued sooner. (Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times)
Other veteran trustees include Lateefah Simon, a longtime civil rights activist who sits on the board of Bay Area Rapid Transit and has served as an advisor to Gov. Gavin Newsom. She is now running for Congress.
Simon, who was appointed as a CSU trustee in 2016, declined to speak with The Times about her role on the board. A spokesperson for her congressional campaign referred a Times reporter to the chancellor’s office.
Trustee Jean Picker Firstenberg, a longtime president and chief executive of the American Film Institute, also joined the board in 2016. She too declined to comment and directed The Times to the chancellor’s office, saying she didn’t “think individual trustees should speak with the press.”
Other trustees include the lieutenant governor, the speaker of the Assembly, the state superintendent of public instruction, the CSU chancellor and the governor, who are all voting members.
VALLEJO, CA – NOVEMBER 14: The Golden Bear training ship in the Carquinez Straight with the Alfred Zampa Memorial Bridge seen in the background, and the campus of The California State University Maritime Academy seen in the foreground left, on Monday, Nov. 14, 2022 in Vallejo, CA. Students at Cal Maritime say that a longstanding toxic and misogynistic culture neglects to protect those outside the white male dominated-majority. The Maritime campus is unlike any other CSU – its students are cadets and wear uniforms and they are largely white and 80% male, with most getting jobs in the maritime industry. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)
CALIFORNIA
‘Always have a knife with you’: Women and trans students fear harassment, hate at CSU campus
As an ex officio trustee when he was lieutenant governor, Newsom attended the 2014 board meeting in which the state audit was discussed.
That audit included an analysis of two CSU campuses — Chico State and San Diego State — and found that faculty and students were poorly trained on reporting procedures around sexual misconduct allegations, and that campus leaders didn’t regularly update students who filed complaints on the status of investigations.
CSU leaders vowed to improve record keeping of complaints and track them across all 23 campuses to spot breakdowns, identify trends and ensure that accusations were properly investigated and appropriate discipline was imposed.
“It’s not lost on any of us the significance of this issue and … our resolve to address it,” Newsom said at the 2014 meeting.
As governor, he now serves as president of the CSU board and has appointed multiple trustees. His office did not respond to specific questions about his role on the board and said he was unavailable for interviews due to his tight schedule.
University of Utah law professor Amos Guiora, who has written a book about the mishandling of sexual misconduct cases at university campuses, said the trustees’ lack of oversight puts students and employees at risk.
They’re “enablers” said Guiora, who has interviewed survivors of sexual misconduct, including former USA Gymnastics athletes who were assaulted by Larry Nassar — the onetime team doctor sent to prison two decades after female gymnasts, many underage, began complaining about him.
For Melanie Gasca, a Cal State L.A. senior majoring in English, the board’s promises for reform have come too late. Gasca filed a sexual assault complaint last year against another student, and recently learned that no wrongdoing was found. She said she doesn’t believe there was a thorough investigation or that the trustees will fix the system that she feels let her down.
“What they’re preaching … is not what we’re getting,” she said. “We are real people being traumatized by an institution that is supposed to guide us.”
Cal State L.A. said it does not comment on sexual misconduct cases due to privacy rights.
CSU officials have repeatedly said they won’t discuss personnel issues, but have vowed to do all they can to protect students.
Settlement agreements over employment issues, including those related to sexual misconduct, are made on behalf of the board, and travel records and public documents show that trustees regularly visit campuses and serve as representatives for the university.
The board had for years received summaries of sexual harassment and sexual assault litigation during the open session of board meetings. But it changed course in 2019 and now only discusses that litigation in closed session, CSU records show.
The reason for the change, CSU general counsel Andrew Jones told The Times last year, was that “we wanted to more fully inform the [trustees] and be able to engage in meaningful discussions with them on these important topics.”
Silas Abrego, who served as a trustee from 2015 to 2021, recalled the board and CSU choosing to pay settlements to resolve problematic sexual harassment complaints rather than litigate the cases.
“We didn’t delve into the details,” he said in an interview.
He did not recall ever receiving a systemwide sexual harassment report showing information such as investigative rates and case outcomes.
In retrospect, Abrego said, he and his colleagues should have been more aggressive.
FULLERTON, CA – MAY 18: Graduating students pose in front of the Titan Student Union building on the campus of California State University, Fullerton (CSUF) on Thursday, May 18, 2023 in Fullerton, CA. Investigation accusing California State University, Fullerton President Framroze "Fram" Virjee of inappropriately touching students according to internal campus records. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)
CALIFORNIA
CSU didn’t investigate claims that Fullerton president inappropriately touched students
Last November, two paid consultants including Roberta Achtenberg — a former trustee and mentor to Kimbell — led the board in an hours-long retreat. Video shows trustees discussing the extent of their authority in relation to the chancellor and their power to intervene in campus matters.
“You don’t want a board to micromanage the chancellor’s office,” said William G. Tierney, a USC professor emeritus and expert on higher education governance. “But what we have had, up until now, is the exact opposite.”
Tierney said he believes that the board has been acting as an arm of the chancellor’s office instead of a separate oversight body.
State lawmakers are demanding that the board become better stewards of the vast university system.
The Assembly Higher Education Committee is preparing a report on policy recommendations to “root out sexual harassment and sexual misconduct,” Fong said. It is intended to guide legislation that lawmakers plan to introduce next session that will require more extensive reporting and additional actions from CSU.
Newsom also recently signed a bill into law that will require CSU to publicly disclosethe outcome of sexual harassment cases through annual reporting. The bill was introduced by state Sen. Bill Dodd (D-Napa) following Times investigations that detailed breakdowns at two CSU campuses in his district— Sonoma State and CSU’s Maritime Academy.
To help ensure accountability, Tierney suggested the state should appoint an independent ombudsman to act “on behalf of the citizenry” to assess the relationship between the board and the chancellor, and the board and the public.
“This is not simply an example of one or two bad board members. … This is a cultural problem,” he said.
“We gave them a long leash, and they failed.”
Sexual misconduct scandals rocked this California university system. Top leaders escaped scrutiny
www.latimes.com
California State University was rocked by sexual misconduct scandals. Its most powerful leaders — the Board of Trustees — were not held accountable.
Looming SF State tuition hikes, staff cuts incense campus
www.sfexaminer.com/news/education/how-sf-state-tuition-hikes-staff-cuts-galvanized-campus/article…
By Allyson Aleksey | Examiner staff writer Dec 1, 2023 Updated
San Francisco State University
San Francisco State University, pictured above on March 26, 2018, faces course cuts as soon as the spring and potential tuition hikes. Students and faculty are speaking out about the proposed changes.
Kevin N. Hume/The Examiner, File
San Francisco State University plans to cut 655 classes this spring as the California State University contends with a financial crisis due to declining enrollment and rising labor costs.
Students and faculty noticed spring class options shrank at SF State and responded in protest, with the latter group set for a one-day strike next week amid stalled negotiations with the university system.
“I am bombarded by emails from colleagues, they have no classes,” said SF State Philosophy Lecturer Ali Kashani. “Over 300 lecturer faculty are about to lose their jobs and health care because of the cuts at SF State.”
SF State senior Adrian Jose Fernandez told the bilingual student newspaper Golden Gate Express that he is unsure whether he can attend graduate school at the university.
“I would love to go to graduate school here, but I’m only going to go if my favorite professors are here,” Fernandez told the outlet. “If they’re not here, I don’t see any reason to come back.”
Earlier this year, SF State’s budget committee suggested cutting 125 full-time faculty positions, meaning hundreds of classes are on the chopping block next semester.
The committee pointed to enrollment declines and union negotiations as “additional labor costs”that would necessitate the university to cut corners.
Brad Erickson, president of California Faculty Association, the union representing SF State faculty, called this is a direct attack on union organizing. “(University) management cites a 20% fall in enrollment to justify laying off 40% of lecturer faculty. These cuts seem far out of scale and appear to be retaliatory for our union organizing,” he said in a statement.
Faculty aren’t the only employees who feel hostility from management.
SF State plumbers, electricians, carpenters and other skilled workers, represented by the Teamsters 2010 union, went on strike earlier this month demanding fair wages after reaching an impasse in salary negotiations. CSU officials called the strike “unlawful,” and Jason Rabinowitz, the Teamsters’ secretary-treasurer, said the university system threatened retaliation towards union members who participated in the strike.
The CFA charged CSU with unfair labor practices on Thursday for barring unionized faculty from joining the Teamsters on the picket line.
“CSU shamelessly interfered with our members’ rights to engage in union activities, including by unilaterally changing work rules, (and) removing Teamster signage and materials from break rooms,” he said.
The CFA also said Thursday that members at Cal Poly Pomona, SF State, CSU Los Angeles and Sacramento State will each hold one-day strikes from Dec. 4-7. A third-party mediator made a series of recommendations to the union and university system, many of which CSU officials said they were prepared to accept.
But CSU and the CFA still differ over the pace of pay raises, faculty salary floors and course workloads, among other areas.
In addition to faculty cuts, San Francisco State University also announced a tuition hike.
The CSU Board of Trustees approved the hike in September, which will increase tuition by six percent per year for five years — or roughly $342 per student each academic year, beginning in 2024.
CSU Chief Financial Officer Steve Relyea said that the revenue from the tuition increase is essential and will ensure financial stability in the long run.
"Coupled with an expanded financial aid structure that will look more holistically at the total cost of attendance, the CSU is committed to keeping costs as low as possible and providing support for students with the greatest financial need," Relyea said in a statement.
University officials said tuition had not been increased to keep pace with growing inflation, making it an outlier among other private and public universities. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, college tuition inflation averaged 12% annually from 2010 to 2022. The University of California also implemented tuition hikes in 2021.
Jacob Jackson, a research fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California, said that although CSU and UC schools are increasing tuition rates, students can also expect more financial aid opportunities.
“Both CSU and UC are planning to dedicate a portion of the new revenue from tuition increases for additional institutional financial aid, (which will) offset the cost increases for students from lower and middle-income families,” he said.
Jackson added that more than half of UC and CSU students don’t pay any tuition due to grants and scholarships — “but that still leaves many students on the hook for the mandatory campus fees and other costs like room, board, and transportation.”
SF State students come from diverse economic backgrounds, and half received an income-based Federal Pell Grant for low-income students.
“A lot of the people here are first-generation people of color and we are oftentimes having to fight harder to gain more opportunities and attend higher institutions of education,” SF State student Elsy Hernandez-Monroy told Golden Gate Express earlier this year.
She added that this tuition increase — no matter the size — poses issues for those already struggling financially.
“To see it become even more difficult for people like us is really just indicative of how little we are valued in society.”
Allyson Aleksey
SF State students protest tuition hikes and class cuts
www.sfexaminer.com
CSU officials said the university system is facing financial crisis.
Petition · AFT teacher union, Call for Israel to drop charges and reinstate Israeli schoolteacher
www.change.org/p/aft-teacher-union-call-for-israel-to-drop-charges-and-reinstate-israeli-schoolte…
Why this petition matters
Started by
Stanley Heller
The Israeli police arrested Israeli Dr. Meir Baruchin, a civics and history teacher, because of his social media posts that showed sympathy toward Palestinians. In one quote that police and a judge regarded as a possible crime he had written, “Today, as well, the bloodbath continues in the West Bank,” He gave the names and ages of the two Palestinians who were killed on October 8, ages 14 and 24. “They were born under occupation and lived under it their entire lives,” he wrote, adding: “They never knew one day of true freedom. They never will… they were executed this evening by our outstanding boys.” Police asked a prosecutor for permission to charge him with “incitement”. The prosecutor refused. Then police charged Baruchin with the grave crime of “indicating a decision to commit treason” which can carry a 10-year sentence. Police sent the complaint to the city of Petah Tikva where he worked, and he was fired from his job. His license to teach anywhere in Israel was suspended. His phone and computer were seized. He spent 4 days in solitary. Then after his fifth day of arrest he was released on bail and no indictment was filed. It has to be noted that Dr. Baruchin is a Jew. If he had been Palestinian his treatment would have been worse.
The Israeli newspaper Haaretz warned, “Make no mistake: Baruchin was used as a political tool to send a political message. The motive for his arrest was deterrence – silencing any criticism or any hint of protest against Israeli policy.” It’s working. In his Democracy Now interview on Nov. 22 Baruchin said he had many, many teachers contact him and express support, but said they feared for their families if they gave him public backing.
The American Federation of Teacher which has given strong support to Israeli government over the years must speak out. It should call for all charges against Baruchin to be dropped, that his license be restored and that he be rehired with back pay. The AFT should also do some soul searching, publicly disclose its investments in Israel bonds and the like and speak out against Israel’s cruel measures in Gaza, especially its bombing of schools.
Other unions should also express solidarity with Baruchin, not only teacher unions like the National Education Association, but all worker organizations. Protest this injustice
www.change.org
AFT teacher union, Call for Israel to drop charges and reinstate Israeli schoolteacher.
The Kids Are Not Alright: How Private Equity Profits Off of Behavioral Health Services for Vulnerable and At-Risk Youth
pestakeholder.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/PESP_Youth_BH_Report_2022.pdf
Key Points
• Private equity firms are increasingly investing in behavioral services for children and adolescents, including services for youth with intellectual and developmental disabilities, services for youth in foster care, services for youth in the juvenile justice system, troubled teen programs, and autism services.
• Private equity has a troubling track record in investing in youth behavioral services. The private equity business model, which focuses on outsized returns over short time horizons, may prioritize profit over the well-being of children. Cost-cutting tactics at private-equity-owned youth behavioral companies, such as cutting staff, relying on unlicensed staff, and failing to maintain facilities, can lead to abuse, neglect, and unsafe living conditions for youth under the care of those companies.
• Despite horrific conditions at some youth behavioral health companies, their private equity owners have in some cases reaped massive profits. • This report examines several key areas of youth behavioral services: o Companies in the troubled teen industry (TTI), including Aspen Education Group owned by Bain Capital; and Family Help & Wellness owned by Trinity Hunt Partners.
For-profit foster care companies, including the Mentor Network owned by Centerbridge Partners; and Sequel Youth & Family Services owned by Altamont Capital. o Services for youth with intellectual and developmental disabilities (I/ DD), including AdvoServ (aka Bellwether Behavioral Health) owned by GI Partners and later by Wellspring Capital Management. o Autism services companies, which have been increasingly bought up by private equity firms in the last several years.
• Appendix A includes a list of youth behavioral services companies owned by private equity firms as of December 2021. Private equity firms are increasingly investing in companies specializing in behavioral services for children and adolescents. This includes services for youth with intellectual and developmental disabilities; services for youth in foster care; services for youth in the juvenile justice system; troubled teen programs; and autism services.1
Behavioral health services for youth are largely privatized. Non-profit organizations operate most facilities, but increasingly for-profit companies, including companies owned by private equity firms, make up a significant share of providers.
For-profit youth behavioral health facilities and for-profit foster care have garnered criticism from youth justice and disability rights advocates. In residential facilities, criticism has included:
• Inadequate counseling or education services;
• Physical, sexual, and emotional abuse;
• Forced isolation; • Use of physical and chemical restraints;
• Squalid living conditions. In privatized foster care companies, concerns include:
• Inadequate screening of foster parents,
• Increasing workloads for social workers and high social worker turnover,
• Filling beds using a quota system, and
• Relying on unlicensed workers.2
The private equity business model may exacerbate these problems. Private equity firms often aim to double or triple their investment over 4-7 years. The pursuit of these outsized return expectations over relatively short time horizons can lead to cost-cutting that hurts care. In addition, use of high levels of debt can divert cash from operations to interest payments and dividends paid out to private equity owners
South Korean Teachers Want an End to Parents’ Harassment
For months, tens of thousands of educators have protested nationwide against a rule they say keeps them from disciplining students for fear of being accused of child abuse.
www.nytimes.com/2023/09/05/world/asia/south-korea-teachers-rally.html
By John Yoon
Reporting from Seoul
Sept. 5, 2023
Tens of thousands of teachers across South Korea have protested in the streets since July amid worsening complaints over student misbehavior and harassment by parents.
On Saturday, a large protest was held near the National Assembly in Seoul, estimated by the local police at 100,000 people. On Monday, tens of thousands of teachers nationwide took a coordinated leave of absence and held rallies nationwide, according to organizers — an unusual tactic used to sidestep the law that makes it illegal for them to strike in South Korea.
On Monday, when teachers also mourned the suicide of a teacher who claimed to have suffered at the hands of abusive parents, some elementary schools canceled classes, according to the Education Ministry — a rare occurrence.
In a country known for its fiercely competitive schools and the weight that society places on education, students and parents are not the only parties under immense stress. Teachers say that they often face pressure from parents who make excessive or impossible demands of them, including favoritism for their children.
“Teachers aren’t able to do their jobs right now,” said Jo Chan-woo, 34, a teacher in Seoul who attended the rally on Monday. “Let us do our jobs.”
One of teachers’ central demands includes revising an ambiguous clause in the country’s Child Welfare Act meant to prohibit child abuse. Teachers say that the ambiguity allows parents to file — or threaten to file — child abuse charges against teachers who take reasonable disciplinary action against student misbehavior. Even if a teacher is falsely accused, they could be suspended from their job and left alone to defend themselves in court, teachers and education experts say.
Teachers say the fear of facing such allegations has scared them from responding to misbehaving students and empowered some parents to harass teachers. Abusive calls and texts from such parents, compounded by teachers’ growing administrative duties, have damaged the mental health of many teachers, experts say.
A memorial and a rally in Seoul for a teacher who died after she said was harassed by parents. The police said they are investigating her death as a suicide. Credit…Kim Hong-Ji/ReutersImageSeveral people stand before a stack of flowers that make up a tribute. Behind them, scores of people sit, holding signs and banners.
Several people stand before a stack of flowers that make up a tribute. Behind them, scores of people sit, holding signs and banners.
Teachers have demanded that the government provide clear guidelines on disciplining students. (Teachers in South Korea are government employees whose conduct and duties are defined by the country’s laws.)
“We’re asking the government to provide a specific manual for dealing with misbehaving students,” said Son Gyeong-eun, 33, a teacher in Seoul who rallied on Monday. “Reasonable discipline shouldn’t count as child abuse.”
The teachers’ movement was sparked in part by the apparent suicide of a young teacher in July at an elementary school in Seoul after she had expressed concerns to her colleagues about being harassed by parents. Her death, which police officials have said is being investigated as a suicide, shocked the public, including the legions of teachers who have since held vigils and rallies every weekend to demand better protections for educators.
The Education Ministry said it supported the changes demanded by the teachers — but warned that they and their principals could face punishment for protesting because collective action is illegal for government employees. Teachers at Monday’s rallies legally used sick leave or vacation days, said Jang Dae-jin, a spokesman for one of the country’s teachers’ unions.
The rallies of the past few months have been led by a grassroots group of teachers that is independent from the unions, which do not have the power to authorize such demonstrations, Mr. Jang said.
Representatives of parents’ associations in South Korea said they sympathized with the difficulties that teachers faced in their work environments, but argued that some of their demands were impractical and that parents were being blamed.
“It is unfortunate that much of the anger is directed at parents,” said Lee Yoon-kyoung, the president of one of the country’s national associations of parents. “They should be directed at the government or the ministry instead.”
A rally on Monday at a school in Seoul. Experts say that pressure and harassment from parents in South Korea has harmed the mental health of teachers.Credit…Jung Yeon-Je/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesImagePeople gather outside a school. Many of them are wearing black.
People gather outside a school. Many of them are wearing black.
About 100 public schoolteachers died by suicide from 2018 to June of this year, with 57 teaching at elementary schools, according to Education Ministry data made public in July.
At least three South Korean elementary schoolteachers have died by suicide in the past three years after struggling with pressure from students and their parents, protest organizers said, including two teachers who had taught at the same school in northern Seoul and who died within a six-month period in 2021.
The number of teachers who quit or retired from public schools reached a record high of more than 12,000 in the past year, a 43 percent increase from six years ago and a 12 percent jump from last year, according to Education Ministry data.
The Education Ministry implemented protections last Friday to prevent teachers from being harassed, including requiring parents to set up appointments to speak with teachers; no longer requiring teachers to respond to parents’ calls via their personal phones; and increasing the penalties for student misbehavior.
“There has been an increase in indiscriminate child abuse allegations against teachers, as the focus shifted too far toward student’s rights, while those of the teachers were not respected,” the ministry said in a statement.
Many teachers said that those measures made little difference. The ministry said that it was continuing to work on education changes, including amendments to the Child Welfare Act, but offered no time frame.
John Yoon reports from the Seoul newsroom of The Times. He previously reported for the coronavirus tracking team, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service in 2021. He joined The Times in 2020. More about John Yoon
South Korean Teachers Want an End to Parents’ Harassment
www.nytimes.com
For months, tens of thousands of educators have protested nationwide against a rule they say keeps them from disciplining students for fear of being accused of child abuse.
Tension mounts ahead of Korean teachers' collective action
www.koreatimes.co.kr/…/2023/09/281_358382.html
Estimated 200,000 teachers gather in Seoul for rally over rights protection
www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20230903000049
How much do S.F. teachers really get paid? It’s complicated
www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/sfusd-teacher-salaries-raises-18331238.php
How much do S.F. teachers really get paid? It’s complicated
Jill Tucker
Sep. 2, 2023
A supporter holds a United Educators of San Francisco banner Monday outside the San Francisco Unified School District central offices. The union wants a $12,000 raise for every teacher in year one of a new contract and a 7.5% increase in year two.
A supporter holds a United Educators of San Francisco banner Monday outside the San Francisco Unified School District central offices. The union wants a $12,000 raise for every teacher in year one of a new contract and a 7.5% increase in year two.
Lea Suzuki/The Chronicle
The question seems simple enough: How much do San Francisco teachers make compared with educators in other districts across the state?
The answer is at the center of ongoing contract negotiations between the district and the teachers union, with educators threatening to strike, given how far apart the two sides are on salaries.
But figuring out how much the 3,600 credentialed teachers make in total compensation and where San Francisco Unified stands compared with other public schools is anything but simple. Salary is only one part of the formula, while health benefits and pensions are also part of the package.
Then there’s another piece, one rarely acknowledged, but costly: lifetime retiree health benefits for all staff, a rare offering among districts that is costing San Francisco Unified nearly $40 million a year, and increasing about $2 million annually. Based on salary alone, the city’s school district — with a mid-career teacher paycheck of $89,000 a year — ranked 74th out of the 268 California districts with at least 250 teachers, according to a Chronicle analysis of 2022 state Department of Education data on certificated salaries and benefits for unionized educators.
That’s well below $147,000 in Mountain View Los Altos Union High School District at the top of the list and far above the $55,000 in Sacramento City Unified at the bottom.
When health benefits for current employees are added in, San Francisco’s compensation reaches $98,000, and the district drops to 129th place.
That’s not good enough, teachers say.
San Francisco Unified School District special education teacher Emily Patterson says: “The district needs to understand we can’t keep making what we’re making and be able to survive on that.”
San Francisco Unified School District special education teacher Emily Patterson says: “The district needs to understand we can’t keep making what we’re making and be able to survive on that.”
Jessica Christian/The Chronicle
“We won’t make as much as those super-wealthy Palo Alto districts,” said Emily Patterson, a special education teacher. “But the district needs to understand we can’t keep making what we’re making and be able to survive on that.”
The question is how much the district can afford.
San Francisco Unified isn’t alone in its struggles to balance its budget, grappling with declining enrollment, eye-popping pension costs and increasing health insurance contributions as well as ever-rising special education obligations. It’s on track to spend $25 million to $36 million more every year than it will get in revenue over the next few years.
Additional state revenue isn’t keeping up with costs, and the state has appointed a fiscal expert to keep tabs on district spending.
This is the reality even though city property owners pony up $48 million annually through the Proposition J parcel tax to help cover the last teacher pay raise of 8%, as well as other support positions like counselors and social workers.
The union wants a $12,000 raise for every teacher in year one of a new contract, pushing them up to about 14th place — and then a 7.5% increase in year two. The district has offered a 5% one-year raise.
It hasn’t been easy for teachers in recent years. The impact of pandemic lingers, with emotional and academic fallout. In addition, a statewide teacher, aide and substitute shortage has increased the workload for educators, who have to cover vacant classrooms on their breaks or planning periods. And in San Francisco, where the cost of living is already a deterrent to new hires, a massive payroll fiasco has left teachers and other staff with error-riddled paychecks for nearly two years.
Administrators and teachers say if they want to lure more educators to the district, salaries have be more competitive.
“We need salary increases,” said labor leader Cassondra Curiel, president of the United Educators of San Francisco.
Few dispute that, including the superintendent and school board members, who control the purse strings.
Often unspoken, however, is how much the district is spending on educator compensation now.
A deeper dive into state data shows San Francisco spends $343 million on salaries and health benefits for current credentialed teachers, or $7,000 for each of the district’s nearly 49,000 students — which is the 14th highest rate among the 268 districts.
In other words, the district spends a lot on its teachers, but it’s spread among more of them than most other districts, where the average ratio is 1 educator for every 20 students.
In San Francisco, it’s 1 educator per 14 students.
If the teacher-to-student ratio was 1 to 20, the average salary and benefits package for unionized and credentialed educators in San Francisco would be closer to $140,000 at the current level of spending compared to $95,000 now.
The analysis doesn’t include the 3,000 additional members of the teachers union who are not credentialed, including teacher aides.
Those numbers might surprise some teachers, parents and students who see much larger class sizes at their schools, but that varies across the district.
Why is San Francisco’s teacher-student ratio the third lowest of the districts analyzed?
Like many school systems across the state, San Francisco has declining enrollment, losing more than 4,000 students in recent years with a projected loss of another 4,500 within the next decade. But the school board has failed to reduce school, administrative and other staff.
Educators and some school board members have criticized the district for a bloated central office, saying cuts there could help cover increases in teacher pay, but it’s unclear how much could be cut.
Part of the central office budget, administrative costs reached $25 million this year, or 4% of the budget, with a larger part, or $143.7 million, going to transportation, food services, maintenance, security and facilities, and other needs.
And earlier this week, the teachers union released a scathing report alleging years of mismanagement and lost opportunities for boosting revenue, which they link to their low salaries.
Superintendent Matt Wayne told the Chronicle that it’s critical for the district to address staffing levels based on enrollment, which includes eliminating positions as well as figuring out what to do with empty seats in classrooms. That could eventually mean closing or merging schools, but those options are a last resort to ensure the district is financially sound, he said.
“In the end, because we don’t have unlimited resources, there are tradeoffs we have to make,” Wayne told the Chronicle this week. Currently, the city’s public schools are headed for a fiscal cliff, which complicates increasing teacher salaries.
The district has been overspending for years, using one-time funds to backfill the now $1.2 billion budget — leading to bankruptcy if the school board doesn’t cut costs.
So far, the district and unions have no intention of cutting those lifetime retiree health benefits.
Decades ago, the school board agreed to provide the benefit to retirees, giving employees an incentive to stay. But that was before U.S. health care spending skyrocketed, resulting in a 900% cost increase since 1970.
It has become a costly contract-based benefit for union and nonunion retirees with 20 years in the district, despite the availability of free federal Medicare health insurance for those 65 and over.
All told, the future liability to the district for the benefit is more than $700 million, a whopping sum and the highest amount for retiree health debt behind Los Angeles and Fresno. What it means, in terms of teacher salaries, is that educators have agreed to delay some of their compensation until they are done teaching, when it will cost the district up to $20,000 per year per person. But it’s not money that helps pay rent now.
It’s still a retention tool, Curiel said.
San Francisco district leaders, who are also eligible for the benefit, did not provide comment on the impact of retiree health costs on the budget or whether they plan to raise the issue in contract negotiations.
The often unmentioned trade-off of those retiree benefits is less money to spend on students now, said Paul Bruno, assistant professor of education at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, who has researched the issue in California.
“For a lot of districts, they are in a situation whether they acknowledge or not, they are making choices about whether to allocate resources to students in classrooms now and the teacher in them, or to defer compensation later to teachers in retirement,” he said. “It’s not benefiting kids who are in the classroom today.”
Reach Jill Tucker: jtucker@sfchronicle.com
How much do S.F. teachers really get paid? It’s complicated
www.sfchronicle.com
The union wants a $12,000 raise for every teacher in year one of a new contract — and…