Public-school employees have doubled in 40 years while academic results have stagnated...

Americans don't understand how the education system has been rigged to create more high-paying jobs ( mainly administrators and staff people) than there ever was in the past.

This means higher costs and more pensions for educators and their connected political friends.

Schools are not educating our children to the proper level.  Some do well but the majority of kids do not get the level of education that you or I did 20-30 years ago.  We are over paying and getting less back for our tax dollars.  They keep telling us that there will be less and less people working in the future as the population ages, so why would we need so many more people to work in our schools??

If anything, the number of people needed to work in schools should be going down as the number of children educated slows with our aging population.   That is logical but when it comes to public unions, teachers and education, nothing is logical.

Here is what was written in the Wall Street Journal.  I bet there was plenty of educators on summer break ( something no one else in America gets) howling mad at seeing this in print.


America Has Too Many Teachers
Public-school employees have doubled in 40 years while student enrollment has increased by only 8.5%—and academic results have stagnated..

By ANDREW J. COULSON - Wall Street Journal

President Obama said last month that America can educate its way to prosperity if Congress sends money to states to prevent public school layoffs and "rehire even more teachers." Mitt Romney was having none of it, invoking "the message of Wisconsin" and arguing that the solution to our economic woes is to cut the size of government and shift resources to the private sector. Mr. Romney later stated that he wasn't calling for a reduction in the teacher force—but perhaps there would be some wisdom in doing just that.
 
Cato Institute scholar Andrew Coulson on how public school employment has soared over the past 40 years even as student enrollment has flat-lined.
.
Since 1970, the public school workforce has roughly doubled—to 6.4 million from 3.3 million—and two-thirds of those new hires are teachers or teachers' aides. Over the same period, enrollment rose by a tepid 8.5%. Employment has thus grown 11 times faster than enrollment. If we returned to the student-to-staff ratio of 1970, American taxpayers would save about $210 billion annually in personnel costs.

Or would they? Stanford economist Eric Hanushek has shown that better-educated students contribute substantially to economic growth. If U.S. students could catch up to the mathematics performance of their Canadian counterparts, he has found, it would add roughly $70 trillion to the U.S. economy over the next 80 years. So if the additional three million public-school employees we've hired have helped students learn, the nation may be better off economically.

To find out if that's true, we can look at the "long-term trends" of 17-year-olds on the federal National Assessment of Educational Progress. These tests, first administered four decades ago, show stagnation in reading and math and a decline in science. Scores for black and Hispanic students have improved somewhat, but the scores of white students (still the majority) are flat overall, and large demographic gaps persist. Graduation rates have also stagnated or fallen. So a doubling in staff size and more than a doubling in cost have done little to improve academic outcomes.

Nor can the explosive growth in public-school hiring be attributed to federal spending on special education. According to the latest Census Bureau data, special ed teachers make up barely 5% of the K-12 work force.
The implication of these facts is clear: America's public schools have warehoused three million people in jobs that do little to improve student achievement—people who would be working productively in the private sector if that extra $210 billion were not taxed out of the economy each year.
We have already tried President Obama's education solution over a time period and on a scale that he could not hope to replicate today. And it has proven an expensive and tragic failure.

To avoid Greece's fate we must create new, productive private-sector jobs to replace our unproductive government ones. Even as a tiny, mostly nonprofit niche, American private education is substantially more efficient than its public sector, producing higher graduation rates and similar or better student achievement at roughly a third lower cost than public schools (even after controlling for differences in student and family characteristics).

By making it easier for families to access independent schools, we can do what the president's policies cannot: drive prosperity through educational improvement. More than 20 private-school choice programs already exist around the nation. Last month, New Hampshire legislators voted to override their governor's veto and enact tax credits for businesses that donate to K-12 scholarship organizations. Mr. Romney has supported such state programs. President Obama opposes them.

While America may have too many teachers, the greater problem is that our state schools have squandered their talents on a mass scale. The good news is that a solution is taking root in many states.

Mr. Coulson directs the Cato Institute's Center for Educational Freedom and is author of "Market Education: The Unknown History" (Transaction, 1999).

A version of this article appeared July 9, 2012, on page A13 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: America Has Too Many Teachers.

GREED killed the American Unions

The Atlantic Magazine wrote a piece titled " Who Killed American Unions??"

The article was not very compelling....it focused on all aspects other than the key issue.

The one part of the liberal whining that goes on in this article is they didn't mention the key reason why Unions have cratered...

GREED.

Yes, GREED.  The Unions and their members got GREEDY.  That's what killed them.

Now, I understand and agree they are not the only ones who got greedy.  CEOs and other getting obscene pay packages, stock insiders pillaging the economy and causing chaos, etc. etc.  I see it and agree that they have caused as many issues for the American Economy as the Unions.

But, the question is " Who Killed American Unions??" - The main culprit is the Unions themselves.

The last three and half years have accelerated their demise but it started way before that.....
GREEDY UNION Members and their fat arse bosses used their muscle to bully and batter companies like GM, Ford & Chrysler into ridiculous labor agreements.

Public Employee Unions gamed the political system and conceived ridiculous laws and agreements that allow public employees to retire on sky high pensions inflated by overtime and into which many have never paid a cent.  They don't have any care that the agreements were  faulty and unsustainable.  it didn't matter that they got paid for standing down on the job or doing little.  They got the agreements put in place and even if it bankrupts the town, they want the money.

Union Leaders lined their pockets with dues paid by the members and did little other than make themselves rich on the backs of the workers.  They decided that they were entitled to the same type of compensation as those who ran the businesses.....GREED.  More and more was their only goal.

This is what killed the Unions and why today, they only represent a minor fraction of all workers.  Unions were needed when there were no laws to protect workers but in the last 40 years, the Unions became only about paying their workers and the Union Bosses as much as they could extort from the companies and government.

Now the companies have had enough.  The cost of a new car produced in Detroit had almost $10K cost tacked on to it to provide incredible huge pay & benefits to assembly line workers.  The added cost is borne by every person who bought a vehicle from the big three, while others like Toyota set up factories in Tennessee without Unions.  The new factories were able to produced excellent vehicles and cheaper.

That helped put the Big Three teetering on the edge....The market was cornered by cheaper, leaner, better.

Now, Towns and States are seeing the light.  They know that they have been had and the voters are pushing back.  Taxpayers have had enough. Voters have started fixing what has been known for many years.  It wasn't just enough to earn good money, these Union types needed to earn MORE.  And it doesn't bother them at all that it is costing others services or extra costs tacked on to things they want.

It is all about them and their need to satisfy their Greed.

That's what killed the Unions and for the author of the article in the Atlantic Magazine to miss that completely shows there still are people who don't want to acknowledge reality.

Reality is the Unions caused their own demise.  Their GREED and their need to be GREEDY to the detriment of all others.

And the Mass Media wonders why people aren't siding with the Unions....it is because they see the wanton GREED with their own eyes and recognize it for what it is - shameful.

Victory for taxpayers in Wisconsin and California - The taxpayers have had enough

The news proclaimed the victory by Scott Walker over Big Labor in Wisconsin....expected and well done Governor Walker...The people told the Unions enough is enough....

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0612/77098.html


The BIGGER story came out of California....Too many Public Employees were not satisfied with lifetime pensions and benefits on the taxpayers ( which they never paid into out of their paychecks) and kept gaming the system. Voters in San Diego sent them a real message.

Well, as they say, things that occur in California are "usually" a pre-indicator to things that will occur across the country.....this is the BIG NEWS you will likely not read anywhere else....

REAL change....not the kind that the Fool in the White House yapped about......The taxpayers have had enough. That is the message from last night's vote.


2 California cities voters approve pension cuts
By ELLIOT SPAGAT, Associated Press 

SAN DIEGO (AP) — Voters in two major California cities overwhelmingly approved measures to cut retirement benefits for city workers Tuesday in contests being closely watched as states and local governments throughout the country struggle with mounting pension obligations.

In San Diego, 67 percent voted in favor of Proposition B while 33 percent were opposed. More than 65 percent of precincts reported.

The margin in San Jose was even wider, with 71 percent in favor of Measure B and 29 percent opposed. Nearly half of precincts reported.

San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed called the vote a victory for fiscal reform.

"The voters get it, they understand what needs to be done," he said in an interview.
Supporters had a straightforward pitch: Pensions for city workers are unaffordable and more generous than many private companies offer, forcing libraries to slash hours and potholes to go unfilled.

"We believe people are tired of having services cut back because of big pensions," San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders, a Republican who is being forced from office by term limits, said recently.

Shrinking tax revenues during the recession are also responsible for service cuts, but pensions are an easy target. San Diego's payments to the city's retirement fund soared from $43 million in 1999 to $231.2 million this year, equal to 20 percent of the city's general fund budget, which pays for day-to-day operations.

As the pension payments grew, San Diego's 1.3 million residents saw roads deteriorate and libraries and recreation centers cut hours. For a while, some fire stations had to share engines and trucks. The city has cut its workforce 14 percent to 10,100 employees since Sanders took office in 2005.

San Jose's pension payments jumped from $73 million in 2001 to $245 million this year, equal to 27 percent of its general fund budget. Voters there approved construction bonds at the beginning of the last decade, but four new libraries and a police station have never opened because the city cannot afford to operate them. The city of 960,000 cut its workforce 27 percent to 5,400 over the last 10 years.

Opponents, led by public employee unions, say the measures deprive workers of benefits they were counting on when they got hired. Some workers decided against potentially more lucrative jobs with private companies, figuring their retirement was relatively safe.
"This is part of a broader effort to attack workers and to make their lives miserable," San Diego Councilman Todd Gloria said during a debate on the San Diego measure.

Thom Reilly, former manager of Clark County, Nev., and now a professor of social work at San Diego State University, said opponents face a difficult task. He expects the California measures may spawn similar efforts elsewhere if they pass.

"The ones who are actually paying the taxes will never see these benefits in their lifetimes, so there's not a lot of sympathy in the public," he said.

The ballot measures differ on specifics. San Diego's imposes a six-year freeze on pay levels used to determine pension benefits unless a two-thirds majority of the City Council votes to override it. It also puts new hires, except for police officers, into 401(k)-style plans.
More than 100,000 residents signed petitions to put the San Diego measure on the ballot.
Under San Jose's measure, current workers have to pay up to 16 percent of their salaries to keep their retirement plan or accept more modest benefits. New hires would get less generous benefits.

Reed, a Democrat, joined an 8-3 City Council majority to put the measure on the ballot. He said Tuesday that he expected other cities in financial binds to pursue similar measures.

"We're at the leading edge but we're not alone," he said.

CLUELESS NY TIMES STAFF might have to take pension downgrade...The horror.



Take a listen to the bucketheads at the NY TIMES whine about the possibility that they might have to take a reduction in pension benefits. The horror !!


Here's a bite of reality for you Mr. Media-Elite. Welcome to the new economy that the Democrats & dear leader Mr. Obama have given us...Share YOUR wealth Mr. Newspaper Elite !!. Here is what the rest of us have known for the past three years as we watched the DEMS spend us $5 TRILLION dollars further into debt.


Granted, the other side is not much better but they haven't figured out how to wreck things like Pelosi, Reed and Obama did in three years. These ingrates will get their pensions, just not a life-time of their full salary. That is reserved only for Municipal workers, State & Federal employees. The rest of us will have to get by on working in normal retirement age, add in what little social security is left and anything else we can do.


To work for a major newspaper and to act this clueless/entitled/elite is the sign of how badly the media does it's job. If they couldn't figure this crap out until now, how much other shite they write about is wrong also ?


Russel Mead lays it out in true Schadefreude...enjoy.


To quote John McClean from DIE HARD, " WELCOME TO THE PARTY PAL..."






At The NYT: Clueless Blue Deer Meets Onrushing Truck
Russell Mead - PJ Media


Schadenfreude alert: readers, and especially those who don’t much like the New York Times, should make sure they are not eating soup or holding hot liquids before viewing the video below. Uncontrollable gales of laughter stemming from excessive levels of schadenfreude may cause spilling and staining.


New York Times staffers, like suffering proles all over the world, belong to a labor union, and over the years the union has negotiated a very comfy defined benefit retirement plan. The staffers love the plan.


But economic reality is intruding. Times management, perhaps reading the coverage in its own pages about the companies and cities going bankrupt due to unsustainable union-bargained pension systems, wants to make a change. It wants to offer a defined contribution plan, instead. Workers and the company pay into a 401(k) plan, workers invest it, and when they retire, that is the amount they have towards their income.


It’s an entitled blue deer, meet onrushing truck kind of moment. The Guild is talking about a strike, and an array of Times staffers, including some famous bylines that are well known in news circles, worry aloud that the new plan could make them eat cat food and sleep in boxes on the street in old age. (Or late middle age, anyway; not one staffer talks about working past 65.)


Nobody in the video talks about the changes in the news business that threatens to drive the Times into a deep dive. Nobody talks about the prospect of future significant staff cuts if costs can’t be contained. None of them discuss the incongruity between their own naive sense of entitlement and what is going on in the cities, companies and countries they cover.


They just want the money.


Some writers allude to the prospect of leaving the paper if the pension change goes through, but a quick check of the newspaper business suggests they don’t have all that many options. Certainly with the exception of a handful of superstars the New York Times would have less trouble replacing its current staff than the current staff would have in replacing their jobs. And if those new jobs are in journalism, good luck finding a company with a generous defined benefit pension plan.


I sympathize with the Times staff about living in tougher economic conditions, but that is what people are adjusting to all over the world; I’m not sure what gives them an exemption. Newspaper reporters of all people should have seen this coming long ago, and have made savings and retirement plans on the assumption that their defined benefit plan would be going the way of the passenger pigeon and sooner rather than later.


If anything, their feelings of regret and chagrin should be tinged with at least a soupçon of relief. In the end, a defined benefit plan is only as solid as the company behind it, and given the turmoil on today’s media landscape it’s not at all clear where the Times will be or how it will be restructuring its debt 20 years from now. The good thing about a defined contribution plan is that you don’t lose the money if your ex-employer goes broke.


For readers, this is a fascinating and revealing glimpse inside the Times bubble. I am not sure which is more disconcerting; the deeply embedded sense of blue entitlement so palpably on display or the poor political judgement that led the union brass to think that releasing this video to the public would be good PR. Either way it serves as a powerful illustration of just how fundamentally out of touch many of the people working at America’s most famous newspaper have become.


I like and admire many of the people who write for the Times. Some of them I have known for years and, happily, the judgment and sensibility behind this video doesn’t characterize everyone who works there. But I suspect that most viewers around the world are going to find this video funny and revealing rather than heartfelt and convincing.

" The Unions say you're not paying enough taxes.."

The Unions say you're not paying enough taxes as they want more revenue for their union members. What world are these morons living in that they feel that they can solve our problems by grabbing more money from the taxpayers?

Cut spending and you'll see there is plenty of $$$ already. It is wasteful spending and allowing state & local employees to have huge wage increases that is a huge part of the problems faced by our state & local governments.

Look carefully when it comes time to vote and if a candidate is inline with these fools, vote them out. An injection of reality is needed and that had to start with putting the brakes on wasteful spending by those who benefit from raising taxes.



Unions push for state income tax hike
Labor and advocacy groups press for increasing state income tax to raise $1.37 billion.
By David Riley
wickedlocal.com
Posted Apr 09, 2012


BOSTON — Here’s a question for taxpayers as the deadline to file income taxes approaches quickly: Do you think Uncle Sam and Beacon Hill took too much, too little or just the right-sized bite out of your paychecks this year?

A coalition of labor unions and advocacy groups believes Massachusetts falls in the “too little” camp, at least for upper-income brackets.

The Campaign for Our Communities calls for raising the state income tax rate from 5.25 percent to 5.95 percent. The proposal also would tax investment income at 8.95 percent, up from 5.3 percent for most investments, but down from 12 percent for short-term capital gains.

Supporters said legislation they back also would hike exemptions to protect low- and middle-income taxpayers, while shielding seniors and the disabled from the higher investment rate.

Cuts to crucial services and annual struggles to balance state and local finances spurred the campaign, predating the recent recession, backers said. They pointed to cuts to mental health and senior programs, the MBTA’s looming budget gap and the proposed closing of Taunton State Hospital, among other things.

“We just do not have a revenue system that is bringing in enough revenue,” said Andi Mullin, director of Campaign for Our Communities. “That is true when the economy is good, and it’s particularly true when the economy is bad.”

Supporters said the changes would raise an additional $1.37 billion in tax revenue.

Cuts also have stretched town, city and school budgets thin, supporters said. Government cannot maintain quality public services while addressing budget gaps through cuts alone, they argued.

“It’s all about getting more money into our communities to fund what we view as essential public services,” said Jim Durkin, spokesman for American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 93, a union that has endorsed the campaign.

But House Minority Leader Bradley Jones, R-North Reading, said taxes are too high already.

Jones sponsored legislation this year to cut the state’s income tax rate to 5 percent by 2013. He said the measure would fulfill a successful 2000 ballot question calling for the state to cut the income tax from 5.95 percent to 5 percent over three years.

The Legislature in 2002 froze the rate at 5.3 percent and set targets for revenue growth under which the rate could drop further. The rate dipped to 5.25 percent this year.

Jones has sponsored similar bills in the past.

“I’ve sponsored it simply because I think we have an obligation to fulfill what the voters said they wanted to do,” he said


Neither effort is likely to advance this year. The Joint Committee on Revenue sent Jones’ bill to study, a move that usually dooms legislation for the rest of the session.

The Campaign for Our Communities counts local teachers unions among its supporters, including those in Arlington, Bedford, Boston, Cambridge, Dedham, Fall River and Weymouth.

Paul Toner, president of the Mass. Teachers Association, said budget crunches have led to rising class sizes in some districts and cuts to arts, technology and student support programs. More schools have imposed fees to fund busing and other programs, “increasingly putting the burden on families,” Toner said.

The Massachusetts Senior Action Council, which also backs the campaign, views raising the income tax rates as a way to ensure funding for senior services without competing against other legitimate interests, Executive Director Carolyn Villers said.

“Rather than a bigger piece of the pie,” she said, “we need a bigger pie.”

Jones said he fundamentally disagrees. Hiking the income tax would be a “total, 180-degree about-face” from legislative leaders’ calls to avoid raising taxes, he said.

As the flood approaches....

Those in the "lifeboat" care very little about those who are not...All is well for them, so why should they concern themselves with the troubles of others?

Like in Massachusetts where the number of state employees earning over $100,000 a year has jumped 40% since Governor Deval " Cadillac " Patrick has taken office, with approximately 7000 state employees reaching this level of annual compensation.

News and the story-behind-the-story / Healthcare Laws are only for those not politically connected

Here is a list of the Editors' Picks from the NY TIMES as given to me by Google News this morning...See If you can guess the "story behind the story" message that these have in common.

I have highlighted the actual headline and put in blue the real message

NY Times

Political Memo: Front-Runner Role Could Thwart Romney in New Hampshire By JEFF ZELENY (Taking Down the GOP Front Runner in any way we can)

Rick Santorum, Known for His Fighting Nature, Strikes a Calmer Tone By MARK LEIBOVICH (Split the GOP Voters to cause dissent)

Evangelicals Hurry to Find Alternative to Romney By ERIK ECKHOLM (Ditto)

Democrats See Signs of Hope in Election Battle for Congress By JENNIFER STEINHAUER ( Really ?? Democrats hopeful in taking Congressional elections ?? Putting Pelosi in charge again ?Really ?? What are you smoking?)

The press have been in full force putting out positive political stories for Obama since his return to Washington from his vacation. This will continue in full force through to election day as the majority of the press wants him in. The GOP candidate will not be perfect but we have to get Obama out of office before he further injures our nation.

Then there's this...The kind of news that let's you know what is going on when new laws are put in place for the commoners, not those who are favored politically by our President.

Obama has to go. This cannot be the way our country is governed.


Labor unions primary recipients of Obamacare waivers
By Paul Conner
01/06/2012 dailycaller.com

Labor unions continued to receive the overwhelming majority of waivers from the president’s health care reform law since the Obama administration tightened application rules last summer.

Documents released in a classic Friday afternoon news dump show that labor unions representing 543,812 workers received waivers from President Barack Obama‘s signature legislation since June 17, 2011.

By contrast, private employers with a total of 69,813 employees, many of whom work for small businesses, were granted waivers.

The Department of Health and Human Services revised the rules governing applications for health reform waivers June 17, 2011, amid a steady stream of controversial news reports, including The Daily Caller’s story that nearly 20 percent of last May’s waivers went to businesses in House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s district in California.

The labor unions receiving waivers include those that are monitored under the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act, and those that are not. The waivers granted since June 17 are valid until 2013, but recipients must make sure their employees understand the “limits of their coverage,” according to HHS documents.

HHS granted waivers on a year-by-year basis under its initial application process, but waivers granted after June 17 are valid for a maximum of two-and-a-half years.

By and large, unions backed the health care overhaul, a law from which nearly a half million of their workers are now exempt.

Michele Obama's federal school lunch program scores a " F " as in FAILURE

There is a real need to feed kids at school. For many, it is the best food they may get at anytime during the week, especially in poor communities. The staples of veal cutlets, mac n' cheese, chicken, hot dogs & beans fed generations of school children. Now, we have the lefties trying to push an unpaletable mix of trendy foods on kids when all they really want is the food that tastes good to them.

When you hear that the main reason they are making a change is " for the children", then you know that you are being rooked. There is a way to make sure kids get a good meal without serving up food that kids don't like and won't eat. When we waste food and tax dollars, we leave kids hungry and fail. In the end, this type of program allows the lefties political gains to be met, but the children leave hungry.


Michelle Obama's Unsavory School Lunch Flop
By Michelle Malkin

The road to gastric hell is paved with first lady Michelle Obama's Nanny State intentions. Don't take my word for it. School kids in Los Angeles have blown the whistle on the east wing chef-in-chief's healthy lunch diktats. Get your Pepto Bismol ready. The taste of government waste is indigestion-inducing.

According to a weekend report by the Los Angeles Times, the city's "trailblazing introduction of healthful school lunches has been a flop." In response to the public hectoring and financial inducement of Mrs. Obama's federally subsidized anti-obesity campaign, the district dropped chicken nuggets, corn dogs and flavored milk from the menu for "beef jambalaya, vegetable curry, pad Thai, lentil and brown rice cutlets, and quinoa and black-eyed pea salads."

Sounds delectable in theory. But in practice, the initiative has been what L.A. Unified's food services director Dennis Barrett plainly concludes is a "disaster." While the Obama administration has showered the nation's second-largest school district with nutrition awards, thousands of students voted with their upset tummies and abandoned the program. A forbidden-food black market — stoked not just by students, but also by teachers — is now thriving. Moreover, "(p)rincipals report massive waste, with unopened milk cartons and uneaten entrees being thrown away."

This despite a massive increase in spending on nutritional improvements — from $2 million to $20 million alone in the last five years on fresh produce.

This despite a nearly half-billion-dollar budget shortfall and 3,000 layoffs earlier this year.

Earlier this spring, L.A. school officials acknowledged that the sprawling district is left with a whopping 21,000 uneaten meals a day, in part because the federal school lunch program "sometimes requires more food to be served than a child wants to eat." The leftovers will now be donated to nonprofit agencies. But after the recipients hear about students' reports of moldy noodles, undercooked meat and hard rice, one wonders how much of the "free" food will go down the hatch — or down the drain. Ahhh, savor the flavor of one-size-fits-all mandates.

There's nothing wrong with encouraging our children to eat healthier, of course. There's nothing wrong with well-run, locally based and parent-driven efforts. But as I've noted before, the federal foodie cops care much less about students' waistlines than they do about boosting government and public union payrolls.

In a little-noticed announcement several months ago, Obama health officials declared their intention to use school lunch applications to boost government health care rolls. Never mind the privacy concerns of parents.

Big Government programs "for the children" are never about the children. If they were, you wouldn't see Chicago public school officials banning students from bringing home-packed meals made by their own parents. In April, The Chicago Tribune reported that "unless they have a medical excuse, they must eat the food served in the cafeteria." The bottom line? Banning homemade lunches means a fatter payday for the school and its food provider.

Remember: The unwritten mantra driving Mrs. Obama's federal school lunch meddling and expansion is: "Cede the children, feed the state." And the biggest beneficiaries of her efforts over the past three years have been her husband's deep-pocketed pals at the Service Employees International Union. There are 400,000 workers who prepare and serve lunch to American schoolchildren. SEIU represents tens of thousands of those workers and is trying to unionize many more at all costs.

In L.A., the district's cafeteria fund is $20 million in the hole thanks to political finagling by SEIU Local 99. The union's left-wing allies on the school board and in the mayor's office pressured the district to adopt reckless fiscal policies awarding gold-plated health benefits to part-time cafeteria workers in the name of "social justice." As one school board member who opposed the budget-busting entitlements said: "Everyone in this country deserves health benefits. But it was a very expensive proposal. And it wasn't done at the bargaining table, which is where health benefits are usually negotiated. And no one had any idea where the money was going to come from."

Early next year, Mrs. Obama will use the "success" of her child nutrition campaign to hawk a new tome and lobby for more money and power in concert with her husband's re-election campaign. It's a recipe for more half-baked progressivism served with a side order of bitter arugula.

Michelle Malkin is the author of "Culture of Corruption: Obama and his Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks & Cronies" (Regnery 2010). Her e-mail address is malkinblog@gmail.com.

The SEIU supports re-electing the President, allowing them greater access to taxpayers $$$ and more waste

Birds of a feather flocking together...It is no secret that President Obama has provided Billions of tax dollars to his union pals. Money that didn't create jobs, only fattened the coffers of his political allies. The same unions that support the OWS crowd who wants to " redistribute wealth", i.e. take it from others who earn it. The Unions have been doing that for years.

While the idea of bonuses for failing banks offends many, the idea of the unions getting more control over workers is equally offensive. Union membership is down to 12% of all workers because the Unions are there to only support the union, not the workers. The Union Leaders are no different than the businesses who they rail against. They take union dues and spend it to prop up feckless pols like President Obama, who by all measures is a failure. In that manner, they spend workers money to fund political campaigns for Pols who supply access to larger shares of our tax dollars.

The President doesn't deserve re-election and his Union thug pals need to be sent a message at the same time. Voters know that the system has been rigged in the union's favor and that's why the POLS that the unions support will be voted out. Unions served a purpose in the past, but now only exist to take taxpayers money, fatten their own coffers and drive the cost of good & services up.


Service employees union to boost efforts for Obama
By SAM HANANEL, Associated Press – 17 hours ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Service Employees International Union endorsed President Barack Obama's re-election bid on Wednesday, saying it would deploy its formidable political machine earlier and on a wider scale than it did four years ago.

SEIU President Mary Kay Henry said the union plans to reach out to all 2.1 million members by Labor Day and focus on getting more Hispanic and black voters to the polls.

"We're trying to do it on a scale that we've never done before," she said.

The politically powerful union is the latest labor organization to jump in with an early endorsement of the president, following the United Food and Commercial Workers Union and the National Education Association. It could signal even broader campaign spending by labor groups, which poured about $400 million to help elect Obama in 2008.

The SEIU is starting early, in part, because of reports that some Obama supporters are less enthusiastic than they were four years ago, Henry said. But while some union leaders have expressed disappointment with Obama's commitment to create jobs and willingness to back the union agenda, the SEIU has remained a steadfast supporter.

One of Obama's earliest backers in 2008, the SEIU spent about $60 million to help him win the presidential race. That led the union to become an influential voice in forming administration policy, particularly on Obama's health care overhaul plan. Former SEIU president Andy Stern has been one of the most frequent White House guests and is a member of Obama's debt commission.

Obama's campaign manager, Jim Messina, welcomed the endorsement, saying the SEIU and Obama "share many common goals,"....

Rhode Island...The Little State with a Big Public Employee Pension Problem

Rhode Island has always been in Massachusetts' shadow. The citizens of the "Little Rhody" have always competed with the Bay State.

Both States have been a haven for the Unions and each has had a mainly Democratic make-up. Massachusetts is the bluest of Blue States but RI has been Union Heaven for decades.

Well, now we have one category that RI has beaten MA to the punch on....Rhode Island is going broke.....mainly because of all the public pensions it owes to the union members who worked for the towns/state. How about hearing that 10 cents of every dollar RI takes in goes to pension payments ?? Sounds scary, eh??

Read the NY Times story enclosed and be scared....this is what the rigged game our public employees and their union cohorts have foisted on us. The RI Legislature had the courage to propose rolling back benefits for public employees, including those who have already retired...Can RI be saved from itself ?? We will see.


The Little State with a Big Mess
By Mary Williams Walsh - NY TIMES
CRANSTON, R.I.

ON the night of Sept. 8, Gina M. Raimondo, a financier by trade, rolled up here with news no one wanted to hear: Rhode Island, she declared, was going broke.

Maybe not today, and maybe not tomorrow. But if current trends held, Ms. Raimondo warned, the Ocean State would soon look like Athens on the Narragansett: undersized and overextended. Its economy would wither. Jobs would vanish. The state would be hollowed out.

It is not the sort of message you might expect from Ms. Raimondo, a proud daughter of Providence, a successful venture capitalist and, not least, the current general treasurer of Rhode Island. But it is a message worth hearing. The smallest state in the union, it turns out, has a very big debt problem.

After decades of drift, denial and inaction, Rhode Island’s $14.8 billion pension system is in crisis.

Ten cents of every state tax dollar now goes to retired public workers. Before long, Ms. Raimondo has been cautioning in whistle-stops here and across the state, that figure will climb perilously toward 20 cents. But the scary thing is that no one really knows. The Providence Journal recently tried to count all the municipal pension plans outside the state system and stopped at 155, conceding that it might have missed some. Even the Securities and Exchange Commission is asking questions, including the big one: Are these numbers for real?

“We’re in the fight of our lives for the future of this state,” Ms. Raimondo said in a recent interview. And if the fight is lost? “Either the pension fund runs out of money or cities go bankrupt.”

All of this might seem small in the scheme of national affairs. After all, this is Little Rhody (population: 1,052,567). But the nightmare scenario is that Ms. Raimondo has seen the future of America, and it is Rhode Island. As Wall Street fixates on the financial disaster in Greece, a fiscal wreck is playing out right here. And the odds are that it won’t be the last. Before this is over, many Americans may be forced to rethink what government means at the state and local level.

Economists have talked endlessly about a financial reckoning for the United States, of a moment in the not-so-far-away when the nation’s profligate ways catch up with it. But for Rhode Island, that moment is now. The state has moved to safeguard its bond investors, to avoid being locked out of the credit markets. Last week, the General Assembly went into special session and proposed rolling back benefits for public employees, including those who have already retired. Whether the plan will succeed is anyone’s guess.

Central Falls, a small city north of Providence, didn’t wait for news from the Statehouse. In August, the city filed for bankruptcy rather than keep its pension promises to its retired firefighters and police officers.

Illinois, California, Connecticut, Oklahoma, Michigan — the list of stretched states runs on. In Pennsylvania, the capital city, Harrisburg, filed for bankruptcy earlier this month to avoid having to use prized assets to pay off Wall Street creditors. In New Jersey, Gov. Chris Christie wants to roll back benefits, too.

In most places, as in Rhode Island, the big issue is pensions. By conventional measures, state and local pensions nationwide now face a combined shortfall of about $3 trillion. Officials argue that, by their accounting, the total is far less. But with pensions, hope often triumphs over experience. Until this year, Rhode Island calculated its pension numbers by assuming that its various funds would post an average annual return on their investments of 8.25 percent; the real number for the last decade is about 2.4 percent. A phrase that gets thrown around here, à la Rick Perry describing Social Security, is “Ponzi scheme.”

That evening in September, Ms. Raimondo walked into the Cranston Portuguese Club to face yet another angry audience. People like Paul L. Valletta Jr., the head of Local 1363 of the firefighters union.

“I want to get the biggest travesty out of the way here,” Mr. Valletta boomed from the back of the hall. “You’re going after the retirees! In this economic time, how could you possibly take a pension away?”

Someone else in the audience said Rhode Island was reneging on a moral obligation.

Ms. Raimondo, 40, stood her ground. Rhode Island, she said, had a choice: it could pay for schoolbooks, roadwork, care for the elderly and so on, or it could keep every promise to its retirees.

“I would ask you, is it morally right to do nothing, and not provide services to the state’s most vulnerable citizens?” she asked the crowd. “Yes, sir, I think this is moral.”

FOR many Americans, the Ocean State conjures images of Newport mansions and Narragansett chic. The overall reality is more prosaic. Rhode Island today is a place where the roads and bridges rank among the worst in the nation and where jobs are particularly hard to find. Unemployment rose faster during the 2008-9 recession than in any other state. The official jobless rate is now 10.6 percent, versus the national average of 9.1 percent.

The textile mills and jewelry manufacturers that once employed thousands here have dwindled away. The big employers today are in health care and education, both of which rely heavily on government spending that has been drying up.

Many states and cities can credibly say their pension plans are viable, even when those plans are not fully funded. That is because state retirement funds, like Social Security, pay out benefits bit by bit, over many years.

But unlike, say, California, with its large, diverse economy, Rhode Island is so small that there is little margin for error. Leaving the state, to escape its taxes, is almost as easy as moving to the other side of town. Efforts to balance the state budget by shrinking the public work force have left Rhode Island with a problem like the one that plagues General Motors: the state has more public-sector retirees than public-sector workers.

More ominous still, in each of the last 10 years, the state pension fund paid more money to retirees than the fund collected from state employees and taxpayers combined. The fund is shrinking, even though the benefits coming due are growing.

For all the pain here, one important constituency — Wall Street — seems satisfied enough. To reassure its bond investors, Rhode Island passed a special law this year giving them first dibs on tax revenue. In other words, bondholders will be paid, whatever happens. Ms. Raimondo has at times been accused of selling out ordinary Rhode Islanders to Wall Street interests, but she says hard choices must be made.

Ms. Raimondo remembers better times in Rhode Island. She grew up in a suburb of Providence, rode public buses to public schools and played in public parks. Her grandfather, who arrived from Italy, studied English in the evenings at the Providence Public Library. (That library system lost its financing from the city in 2009, closed branches and shortened its hours. These days, it is seldom open after 6 p.m.)

But Ms. Raimondo also learned early on about economic forces at work in her state. When she was in sixth grade, the Bulova watch factory, where her father worked, shut its doors. He was forced to retire early, on a sharply reduced pension; he then juggled part-time jobs.

“You can’t let people think that something’s going to be there if it’s not,” Ms. Raimondo said in an interview in her office in the pillared Statehouse, atop a hill in Providence. No one should be blindsided, she said. If pensions are in trouble, it’s better to deliver the news and give people time to make other plans.

BY any standard, Ms. Raimondo is a high achiever. She graduated from Harvard, collected a law degree from Yale and attended Oxford as a Rhodes scholar. After a stint in New York in the venture capital business, she helped found Rhode Island’s first venture capital firm, Point Judith Capital.

Then, in 2009, with zero political experience, she ran for the state office of treasurer. Although she is a Democrat in a heavily Democratic state, she stood out because she refused to promise that state jobs and pension benefits would be protected no matter what. She won by a landslide, receiving more votes than any other candidate for any state office. Her long-term ambitions, in politics, business or both, are the subject of speculation in Providence.

No sooner had she been sworn in than the S.E.C. called. She learned that the commission was investigating the finances of various cities and states, including Rhode Island, to determine whether bond investors were receiving truthful information. At the heart of the S.E.C. inquiry were pension funds.

Ms. Raimondo said she wasn’t entirely surprised. When she disclosed the investigation, she said: “For months, Rhode Island has been listed among several states with precarious finances. This challenging position is, in part, due to our significant and growing unfunded pension liability.” Her first priority, she vowed, would be to ensure that the numbers were right.

Others made similar pledges before. Rhode Island has been trying to fix its pension system for years; it has announced four “reform” plans since 2005, each of which has claimed to reduce costs for the state and cities. It has raised minimum retirement ages, slowed accrual rates, capped cost-of-living adjustments — but always for the youngest or least senior public workers. Retirees, and workers poised to retire, were spared, even though the numbers clearly showed that reducing payments to retirees was the only sure way to fix things quickly.

In recent months Ms. Raimondo has crisscrossed the state in an attempt to sell a different remedy, one in which everyone takes a hit. Yes, it would hurt. But at least the state would avoid having to come up with yet another plan in a year or two. The defined-benefit structure, very popular with public employees, could survive. Still, the battle lines are clear. Eight public workers’ unions have already sued, saying the pension changes of 2009 and 2010 were illegal.

On a September evening out in North Scituate, at the historic Old Congregational Church, Ms. Raimondo told a crowd about what had happened in Vallejo, Calif. That city filed for bankruptcy in 2009 and, after grueling negotiations, left pensions intact but drastically cut bus service, police patrols and other government functions, along with the pay of the city workers who provide all those services.

“That’s not what we want for Rhode Island,” Ms. Raimondo said. “That’s not the future we want for our children.”

Others in the crowd had their own stories. Several retired teachers said they had played by the rules and sent a part of every paycheck to the pension fund, as required by law. One man demanded pension cuts for state troopers and judges. A woman said her aged father would be unable to buy medicine if the state stopped adjusting his pension for inflation.

“I feel your anger,” Ms. Raimondo told the crowd. “In many ways, I’m angry myself. Many of the shenanigans that went on in past years were just wrong.”

In some ways, the central question is not only what the government owes to pensioners but what citizens owe to one another. From the pews of the church, Cindy Gould, a fourth-grade teacher, said that under the current system, she had 11 years to go until retirement. Under Ms. Raimondo’s plan, she might have to work longer. But, Ms. Gould, 54, said she was willing to do so if that meant the elderly would get the medical care they need.

Since the last recession hit, states and cities around the country have embarked on pension changes, often following the Rhode Island pattern. Benefits for state employees who have not yet been hired are usually the first to be cut. Then come changes for those now on the payroll, often in the form of higher mandatory contributions.

Retirees have mostly been off-limits, until now. In many instances, laws or legal precedent shield them. In the corporate sphere, they are supposed to bear losses only in bankruptcy. But those rules do not apply to states, which may not declare bankruptcy in any case. If a government homes in on retirees, a lawsuit is sure to follow, and the resolution will take years. But Ms. Raimondo says Rhode Island doesn’t have years. This isn’t a question of politics or law, she says, but of simple math. To get the numbers right, Ms. Raimondo quickly assembled a panel of experts that included academics, mayors and union officials. The goal was to figure out what a public pension should be and what Rhode Island could afford. Inflation protection every year, for people who in some cases retired in their 40s, started coming into focus.

Analysts also took a close look at the projected long-term investment return for the pension system: 8.25 percent. Everything rested on hitting that target, but the state’s actuary said there was less than a 30 percent chance that would happen over the next 20 years. The board voted to lower the assumption to 7.5 percent. (Given the recent run in the financial markets, even that figure may seem optimistic.)

As a result of that change, the state’s pension shortfall instantly rose to $9 billion from $7 billion. The unions said Ms. Raimondo had manufactured a crisis.

She denied it. “This is about the truth,” she said, “and about doing the right thing.”

Then, as if on cue, Central Falls declared bankruptcy. The city’s pension fund wasn’t just underfunded. It was completely out of money. A receiver for the city sought court permission to reduce by as much as half the base pensions of retired police officers and firefighters.

Suddenly the pension crisis wasn’t an abstraction any more. The unthinkable had happened, and the odds were that it would happen again unless the state acted quickly.

Other mayors began stepping forward and warning that their communities were on the brink, too. Here in Cranston, Mayor Allan W. Fung said that unless things changed, he would have to eliminate trash collection, services to the elderly and recreation programs for children, as well as reduce the size of the police force and fire department.

Over in Woonsocket, John W. Ward, the president of the City Council, said that all summer parks programs had been eliminated and that teachers were working with larger classes than their contracts allowed. Half of Woonsocket’s streetlights were out because the city couldn’t afford to replace them. His son, daughter-in-law and granddaughter had moved to another state.

“To allow the pension system to remain largely unchanged will make it impossible for Woonsocket, and every other urban community, to survive,” Mr. Ward said.

AT the Portuguese Club in Cranston, José M. Berto raised his hand. At 62, he told Ms. Raimondo, he was on the cusp of retirement.

“We’re looking at a Ponzi scheme that would make Bernie Madoff look like a Boy Scout,” said Mr. Berto, a supply officer for the state.

He asked if Rhode Island’s pension problem was the worst in the nation.

Ms. Raimondo said it was.

“I don’t like her message,” Mr. Berto said after the session. “But she has been honest, forthcoming. We’re in trouble. We’re just in so much trouble.”

100000 Massachusetts voters want a referendum on teacher's job performance - The MASS teacher's union? Not so much.....

Wow, shocker.

Over 100000 Massachusetts Voters feel we need to evaluate Teachers like anyone else - based on Performance. The Massachusetts Teacher's Union says "No" and vows to fight it in court.

Our schools have ranked as failing in properly educating our children for years. We have fallen behind the other industrial countries and rank well behind China and most of Europe. The answer to this is to evaluate Teachers on performance, just like any other professional.

100000 Voters think it is time to put the measure on the ballot. Allow people to vote as we pay the bill.

Freedom, democracy - one man, one vote. The Teacher's Union's response ?? See you in court. They have vowed to fight this as they have a perfect deal - they can keep on failing our children and collecting pay & benefits for life as they have no evaluation process and that suits them fine.

Here's today's lesson for the cement-heads at the MTA - Let the Voters speak as that is what our country is founded on. The Taxpayers pay your salary and deserve a say in how our children are educated. Your rigged game is coming to an end and none too soon.

Referendum on teacher effectiveness tops 100,000 signatures
By Michael Norton and Kyle Cheney
State House News Service
Posted Oct 21, 2011 @ 09:56 AM

BOSTON — A group pressing for a ballot law that would force schools to prioritize teacher effectiveness over seniority in hiring, layoff, and transfer decisions says it has amassed more than 100,000 voter signatures, but the state’s largest teacher’s union is gearing up to fight the proposal in court.

In a fundraising email circulated this week, Stand For Children Executive Director Jason Williams said the signatures had been collected in one month and asserted that the initiative would “ensure that every child in every classroom across the Commonwealth is being led by an excellent teacher.”

The announcement puts supporters of the ballot effort well ahead of the pace necessary to clear the next hurdle to placing the proposal before voters. Proponents must gather 68,911 signatures – most successful groups gather thousands of extra signatures to ensure they survive challenges – by mid-November.

While the organization’s Great Teachers Great Schools campaign looks to mobilize voters and tie their proposal to efforts to close achievement gaps between students from high-income and low-income families, the Massachusetts Teachers Association has ripped the plan as an effort to limit bargaining rights, diminish the role of seniority and experience in personnel decisions, and preclude part-time teachers from attaining professional status.

Attorney General Martha Coakley, who is charged with reviewing ballot questions to ensure they comply with legal criteria, certified the teacher evaluation proposal in August, clearing the way for advocates to launch their signature drive. But the MTA argues that the proposal should never come before voters because it violates laws governing the proper form of ballot questions.

“We’ll definitely be challenging the legitimacy of the initiative in the courts,” said Paul Toner, president of the Massachusetts Teachers Association. “We respectfully disagree with the attorney general’s decision to go forward. We really believe it’s an abuse of the ballot initiative process.”

Toner said the initiative affects the power of the courts, which is forbidden by the laws governing ballot questions. He said that the question also appears to address “multiple issues” rather than a single, narrowly tailored policy concern.

“These are major policy issues that should be done by being discussed and deliberated through the Legislature,” he said. “Our intention is to go all the way to the Supreme Judicial Court on the issue.”

The union encouraged its members not to sign the petition if asked to by a signature collector and will fight the plan if it reaches the ballot. Noting new teacher evaluation rules were approved statewide on June 28, the union called the petition a “distraction from the real problems in public education.”

A spokesman for the attorney general’s office said Coakley’s decision to certify ballot initiatives are “based purely on the facts and the law.”

“As we do with all petition decisions, we work cooperatively with parties who wish to challenge our rulings,” said the spokesman, Brad Puffer. “The most important thing is to get the right result.”

A Stand for Children spokesman defended the ballot question.

“We’re really confident that the attorney general’s decision will stand,” said Sam Caspaneda Holdren, communications director for the group.

Stand for Children officials say their plan would augment the state regulations, ensure that guidelines for teacher effectiveness carry over into staffing decisions and make sure tenure is “earned and kept through a more rigorous process.”

If Stand for Children’s signature drive succeeds, lawmakers would have until May 2012 to back the proposal, offer an alternative or not address the issue at all and allow the plan to proceed to the ballot. If lawmakers opt to allow the question to proceed, supporters must gather another 11,485 signatures, clearing the way for the question to be put before voters to decide in November 2012.

“Closing the achievement gap in Massachusetts is really critical. Every child deserves a great teacher,” Holdren said. “That’s what we’re advocating for. We look forward to the Legislature having an opportunity to take action on these issues.”

In raising concerns with the ballot question, Toner invoked Gov. Deval Patrick’s Education Secretary, Paul Reville, who told the News Service in August that regulations on teacher evaluations should be given more time for review before consequences are implemented.

“For the first time ever, we’re including things like student performance and student voice in the evaluation process,” Reville said at the time. “I’m not ready yet to talk about consequences that will flow from this until I have confidence that the instrument is effectively implemented.”

Chicago Union Leader personifies why Unions represent greed, lack of morals and ethics - Happy Labor Day !

Happy Labor Day Weekend.....Labor likes to tout the movement as " supporting the rights of the workers, etc. etc."....Reality is a far different outcome.

The enclosed story reminds me of " ANIMAL FARM " by George Orwell. The crux of the story is that the Animals kick the humans out because they want things to be fair for all animals....until some animals get greedy, and take more for themselves.

The key quote is when the other animals ask the Pigs why they get more of everything, and live in the farmer's house, the Pigs reply, " All Animals are equal, but some are more equal."

This is the PERFECT analogy for what goes on with Labor Leaders as they espouse they are there for the workers, but in reality, they are there only for their own greedy needs.

Exhibit #1 on Labor Day Weekend - Thomas Villanova, a union leader in Chicago.

His $108,000 city pension comes on top of the $198,000 annual salary he is paid to represent the interests of thousands of city workers.

Villanova last worked for the city in 1989 as an electrical mechanic with the Department of Streets and Sanitation, making about $40,000 a year. Yet in 2008 he was allowed to retire at age 56 with a $108,000 city pension. That's because, under a little-known state law, his pension was based not on his city paycheck but on his much higher union salary.

If this kind of outright THEFT and Chicanery doesn't make your blood boil, I am unsure what would. The Taxpayers in Rahm Emanuel's Chicago and the Union Workers are footing the bill for a greedy and obviously unethical shaking down of the taxpayer. Tax dollars feather his nest and I am sure Chicago needs every penny they have for the citizens, instead of giving this b@stard a champagne lifestyle because he exploits the rules.

THIS is the poster child for what the UNION movement has become. That is why UNION membership is down because people know that in the end, it will not help them, but only the few greedy pigs at the top.....who have no ethics or morals.


chicagotribune.com
Union leader draws lucrative pension perk based on false information
By Jason Grotto, Tribune reporter

10:09 PM CDT, September 1, 2011

Every month, Thomas Villanova gets a $9,000 reminder of how lucrative it can be to serve as a union leader in Chicago.

The sum is part of a city pension that comes on top of the $198,000 annual salary he is paid to represent the interests of thousands of city workers.

Villanova last worked for the city in 1989 as an electrical mechanic with the Department of Streets and Sanitation, making about $40,000 a year. Yet in 2008 he was allowed to retire at age 56 with a $108,000 city pension. That's because, under a little-known state law, his pension was based not on his city paycheck but on his much higher union salary.

This kind of deal is available only to union officials who meet certain requirements, but a Tribune/WGN-TV investigation has uncovered documents that show Villanova violated state law when he applied for the pension and cast doubt on whether he truly qualifies for all that money.

To boost his taxpayer-supported city pension, Villanova signed documents certifying that he had waived his union pension and had two union officials write letters supporting his claim. In fact, records show dues collected from the rank-and-file were still set aside for Villanova's union pension.

When city pension fund officials discovered last year that Villanova never gave up his union pension, they gave him a pass and didn't move to take away his city retirement benefits.

What's more, labor leaders can get an inflated city pension only if they are on a leave of absence from a city job to work full time for a union. But officials from the municipal pension fund approved Villanova's application despite city employment records that show he took a leave to go back to school and then let that leave of absence expire in 1992.

Now just 58, Villanova stands to collect approximately $3 million from the city's municipal pension fund during his lifetime, according to a Tribune/WGN-TV analysis based on the fund's actuarial assumptions. And because the state's pension laws are so broken, he didn't have to contribute enough to the city pension fund to cover the costs, which means taxpayers will make up the shortfall.

"It's egregious. I haven't seen this anywhere else in the country," said Keith Brainard, research director of the National Association of State Retirement Administrators, when he heard about Villanova's deal. "The spirit of a pension plan is insurance against poverty. It's not to become wealthy."

In order to receive an inflated city pension, state law says labor leaders can't be part of any pension plan from their union. Yet Villanova is one of four officials from Local 134 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers who received city pensions based on their union salaries even though they never gave up their union pensions.

Terrance Stefanski, executive director of the Municipal Employees' Annuity and Benefit Fund of Chicago, conceded that the union leaders violated state law by participating in both the city and union pension funds at the same time. But he said the law is confusing and the city pension fund isn't in a position to determine whether the labor leaders knowingly submitted false information, which would be a felony.

"We are not an investigative agency," he said.

Stefanski said the city still considered Villanova to be on a leave of absence, and therefore he qualified to receive the pension perk.

Villanova declined to be interviewed. Through attorney Patrick Deady, Villanova said he followed the city pension fund's directions and that he qualified for his city pension because he taught union apprenticeship classes while in school.

Now president of the Chicago and Cook County Building and Construction Trades Council, Villanova helped negotiate every current collective bargaining agreement between Chicago and the 33 trade unions that do business with the city.

With the Emanuel administration struggling to fill a $635 million budget hole, Villanova sits at the bargaining table and speaks on behalf of 8,000 city tradesmen who face layoffs, furlough days and reduced benefits, in no small part because of the city's rising pension costs.

Today, the municipal pension fund is racing toward insolvency, with barely half of the assets needed to cover its liabilities. That means city workers face threats not only to their current job security but also to their future retirement security.

The average city retiree receives a pension of about $28,000 a year, roughly a quarter of what Villanova is drawing from the same fund.

Meanwhile, about $200,000 in rank-and-file dues that were paid into a union pension fund for Villanova have yet to be returned to the union. Documents show that Villanova agreed in writing last year to "disclaim" the pension money — but left the door open to taking it back if the rules change.

Double-dipping

Villanova's six-figure city pension is far better than that offered by his former union, Local 134.

The local's pension plan would have provided Villanova with 45 percent of his average salary during his highest-paid five years of work. He couldn't retire until he turned 65, however, without forfeiting a significant chunk of his union pension.

Under rules governing the city pension plan, on the other hand, Villanova could retire from his old city job at 56 with 70 percent of his average union salary during the prior four years; that average turned out to be $158,000. What's more, he could keep his high-paying union position.

To get that deal, Villanova had to make $344,000 in contributions to the plan as if he had been a city employee all along. He also had to submit an application certifying that he met all the criteria for the city pension, including that he wasn't part of a union pension plan.

In November 2008, Villanova signed an application that included this line: "I also understand that I am allowed to make these contributions as long as I do not receive credit in any pension plan established by such local labor organization."

In addition to his signed application, Villanova submitted a letter from a trustee of Local 134's pension plan that said Villanova had waived his union pension.

"We are in receipt of a letter from Mr. Villanova requesting that his Local 134 pension credits cease immediately. The Local 134 Executive Board will act upon his request accordingly," Peter Cerf, the pension fund's executive board secretary, wrote in September 2007.

Frank O'Lone, secretary-treasurer of the trades council, also wrote a letter on Villanova's behalf, in October 2008. "Thomas Villanova will not receive any pension credits in the Building Trades Council Pension Plan for the period starting 3/5/2004 to present," the letter read.

Yet documents submitted by the union pension fund to the U.S. Department of Labor show that money set aside for Villanova remained in the fund.

When Villanova became president of the trades council in 2004, Local 134 amended its pension plan to allow certain employees of the council to be participants. The Tribune and WGN-TV were able to identify contributions the trades council made on Villanova's behalf because he was one of only two council employees who were part of Local 134's plan and the only one who had worked long enough to be vested.

Records submitted by the union pension plan show that, in all, about $200,000 in member dues from the trades council went toward a union pension for Villanova. He also received a decade's worth of contributions from Local 134 members before becoming president of the trades council. But it's impossible to know the total from publicly available documents.

Officials from Local 134 and the trades council declined to comment on Villanova's pensions.

The municipal pension fund discovered in September 2010 that Villanova was not complying with state law by participating in both funds. City pension officials could have pursued criminal charges against him if they thought he had knowingly made false statements on his pension application, which is a felony.

Municipal pension fund officials had Villanova sign an affidavit admitting that he was participating in both plans at the same time and promising to "disclaim" union contributions that overlap with his city pension. But the money is staying in the fund in case municipal pension fund requirements "are reversed pursuant to action of the (fund's) trustees or litigation by similarly situated participants."

That means Villanova wasn't required to return union members' money that went to his union pension, and eventually he still could get access to it.

'It does look bad'

Villanova's hefty municipal pension depended, in large part, on how he described his leave of absence from the city in his pension application.

"I was an employee with the City of Chicago or Board of Education," his signed application states, "and was granted a leave of absence to work as an employee of the labor organization named below." The organization he wrote in was Local 134.

Yet city records show that Villanova didn't take a leave of absence to work for Local 134. He took a leave to attend Moraine Valley Community College in Palos Hills. While there, he earned roughly $41,000 a year working for the college, state records show.

Under city work rules, employees can receive various types of leaves, including disability, maternity, military, personal and union. City workers must apply for a leave of absence and in many cases must renew those requests after a certain time period has elapsed.

Villanova applied for his leave of absence on Oct. 25, 1989, according to city employment records. In the section of the form marked "Reason for Request," he wrote: "Return to school for advanced courses."

He renewed his leave every three months, filing seven requests in all. On each, he wrote that he was taking a leave to go back to school. All of the forms he signed say that if he failed to report back to his city post within five days after his leave of absence expired, he would resign his position with the city.

Villanova's last leave of absence request expired on July 24, 1991. State records show that he continued working full time for the state community college until November 1992. The municipal pension fund's own records show that he didn't start at Local 134 until January 1993, a year and a half after he had effectively resigned his city job.

Yet when Villanova applied for a city pension in November 2008, the municipal pension fund approved an amount based on his union salary — even though he did not take a leave of absence to work for a union and had allowed the leave he did take to expire 17 years earlier.

The fund's board of trustees, composed of union leaders and city officials, signed off on Villanova's $108,000-a-year pension in February 2009, backdating the start of his benefits to November 2008.

"It does look bad," said city Treasurer Stephanie Neely, a trustee of the city pension fund. "But we on the pension board didn't do anything wrong. We did everything we could do, and that's all I can somewhat control."

As part of the justification for awarding him the higher city pension, the municipal pension fund provided the Tribune and WGN-TV with a 2008 letter written by then-Deputy Streets and Sanitation Commissioner Vanessa Quail on Villanova's behalf.

"Mr. Villanova's current status with the Department of Streets and Sanitation is that we regard him on a personal leave of absence," she wrote. "While we have not located any leave of absence papers of Mr. Villanova's subsequent to April of 1991, that is not inconsistent with his retaining his status."

The reason he was able to maintain his leave of absence: No one at the city department entered a code in its computer system showing that Villanova had given up his post. According to Stefanski, the technicality means Villanova qualifies for a city pension based on his union salary.

Thanks to his work at Moraine Valley, Villanova's city pension is one of two public pensions he is currently receiving.

Villanova gets another $12,000 a year from the State University Retirement System of Illinois, based on his work for the community college. Although he held that job for only three years, state law allows him to receive reciprocal pension benefits from SURS when he retired from the city.

That pension is also based on his union salary, not the $41,000 he made working for the community college.

In all, Villanova takes home about $120,000 a year from taxpayer-supported pension systems, an amount that will grow by 3 percent every year as long as he lives.

WGN-TV producer Marsha Bartel and reporter Mark Suppelsa contributed to this report, along with Tribune reporter Jodi S. Cohen.

jgrotto@tribune.com

Copyright © 2011, Chicago Tribune

VP Biden - "We have done everything we could to make labor as strong as possible.." - That shows you where he stands....with the Greedy Hacks.

The regular reader will gain an appreciation that I have issues with the present Administration and their political allies...The UNIONS. The above picture illustrates just the "tip of the iceberg" of reasons why I have issues with Mr. Biden.

Now Mr. Biden speaks at the Teamsters Convention in Las Vegas Friday. Just for clarification, Union membership is at an all time low of 12% of all workers nationally. That pretty much means he is supporting only 1/8th of all the workers in the USA with his support. The other 7/8ths? Not so much...

Let's review some selected quotes to see where he stands on issues -

"We have done everything we could to make labor as strong as possible," Biden said. - No kidding which means you've enabled the people who set in place highly restrictive work rules, costing cities and towns Millions of dollars more for work that could be done in a more cost-effective manner. You also support the ability of the Unions to try & hold others hostage for their personal gains.

"They're blaming you," Biden said. "Not Wall Street's unregulated subprime mortgages, not multitrillion-dollar deficits run up by the last administration." - While common sense would allow all to see that Wall Street was at fault for the recession's damaging effects, the $14.3 Trillion Dollar level of the National Deficit was reached under the OBAMA administration, supported by the Nancy Pelosi/Harry Reid run Congress. The National Debt was large during the Bush Administration but doubled in the last 2 years due to OBAMA/Biden


A Magellan Research poll in June showed Obama's approval rating was just 41 percent, compared to a disapproval rate of 53 percent. The poll also showed just 45 percent of voters age 18 to 34, key voters for Obama, approve of his job as president. - The American Voters are smart enough to see that for the last 2 1/2 years, we have been heading into worse economic straits and that the White House has no clue as to how to resolve it other than trying to print up more money....a failed effort.

I have no love for the GOP either as they have not shown an alternative presidential candidate to date who I believe can do better. This election cycle will not give power back to the Unions as they are seen as grabbing more money for their own members and continuing to keep the cost of living high for all. I feel the Unions served a purpose in their inception but that ideal and manner of assistance for the average worker went away when the Unions became famous for corruption, greed and thuggery.

Time will tell and as the 2012 Election cycle comes to bear, people will vote with their pockets, regardless of what the fools (plural) in the White House believe....A day of reckoning is coming for the Dems and it will not be pretty. They lost control of the House, and this time, it is likely to be the Senate and the White House too.


Biden praises unions, attacks GOP policies in Las Vegas speech
By Benjamin Spillman
LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL
Posted: Jul. 1, 2011

In a fiery, partisan speech Friday in Las Vegas, Vice President Joe Biden hailed labor unions as guardians of the shrinking middle class and assailed Republicans for fighting for tax breaks for big companies and the wealthy at the expense of regular Americans.

Biden's speech was the closing act for a national convention of thousands of members of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters union at Paris Las Vegas.

In addition to attacking Republican policies, Biden defended the administration of President Barack Obama, who is gearing up for his 2012 re-election campaign.

"We have done everything we could to make labor as strong as possible," Biden said. "We can't have a strong middle class with a declining labor movement."

Biden spoke for 33 minutes to an audience of more than 1,500 raucous Teamsters who interrupted his speech several times with applause.

"I just liked what he was saying about how the rich are trying to kill the rest of the world," said Rudy Gardner, 55, a Teamster from Washington, D.C., of the speech. "People are tired of what is going on."

Biden accused Republicans of using the recession as an excuse to erode worker rights.

"They're blaming you," Biden said. "Not Wall Street's unregulated subprime mortgages, not multitrillion-dollar deficits run up by the last administration."

The speech comes as Obama and his surrogates are traveling the country to shore up support for re-election, no small task given the state of the economy nationally and in Nevada, which Obama won by 12 points in 2010.

Several times Biden sought to contrast the wages and lifestyles of middle class Teamsters with wealthy Americans he said would benefit from tax breaks if Republicans got their way.

"(Republicans) really believe that a strong U.S. economy rests upon an ever increasing accumulation of wealth and power in the hands of a few enlightened guys they think are smarter than you are," Biden said. "You are the only thing that stands between the barbarians at the gate and them taking it all over."

Ryan Erwin, a Republican consultant working for GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney, said Nevada voters won't buy the working class hero message Obama and Biden are selling with their campaign.

Erwin said Obama and Biden will pay an electoral price for not delivering on campaign promises to revive the economy, especially in states like Nevada, which is suffering from the highest unemployment in the nation.

"This is nothing more than a distraction from reality," Erwin said of Biden's harsh rhetoric. "When you have nothing to run on that is positive, all you can do is pick apart things your opposition does."

Although Obama won Nevada handily in 2008, his support has weakened along with the economy.

A Magellan Research poll in June showed Obama's approval rating was just 41 percent, compared to a disapproval rate of 53 percent.

The poll also showed just 45 percent of voters age 18 to 34, key voters for Obama, approve of his job as president.

Even some at the speech Friday acknowledged re-election could be difficult for Obama and Biden.

"I want them to win but the mood in this country is so far right wing I am afraid they might not," said Mike McGaha, 57, a Teamster from Greensboro, N.C.

In addition to the Biden speech, Teamsters nominated three candidates to the ballot for international general president.

Incumbent James Hoffa won most votes.

Also nominated was Sandy Pope, who would be the first woman to hold the job, and Fred Gegare who accused Hoffa of being out of touch with workers on front-line jobs and for making too many concessions to big Teamster employers such as UPS.

Contact reporter Benjamin Spillman at bspillman@reviewjournal.com or

Taking Teachers off the " Sainthood " pedestal and holding them accountable for their work, just like any other professional.

Name the most powerful union in the state of Massachusetts ? The Teamsters ? NOPE....The Public Employees Unions ? Nope.... The Teachers ? YOU GOT IT.

In Massachusetts there is no more powerful Union than the Teachers. While I understand the value of education, the manner in which Teachers have been elevated to " Sainthood " and to be above review by taxpayers defies logic. We pay more per pupil for education in the State of Massachusetts and in return, we get "Meh" for results.

Governor Deval " Spend it all" Patrick and his pal the " Empty Suit ' in the White House want to throw more money at an issue that we have already inundated with cash to no real gain.

The main reason is that the Teachers Unions and the Administrators placed themselves above reproach. They have told us that being a teacher is a thankless task, they have to do soooo much with soooo little, all the while, in reality, we've been giving teachers, administrators and school systems more money than ever. Don't get me wrong, there are GOOD teachers but there are some really god-awful ones and there are more of the latter than the former.

Like any other system, without checks and balances, how can we tell what we are getting back from our educators?? Do Teachers work hard ? YES, they do. But so do many others, with just as much importance to society and without 2 weeks off at Christmas, a Winter break, a Spring break and 10 weeks off for the Summer. And let's not forget " Teacher conference days " that happen 10 times a year.

The problem is that we allowed the UNIONS to build up this idea of the " Teacher as Saint" and no one has been monitoring the work they do. When grades plummeted, we heard a litany of reason like bad parents, too much TV, etc. They used distraction to pull attention that for the last 20 years, we have not had the best educators assisting our children, and without regular reviews, they have been without proper guidance. Any worker who isn't reviewed by a boss on a regular basis will have lower performance. Teachers are no different.

At the same time, we've added a lot more " Administrators " to the public sector in school systems and they don't contribute anything but more drag to a slow moving system. You need more classroom strength and less fat-arses sitting in offices waiting for retirement.

In the BOSTON GLOBE today was this tripe:

"As state education leaders prepare to vote tomorrow on a sweeping overhaul of the way administrators and teachers are evaluated, local school officials say one key area remains a concern: finding time for overburdened principals to actually do the evaluations."

Well any manager in any other workplace will tell you that they have very little time to spend on evaluating staff BUT that is part of being a BOSS....to cry about it just because you now HAVE to do it in school systems is pretty shallow. Get over yourself School Administators, as all of us in management have been dealing with this same issue for YEARS.

So in the end, we wasted taxpayers money, placed Teachers on a pedestal (whether they were good, bad or indifferent) and allowed the Greedy Union types to game the system. All to the detriment of our country and the education of future generations.

Well as much as the recession has brought misery to far too many, it has also fiscally forced the hands of our school systems to start evaluating those who teach our children. I hope they use a better evaluation than the system they created to teach children with as if the system to evaluate is as bad as the rest of the administrative schlock they have used, we'll get more " Meh " out of an already faulty system of educating our Children.

Teacher Grades: Pass or Be Fired
By SAM DILLON - NY TIMES
Published: June 27, 2011

WASHINGTON — Emily Strzelecki, a first-year science teacher here, was about as eager for a classroom visit by one of the city’s roving teacher evaluators as she would be to get a tooth drilled. “It really stressed me out because, oh my gosh, I could lose my job,” Ms. Strzelecki said.

Her fears were not unfounded: 165 Washington teachers were fired last year based on a pioneering evaluation system that places significant emphasis on classroom observations; next month, 200 to 600 of the city’s 4,200 educators are expected to get similar bad news, in the nation’s highest rate of dismissal for poor performance.

The evaluation system, known as Impact, is disliked by many unionized teachers but has become a model for many educators. Spurred by President Obama and his $5 billion Race to the Top grant competition, some 20 states, including New York, and thousands of school districts are overhauling the way they grade teachers, and many have sent people to study Impact.

Its admirers say the system, a centerpiece of the tempestuous three-year tenure of Washington’s former schools chancellor, Michelle Rhee, has brought clear teaching standards to a district that lacked them and is setting a new standard by establishing dismissal as a consequence of ineffective teaching.

But some educators say it is better at sorting and firing teachers than at helping struggling ones; they note that the system does not consider socioeconomic factors in most cases and that last year 35 percent of the teachers in the city’s wealthiest area, Ward 3, were rated highly effective, compared with 5 percent in Ward 8, the poorest.

“Teachers have to be parents, priests, lawyers, clothes washers, babysitters and a bunch of other things” if they work with low-income children, said Nathan Saunders, president of the Washington Teachers Union. “Impact takes none of those roles into account, so it can penalize you just for teaching in a high-needs school.”

Jason Kamras, the architect of the system, said “it’s too early to answer” whether Impact makes it easier for teachers in well-off neighborhoods to do well, but pointed out that Washington’s compensation system offers bigger bonuses ($25,000 versus $12,500) and salary enhancements in high-poverty schools.

“We take very seriously the distribution of high-quality teachers across the system,” he said.

The evaluation system leans heavily on student test scores to judge about 500 math and reading teachers in grades four to eight. Ratings for the rest of the city’s 3,600 teachers are determined mostly by five classroom observations annually, three by their principal and two by so-called master educators, most recruited from outside Washington.

For classroom observations, nine criteria — “explain content clearly,” “maximize instructional time” and “check for student understanding,” for example — are used to rate the lesson as highly effective, effective, minimally effective or ineffective.

These five observations combine to form 75 percent of these teachers’ overall ratings; the rest is based on achievement data and the teachers’ commitment to their school communities. Ineffective teachers face dismissal. Minimally effective ones get a year to improve.

Impact costs the city $7 million a year, including pay for 41 master educators, who earn about $90,000 a year and conduct about 170 observations each. The program also asks more of principals. Carolyne Albert-Garvey, the principal of Maury Elementary School on Capitol Hill, has 22 teachers — she must conduct 66 observations, about one every three school days.

“I’ve really gotten to know my staff, and I’m giving teachers more specific feedback,” Ms. Albert-Garvey said. “It’s empowered me to have the difficult conversations, and that gives everyone the opportunity to improve.”

Several teachers, however, said they considered their ratings unfair.

A veteran teacher who said he did not want to criticize the school system openly, said that a month after he inherited a chaotic world history class from a long-term substitute, the visiting evaluator cut him no slack for taking on the assignment and penalized him because a student was texting during the lesson.

Another teacher who expects to lose her job next month because of low ratings said at a public hearing that evaluators picked apart her seventh-grade geography lessons, making criticisms she considered trivial. During the most recent observation, her evaluator subtracted points because she had failed to notice a girl eating during class, the teacher said.

“I’m 25 years in the system, and before, I always got outstanding ratings,” she said. “How can you go overnight from outstanding to minimally effective?”

A report issued by the Aspen Institute in March said one of Impact’s accomplishments was to align teacher performance with student performance, noting that previously 95 percent of Washington’s teachers were highly rated but fewer than half of its students were demonstrating proficiency on tests. Still, the report quoted teachers who complained of cold-eyed evaluators more interested in identifying losers than in developing winners.

“After my first conversation with my master educator, I felt it was going to be worthwhile — she offered me some good resources,” the report quoted one teacher. “My second master educator was kind of a robot, not generous in offering assistance, a much tougher grader.”

This month, Mary Gloster, who taught science in three states before she was recruited to Impact in 2009, was at Ballou High, one of the city’s lowest-performing schools, to share the results of some classroom visits.

She met with Mahmood Dorosti, a physics teacher who won a $5,000 award this spring. “Don’t even think about it — you’re highly effective,” she told him.

Next was Ms. Strzelecki, 23, who came to Ballou through Teach for America. The two sat at adjoining desks, with Ms. Strzelecki looking a bit like a doe in the headlights.

But Ms. Gloster, who had watched her teach a ninth-grade biology lesson the week before, offered compliments, along with suggestions about how Ms. Strzelecki might provide differentiated teaching for advanced and struggling students.

“You did a really good job, kiddo,” the evaluator ruled, grading her as effective, the equivalent of a B (the same rating she got on previous observations).

“What I liked about Mary was that I felt she was on my side,” Ms. Strzelecki said later. “Some teachers feel the master educators are out to get them.”

That is a common perception, said Mark Simon, an education analyst for the Economic Policy Institute, which receives teachers’ union financing. Ms. Rhee developed the system, he noted, during tough contract negotiations and did not consult with the teachers’ union in its design.

“That was a missed opportunity,” Mr. Simon said, “and it’s created a lot of resentment.”