Did you catch the Hawaii News Now story broadcast on Tuesday about teachers taking their complaints about Gov. Neil Abercrombie onto YouTube?
Teachers have started recording “open letters” to the Governor Neil Abercrombie and putting them online.
“I’m angry and I’m tired of you,” said Doug Robertson, Kaleiopuu Elementary School Fourth Grade Teacher, in a video he posted on YouTube. “Don’t make this about how much teachers care about their students. You obviously have no idea what it means to care about the people you’re supposed to be helping.”
The story then notes:
The videos are part of a grassroots effort to raise awareness and momentum for Hawaii Teachers. Others have picketed the Governor’s events and got Senate Candidate Mazie Hirono to pose with their signs.
Hmmmm. Knowing Gov. Abercrombie, I reallly don’t think the personal public attacks are a good idea, and not an effective lobbying tactic.
Neil is tough. And he can be stubborn. Pushing him like this almost guarantees he’ll dig in and hold his ground.
Teachers won’t win that kind of tug-of-war.
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One question is whether these videos are a grassroots spontaneous effort or a concerted tactic by HSTA.
I agree that trying to shame the governor into doing something is probably counterproductive.
What would work best is if HSTA sits down with the governor and work out their differences without the media, social or otherwise.
maybe this is the real battle:
who is more stubborn?
Neil?
or teachers?
Let the games continue.
It is easy to be sympathetic to teachers in the abstract but impossible in the current reality. The union leadership has been petulantly amateurish, yet the teachers chose to reelect Wil Okabe. Sadly, therefore, they deserve what they are getting.
I just wish that my son the STUDENT wasn’t caught in the middle of this mess. I fully support “teachers” as a group, but the sad truth is that in 10 years in the Hawaii public school system my child has had very very few truly good teachers. Neither side seems to be interested in addressing that problem.
“You obviously have no idea what it means to care…” I don’t think this kind of smug self-righteousness is all that persuasive in creating sympathy for teachers, but it seems like their default setting.
Who said these teachers care about winning, whatever that is!
Most of them feel betrayed by the governor, the politicians, and the public, and cannot wait to retire.
They have just spent several days learning about the joke of an evaluation system that is being cobbled together to be the basis for pay raises, and retention.
The massive retirements coming in the next few years will leave the DOE struggling to find qualified teachers.
Thank you, Lopaka, for helping cut through the rhetoric. All the anti-union and anti-Okabe ranting is not helpful for understanding what is going on. Sure, Okabe is ineffective. But it is difficult to cobble together a strategy which might be effective under the current circumstances.
Teachers have been badmouthed for decades. Our political leadership is not only willing to cut teacher pay, they are willing to demand more hours for less pay. And they feel no shame in their conscience and suffer no consequences at the ballot box.
The Governor is being a jerk. Why we limit our criticism to saying he is being “stubborn” is beyond me. About six weeks ago, he got into an argument with an upset teacher at the Maui airport, got angry and had to be pulled off the teacher by his personal security.
Neil has become the enemy of teachers. Maybe he cannot see it, but they can. Many of those who can retire, or find jobs out-of-state, will do so. Many will continue to leave the profession. Many remain because the rest of the economy offers them few options. But if it starts turning around, they will leave.
But Neil is able to feel “butch” by bullying the teachers.
THIS is all about allowing public schools led by their team of principals to implement new methods of evaluating a teacher’s yearly performance. The current system in place, currently known as PEP-T (Professional Evaluation Program for Teachers) has always been ineffective at “weeding out” underperforming teachers.
The teacher’s union is frightened by a new evaluation system because they instinctively know that under-performing teachers will be pushed out of the profession, depleting their ranks, the dues they collect, and as often the case, lose a loyal and sympathetic teacher base that will always do and say what the union wants them to do.
The general public has no idea how much nonsense some teachers get away with on a yearly basis. Major abuse of sick days, arriving late and leaving early (did you know that Hawaii Public Schools still don’t use time-clocks?), yelling at kids and being rude to parents, uninspired lesson planning, and as usual, under-performing standardized state test scores. Basically, the only way a Hawaii Public School teacher can get fired is to be caught with drugs and having improper relations with a student.
There is a silent majority of teachers within the Hawaii D.O.E. that are open to the idea of new evaluations but are too afraid to speak up for fear of retribution. These are teachers that have nothing to hide and welcome any all type of evaluations.
So let the games begin. If Abercrombie plays this smart his approval ratings will go up. As for the HSTA, good luck gaining public sympathy in this economy and anti-entitlement mood.
Okay, Michael, I hope you get to be evaluated in your job for retention or pay raises by a test given to your customers that produces near random results, showing one year that you are excellent and the next year you are failing, when you have no control over the conditions your customers experience when they come to you, and when the customers who take the test suffer no consequences if they blow it off and no benefits if they take the time to fill it out conscientiously and accurately.
I am sure you would bristle if somebody said that you were afraid to be evaluated if you objected to being evaluated by such a method.
And your characterization of all teachers as fitting the under-performing mode is why many of the most experienced and qualified teachers can’t wait to get out of the system. Lack of public support and understanding of how hard most teachers work and how they have sacrificed to perform an important public service is reaching an all time high. We are discouraging our kids from considering becoming teachers as a result.
There are tried and true methods for improving system quality. The Deming quality control circles method by which workers (i.e. teachers) are given authority to identify and fix work place problems might be a good place to start. What is being proposed locally is far from that model.
Those systems worldwide that are producing the best educational results are amazed and shocked when they learn that we are hanging everything on standardized test results. They get their good results by strong teacher support, mentoring, and team efforts, not by using arbitrary and unreliable test scores and by isolating individual teachers as somehow solely responsible for educational outcomes.
“Pushing him like this almost guarantees he’ll dig in and hold his ground.”
The HSTA is counting on it. Abercrombie’s personality traits have caused him many troubles already. Their strategy is for 2014, not a contract.
“We are discouraging our kids from considering becoming teachers as a result.”
Teachers have options other than the public schools, although it seems there is a lot of competition for those jobs.
The governor should expect some pushback from teachers. Also pushback from our fellow union workers too….if he doesn’t keep on hearing from us, it’s a lot easier to forget about us when negotiations really start in earnest. I say keep on letting him hear from us!