The Education Wars: Union Worries in Nevada

In Nevada, as in almost every state regardless of whether it is a "right-to-work" state, the teachers' unions aren't worth crap, and paid officials think nothing of cutting little deals with human resources and other corrupt district entities such as taking cushy little jobs working for these administrators so as to not testify on behalf of terminated teachers, such as what happened to yours truly. That was to help defend an incompetent shitbag of a principal who didn't do one thing she was supposed to do by Nevada law with regard to my rights as a post-probationary ("tenured") teacher.

Cutting little deals like this is generally called bribery, but in the world of public education there is no such thing as bribery, fraud, or perjury. At least not for administrators.

No matter how worthless the unions are here, they are still worried, and they should be, since there is talk about teachers' already lousy pay being reduced further. Well, expect many more teachers to be targeted by WCSD's "human resources," a totally vile, corrupt entity, especially if they are over 50 and if they have been "disciplined," even if they were never put on a plan of assistance if their admonitions required it and required to be implemented by Nevada law.

Anyway, here is the story:

Reducing pay is like a special tax on teachers and state workers and not other businesses and workers, the head of a teachers union said today before the governor’s State of the State speech.




“It’s balancing the budget on backs of teachers, who are not adequately paid for what they put into eduction,” said Ken Buhrmann, Washoe County Education Association president, who taught for 43 years.


Buhrmann and other Nevadans anxiously await Gov. Jim Gibbons state of the-state address at 6 p.m. tonight to deal with a $800 million budget shortfall over the biennium and a shrinking economy. He’s expected to call the Legislature into special session in late February and tell lawmakers where to focus their attention.


If part of the answer is a shorter school year, Buhrmann said he questions how Nevada schools will meet federal progress standards and compete for the state’s estimated $175 million share of federal education stimulus dollars. Gibbons wants to change a state law prohibiting student tests to be used in teacher evaluations to get a chance of getting that money.