SNEA President's Remarks to the School Board About Anti-Teacher Tenure Ballot Initiative

Late last week, I got a phone call from Superintendent Dr. Norm Ridder, inviting me to speak to the school board during the legislative issues portion of the regular session. He stressed that the school board had requested information about the ballot initiative process and also what the language of this particular ballot would mean for our district, should it get on the ballot in November.

I read several articles, including an excellent one from The Progressive, by Brendan Fischer and Lisa Graves, which gave me a clear picture of what is happening behind the scenes through this initiative process in Missouri. Mark Jones, MNEA Political Director, clearly laid out the timeline for this initiative to actually get on the ballot and the process for signature validation.

I invite you to read on to get a glimpse of what one St. Louis billionaire believes he can do to take away local control from school districts across the state. This ballot initiative will negatively effect our profession, our students, our schools and communities. SNEA will keep you posted on what you can do to keep this initiative  from becoming  a neatly purchased amendment to our state constitution.

 

 

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Remarks to the SPS School Board

April 29, 2014

By Kittilu Maxson, SNEA president

 

Ballot Initiative/Petition Process

What is it?

Many of you have run into people gathering signatures for petitions. Maybe it’s out in front of your library or driver’s license office. If you’re like me, you begin by asking clarifying questions…like, “Do you live here?” “Are you registered to vote in Greene County?” “Do you get paid?”  “By whom?”

The ballot initiative process is an avenue for citizens to bring an issue that is important to them before the people for a vote. The process is intended to be a grassroots movement, motivated by intense support for an issue. Make No Mistake-This is NO Grass Roots Movement!!!

Who is paying for it?

Rex Sinquefield, a St. Louis billionaire, also the state’s biggest political contributor, is funding the ‘teachgreat’ initiative to get this measure on the ballot in November. This billionaire’s priorities are to financially support legislation that will lower his own taxes and to privatize public education. Each person working on this ballot initiative campaign is being paid to do so. They are not motivated by personal ideals or issues.

Here, I’d like to point out that none of the public education stakeholders that we often look to are asking for these changes.

NOT the

* Missouri School Board Association

* Missouri Association of School Administrators

* PTA

* Teacher’s Associations

 

What IS in the ballot initiative language?

In a nutshell, it strips local control over educator evaluations and the teacher tenure process. The language implements a top-down, one-size-fits-all, standardized testing event for every child, in every district across the state.

We already know what’s working in Springfield…

SPS is developing and in the process of implementing an Educator Evaluation Plan, based on a framework recommended by DESE. It is highly collaborative, transparent and holds all parties in the process accountable. SPS has processes in place to recruit and retain highly qualified educators. When there are concerns about a teachers’ competence or performance, there are steps taken to support their improvement and if that doesn’t happen there is a path to let them go.

This initiative puts a huge emphasis on the status of our students from a one-time, high stakes test event, rather than on student growth through multiple measures and formative data, over time.

It would be a HUGE step backward for SPS!

Where are we in the ballot initiative process?

They need to gather between 147,000-160,000 signatures. Right now, the Coalition for Missouri’s Future believes they will get enough signatures

On May 4^th they will be submitted to the office of the Secretary of State for validation. If approved, the issue will go on the November ballot.

There may be legal challenges along the way, especially on the lack of clarity of the ballot language as it would appear for voters, specifically the non-disclosure of the financial burden it would place on local districts

SUMMARY:

This ballot initiative pits the support of public education through local control against political opportunism. It is an outside party, taking away local control and at the same time implementing one-size fits all processes which teachers do not believe are best practices for their own professional evaluation, nor for the effective assessment of their student’s growth, progress and achievement.

 

Kittilu Maxson, SNEA president