The Busman's Holiday: Oh, The Things You Can Count: My Ethics Board Request My fourth request was answered within two hours on Friday--not by the Ethics Board itself--but by City Solicitor George Specter.Why in the world is the city's top attorney (joke) doing the work of the Pittsburgh Ethics Hearing Board?
FreeAtLast2008.com - Ron Paul For President: "Please join us this January 21st as we honor Dr. Martin Luther King, by acting together to support Dr. Ron Paul, a new hero who fights for the same American principles of liberty and justice for all.
After we scheduled our Sunday, 2 pm at Blvd of the Allies Panera meeting, we learned that there is a board meeting on Sunday as well scheduled from 2-7 pm. We will still meet at Panera --it won't be a 5 hour meeting, so you can always go to the other one as well.
The meeting at the board is open to the public for viewing (not for speaking). Our understanding is that the administration will lay out in greater detail (at the board's request) their plans and overall goals for reforming the district. They will also provide the names of people on various task forces that have been formed. The format for the meeting is that the administration will present for 15 minutes, followed by 30 minutes of questions or discussions from board members.
If you have friends that feel that decisions being made now don't affect them because their kids don't go to Schenley or are in different programs, let them know that this meeting will begin to outline some of the changes coming for everyone else, as well. Now is the time to be informed if you want to have a say!
It's an incredibly long meeting (and I believe there are more to follow), but if you can go even just for an hour, please report back -- the more info we can get the better. Some of the administration's ideas are really exciting; getting support for them now seems like the best way to help the good ideas succeed (and to nip the bad ideas before money is spent on them).
Public Hearing at the board meeting is this MONDAY, JANUARY 14th, 7 PM Board of Ed building. Sign-up through noon, written testimony taken until 5 pm. If you hear anything you really liked or didn't like at the big meeting Sunday, talk about it on Monday -- or just thank the board for requesting more information about the coming changes.
Jen Lakin
The Busman's Holiday: Ethics Board, The Lost Letter Ethics Board, The Lost LetterGreat stuff. Give it a read.
PITTSBURGH PUBLIC SCHOOLS COMMUNICATIONS AND MARKETING 341 S. BELLEFIELD AVE. PGH., PA 15213
For Immediate Release Contacts: Lisa Fischetti (412) 622-3603
District Responds to Public Requests for More Disclosure on Contract Talks
Next Bargaining Session Set for Monday, January 14
PITTSBURGH, JANUARY 11, 2008 – In response to numerous public inquiries for disclosing more information about the status of teacher contract talks, Pittsburgh Public Schools is providing comment on the status of contract talks and facts around the key issues being discussed in negotiations with the Pittsburgh Federation of Teachers (PFT).
A day-long bargaining session between the School District and the PFT was conducted today through state mediators. The negotiations process began more than one year ago in accordance with bargaining law.
The next bargaining session is scheduled to take place on Monday, January 14. Superintendent Mark Roosevelt and the District's Board members will be available to attend bargaining sessions next week, as appropriate.
"We are doing all we can to not interrupt the school year and the process of improving academic achievement for our children," said Superintendent Mark Roosevelt. "We fully recognize that our teachers and staff are the key to student success and a better school system. It has been and continues to be our goal to reach a contract agreement as soon as possible. We are working very hard to balance the academic and financial challenges of our system throughout the bargaining process so that a strike can be averted," added Roosevelt.
"In my view, a teacher strike would damage the hard work that teachers, administrators and staff have already undertaken in our quest to advance public school education in Pittsburgh. This is a pivotal time for our school system and City as we must make decisions that will have long-term economic and social impacts for our region. The Pittsburgh Promise scholarship program, for example, is a tremendous step in the right direction. There's heightened accountability for performance by principals, who now are all on performance-based contracts. These are important examples of the many things we are doing to set the District on a course for success. We value our teachers and support their right to be fairly compensated. But as I have stated previously, we will not support a contract settlement that would require a tax increase," Roosevelt added.
The key issues or topics being discussed in these contract talks include: (note: these facts do not include any positions on current bargaining discussions)
1. Wages – From 2001 to 2006, there were three contracts reached with annualized wage increases that averaged approximately 3.7%, inclusive of 'step' wage increases. According to Public School Teacher Settlement Data provided by the Pennsylvania School Boards Association, average annual salary increases for teachers in the current 2007-08 school year is 3.73% (including step wages) at Pennsylvania school districts with approved contract settlements.
2. Post-retirement healthcare cost – The cost of retiree health care has increased by more than 100%, from $5.3 million in 2004 to a projected $11.8 million in 2007.
3. Length of work day - Teachers in the Pittsburgh Public Schools have one of the shortest work days among all school districts in Pennsylvania. The current work day is 7 hours and 6 minutes.
4. Severance – Severance pay for unused sick leave.
5. Term of contract - The previous three contract settlements were 2.5 years, 2 years and 2 years, respectively.
"We are doing everything we can to help resolve these issues remaining on the table," said Mark Roosevelt. "We're attempting to balance the interests of the District, its teachers, students, parents and taxpayers. I have heard from many parents who are concerned about the prospect of a strike and the safety of their children, particularly in single-parent families where the parent works during school hours," concluded Roosevelt.
Theresa Colaizzi, Chair of the Board's Negotiating Committee, stated, "We must remember the world is very different today compared to 30 years ago when there was a strike in Pittsburgh. Then, many people may have been inconvenienced. In today's world, families will literally be incapacitated if there is a walkout. We recognize the need to settle the contract with the common goal of balancing the community's interest and the District's financial and academic goals," added Colaizzi.
This information and perspective is being shared publicly today as a result of growing public interest in the status and issues surrounding on-going contract talks. For more information and updates about PFT Contract Talks, please visit the District's home page at www.pps.k12.pa.us.
eVote Blog: "Let the recounting begin"I run a number of blogs. This one is the main blog. But when it comes to the act of voting and more technical democratic process elements -- that goes to the eVote.blogspot.com.
Pittsburgh Ethics board member Zacharias resigns - PittsburghLIVE.comA member of Pittsburgh's Ethics Hearing Board resigned today, citing personal reasons.She wasn't even attending meetings. Good to have her resign.
The five-member board accepted the resignation of Penny E. Zacharias, 33, of the North Side. Zacharias is a lawyer in the Downtown branch of law firm Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney.
PNC, Maxwell King Coro honorees ... former Mayor Tom Murphy delivering the keynote address...Barf.
SGB unleashes panther statues - News After months of anticipation, outgoing Student Government Board president Shady Henien led a ceremony last night unveiling the 10 panther statues decorated by various student organizations.Will these scare away the rats? What about pigeons?
Hello Kathy and all,
I will not be able to attend the meeting this afternoon with Lopez due to another meeting commitment for my job that got scheduled yesterday. The good news is that meeting is about connecting racial justice issues such as Education and Employment discrimination to the Supreme Court advocacy work that I currently do in PA.
Below are a couple of questions I have that may or may not fit in today but thought I would share them with the group anyway just in case. I am also including background info I had sent to a smaller email lists that gives some background on why I am asking these questions and their relevance to our cause.
In light of the recent Supreme Court decision(more info below) that race could not be used as a factor in assigning students to school to achieve diversity, will the PPS consider using income status (free lunch) as a way to achieve diversity in our PPS?
Ability Tracking and selection into different academic programs? What role does it play in providing or not providing opportunities to all students?
What would happen if All students were tested to see if they were gifted but call it something else? Is this being done? If it is, what aren't there more students being placed and what is the connection between the Gifted Program, IB and AP?
What efforts have been made to ensure that the IS (International Studies / Frick Middle School) students who are now IB have been provided the necessary support in order for them to be successful? What will this look like in the future? Many of these IS students are African American which would help boost the number of students currently in the IB program and taking AP courses but what is the likelihood that these students will be able to achieve the college credits and pass the necessary test? What is being done to help these students be successful?
I will be at the Panera meeting on Sunday at 2pm and am speaker number 10 at the Public Hearing on Monday.
Here are a couple of links to good education articles and letters in the PG today.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08011/848438-298.stm
Principals in city return to instruction
http://www.post-gazette.com/forum/letters/
Postcards from the edge of a strike
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08011/848350-298.stm
Expulsions of preschoolers preventable, study finds
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08011/848422-298.stm
Magazine ranks Pennsylvania 10th for schools, with B- grade
All the best at the meeting this afternoon.
Celeste
Hotel, offices, condos planned for Pittsburgh auto dealer site - Examiner.com DOC-Economou representatives said they plan to secure an unspecified amount of public financing for the project.
Figure Skating Champion Bowman Dies In LA - Sports News Story - WTAE Pittsburgh: "In 1993, while skating with the Ice Capades, he was beaten at a hotel in a seedy neighborhood in Pittsburgh, according to a police report.
Born in Hollywood, Calif., on March 30, 1967, Bowman had a part in the TV series 'Little House on the Prairie' for one season and appeared in dozens of commercials.
Recently, Bowman had returned to acting. He had a role an assistant coach in the upcoming Brian J. De Palma-directed movie 'Down and Distance' staring Gary Busey."
Click to play. Hint: It is the triangle that points to the right, either in the middle of the screen or the one at the left of the slider / progress bar.
The American Entrepreneur - Newsletter Articles ALLEGHENY COUNTY'S NEW TAXES: THE REST OF THE STORYThis Saturday's show is going to have a segment devoted to this topic, the new Allegheny County drink tax. It caused quite the uproar among
A great deal has been written and said about the December enactment of two new taxes in Allegheny County. The case against levying the new drink and car rental taxes was exceptionally strong; the case for levying new taxes was pitifully weak.
Competing Campaign analysis:
Thompson – flameout… a total no-show.
Rudy - ditto. A very few signs and supporters. We essentially tied with Guiliani - and people are taking notice, and wondering why they haven't heard of this Dr. Paul guy (we heard this on the trip back).
Huckabee - a few sincere volunteers, and lots of media. Fairly weak showing (but dedicated) at polling, only Huck signs at my polling place, one guy for half the day, and a young family that (IMO very bravely with the 3-year old and 4-month old) stuck out the whole day. However, he is taking the social conservative/religious vote. Dr. Paul is a religious man, and he (IMO) rightly does not wear it on his sleeve, or pander to religious groups. But this is costing him votes. IMO a push for the religious vote is needed, so reach out to the church groups, go to putluck dinners, fireman's charities, borough town hall meetings, etc.
Romney has a well oiled machine. Guys with little coiled ear-pieces. Lots of supporter-volunteers. The media came and waited for him. I held a RP sign behind his head for the whole time. :) Follow Romney, and you get the media. Probably all paid/pro organized, only one volunteer showed up at the Anderson Cooper rally, and he would not get off his cell phone to hole up both ends of his wire-framed sign. At my polling place many volunteers showed up, but they almost all left after Mitt made his appearance.
Mccain - one or two volunteers at my polling station. Still gets media attention though.
Kuchinich – a few sincere volunteers, and these guys love us. The DK bus honked when it went past. Poor guy, I felt bad for him, they had signs outside of their HQ and nobody to hold them.
Edwards - had sign wavers, but a weak showing at the polling station. They only showed up a couple of hours from the closing, and only had like 5 people for the last hour, all volunteers possible getting off work.
Hillary - had a shuttlebus, and lots of signs wavers, possibly some pro. Definitely knew that they were on a schedule and had somewhere to be next.
Obama - lots of sign wavers - young volunteers as far as I could tell. Fair grassroots turnout.
Random Thoughts/Suggestions:
Canvassing problems: It’s winter, and dark by 5 nobody was home during daylight. We wasted whole days knocking on empty doors.
Ineffective model – insane computer-generated directions were impossible to follow, and we spent too much time per house. We should have just been given a few streets to hit every door, we had the manpower. So, I would jump out of the car and flyer 2-4 houses while my partner did the packet canvass.
Get a bullhorn to lead chants - people screamed themselves hoarse, and IMO affected turnout the next day.
Nametags/badges for field leaders would help direct the volunteers, help avoid another Hannity incident, and help identify good candidates for interviews to the media...we don't want a Truther or similar selected to represent us on camera. In addition, If anything strange happens(ie: getting violent during a rally), take pictures/video, and try to relate what happened to a staffer. I just saw 2 Youtube clips where the same guy appears as a local voter in Iowa and NH. If (and I haven't seen anybody yet) anyone is acting as a plant in our organization, a little evidence can go a long way.
Continue to let people organize themselves. This actually did happen, but I wanted to point out that allowing people that clicked to work together is most effective. So, for instance, continue to make it easy for people to change what house they stay in so they can get to work early with people they function well with. BUT: Provide more effective communication with the grassroots. Many people noted that they were not put to 100% effective use. Why no Organization Organizer? Roxy, Brinks, Norm and others were great (and they need assistants), but exactly whose job was it to communicate what was going on next? Again, a badge or two might be nice. Often people were milling around chatting while something important was being communicated. If everyone knew who would have the latest news they would pay more attention. The grassroots was still pretty effective at communicating considering everything, but something as simple as, say, bulletin boards at friendly pubs, flyers, or a blog could work wonders (for instance, I could not find a few rally locations in time)
Learn the election laws of every location (including items such as marching on city hall steps - we almost had an incident). Start with the state, but don't forget the municipalities...I was informed of a few rules that would not appear in the state lawbooks. For instance, I was told to wipe off the "Ron Paul 2008" that someone had drawn with white paint on my van's windows (the rationale being that campaigns cannot park a huge sign next to the polling place). I should stress as well, that the "moderator" of the election has ABSOLUTE control over the polling place. They may kick you out for ANY OR NO REASON AT ALL. You MUST abide by their decisions. If you encounter an issue, politely ask them if there is particular election code that they are citing, and is it possible to show you/get a copy of the cited election law so that we may straighten things out with HQ. But they also may just classify you as an "interference" and ask you to leave, so go. Also, ask to watch the votes get counted, preferably with a video camera.
Get a shuttle bus. Hillary had one, and it very effectively got people to where they needed to be. We had people stranded in other towns without rides unable to attend events.
Familiarize yourself with Paul's positions, *especially positions that you do not agree with*. Be prepared to make a pro-life argument. Be prepared to argue immigration positions. these are two deviations from the libertarian platform. It is possible to find some areas of agreement, and just stress those.
Dress as nicely as you can. We need to defringe-ify this movement or the media will turn it into a circus. People have quit jobs, moved, travelled from California, Hawaii, Florida, New York, Virginia, Texas, Montana, Spain, Panama, Poland, Estonia and sacrificed time with family and friends for this effort. Please shave and put on a tie.
I hope this helps those who will be picking up this effort in other areas. I also hope that we have worked through the growing pains and will field a team of seasoned campaigners.
Please feel free to forward this message on to other meetup organizers.
Great Quote from Brad Porter of FACT: The Battle for Freedom is one that can never be won, but can always be lost.
Mark -
I have just learned that PPS has a Board meeting on Sunday at 2 PM - that's right - Sunday. The purpose of the meeting is to discuss Excel 9-12. The meeting will be in the Board Committee room. I think they are planning for a long meeting that would go all afternoon and into the evening.
Its not on their website yet, but I confirmed this with Robin Wenger in the Board office. I know you are posting these things so I thought you would want to know about it.
Thanks,
Carey Harris
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