November 1, 2007

Socrates in Sodom

School board president should resign

by CHIP MOSHER

NOTES FROM a school board meeting:

The usual prayer opens the meeting: God, grant these board members wisdom. (Poor God! What a daunting task!)

What's this? At the bell, Trustee Shirley Barber comes out fighting. She makes a motion to pull an agenda item. No one seconds the motion. Barber gets body-slammed instantly. Gonna be an interesting night.

Two PTA members speak out against the upcoming bond issue. Promises made to them during the last bond issue weren't kept. Interesting. (Note: Get their phone numbers before they leave.)

Whew. That was strange. A disturbed woman grabbed and pulled one of the two women away from me as I was getting their phone numbers in the lobby. The strange woman told the women not to talk to me and shouted that I was an evil person who writes "about farm animals fucking!" Which isn't exactly true. Rather, I've occasionally written about people having sex with farm animals -- a perfect metaphor for the behavior of dysfunctional administrators. After the agitated woman shouted this, the two ladies turned to me, color drained from their faces. All I could think to say (jokingly) to them was: "Apparently I was writing about this (odd) woman's family history." (Note: Write column about seemingly neurasthenic woman. Find out her name.)

I wonder if the Red Sox are winning tonight's game.

Trustee Larry Mason asks how many held-back 16-year-old students go to middle schools with our 12- and 13-year-olds. A school district spokesman evasively says he doesn't have those statistics. The implication is: TOO MANY. Was it Maine where a school board voted to give birth control pills to 11-year-olds? (Note: Buy some stock in Trojan condoms before our board members find out the actual number of 16-year-olds attending Vegas middle schools with 12-year-olds.)

Here's Barber again, pissed. She's ranting at a school board lawyer. Barber alleges something about secret (illegal?) meetings. The female lawyer is rattled. What's this? Here comes Barber's arch-nemesis, School Board President Ruth Johnson, to the rescue. She accuses Barber of open-meeting violations. Johnson attacks Barber for attacking the lawyer. Barber threatens to give the attorney general the above allegations. These two go at each other like teenage gang members. The pitch rises. Johnson is losing control, like she did last December. She seems emotionally disturbed.

Is it a full moon tonight? (Yes!)

Whew. The hoopla has subsided. Public agenda time. Johnson calls out for those who've signed up to speak. No response. The public speakers must've departed. We're five hours into the meeting. Wait. Child advocate Rose Moore stands to speak. Johnson angrily tells her she cannot talk because she didn't sign up properly. (Is Johnson transferring her emotional disturbance from the Barber brouhaha onto this elderly woman?) Moore says she did sign up, and starts talking. Is that Johnson hollering at the sound technician to shut down the microphone? Moore asks for a board member to recognize her to speak. Barber recognizes her. Johnson swiftly calls a recess. The board members, though not Barber, quickly exit the room. Puzzled, Moore returns to her seat.

What's this? Police officers suddenly burst in. They tell Moore she must leave. People sitting nearby protest she's done no wrong. The officers seize Moore, dragging her against her will from her seat. She starts screaming, apparently in pain. Jesus, what's happening here? Her friend shouts that Moore has a bad heart. Moore is moved toward to the lobby. The friend shouts Moore needs nitroglycerin. (Remember the similarly manhandled woman who died at a Phoenix airport?)

During this fracas, the board members return. Johnson seems unaware of the gravity of what just transpired. She says they've decided to let Moore talk. Oops. After a 10-minute hiatus, a battered, wobbly Moore approaches the microphone. Before finishing, she turns to walk away. And collapses. Johnson is oblivious to this. I shout to her that she'd better call paramedics. A deer-in-the-headlights stupor grips Johnson's face. I repeat: Paramedics! Eventually Moore is carted away in an ambulance. One witness says a paramedic said Moore could be having a heart attack.

Ruth Johnson made several horrible decisions that could have cost this woman her life. In her position, Johnson has become a danger and menace to society. Therefore, she should resign from the board immediately.

I think God stayed home to watch the World Series tonight.

Chip Mosher is a simple classroom teacher.

Message to schools: Don't make principals give the bad news

By Emily Richmond

Las Vegas Sun
Sometimes it's hard not to blame the messenger. Particularly when the message is that a school schedule is being changed and the messenger is the school principal.

Erin Cranor, the mother of four Clark County School District students, has a novel suggestion that could do much to preserve a principal's relationship with the campus community: Find another messenger.

Cranor's remarks came last week at a meeting of the Superintendent's Year-Round Study Group.

The decision as to whether a school moves to a year-round schedule rests with the district's central office. So why, Cranor asked, are principals the ones forced to spread the word, especially since parents rarely celebrate the news?

When the announcement comes from the principal, it leaves some parents wondering if the switch isn't being done to boost school administrators' salaries, Cranor said. Principals at year-round schools are paid about 12 percent more than their colleagues at nine-month schools.

The principal's relationship with staff, students and parents sets the tone for everything that follows, said Cranor, a member of the district committee that makes recommendations on school boundaries.

The news should come from the region al office so the "principal is protected," Cranor said.

It would also help if parents and teachers were warned as early as possible. Cranor told the Sun on Thursday that at Tomiyasu Elementary School, where her two youngest children are students, families are already being warned that too many students could trigger a scheduling switch for the 2008-09 academic year.

"Families deal better when they know it's coming," Cranor said. "Don't try to sneak it up on them."

• • •
Can't make it to School Board meetings? Audio recordings, conveniently arranged into snippets for each agenda item, are now available online on the district's Web site. Although the online format isn't the easiest to access or particularly user-friendly for first-timers, it is an improvement over having to request your own copy of an audio or video recording.

To listen to the audio recordings of meetings since Sept. 20, go to the School District 's Web site (ccsd.net) and follow the links to the board meetings. Then click on "reference materials" for the meeting you wish to hear. After that, choose the agenda item from the left-hand column and click on the audio file icon.

Users of iTunes know the software automatically assigns a genre when audio files are downloaded - George Strait is country, Eric Clapton is rock, etc. One has to wonder if some Apple employee actually listened to a School Board meeting or if assigning the files to the "blues" category is just a lucky quirk. But few veterans of the Thursday night marathons would quibble with the choice.

• • •

Scam artists are attempting to capitalize on the ol' team spirit in neighborhoods surrounding Shadow Ridge High School.

For the record, the school's football team doesn't need new safety pads. And even if it did, players wouldn't go door to door asking for money to pay for the equipment, as some people are reportedly doing.

"It's ridiculous," said Bill Garis, athletic director for the Clark County School District. "Players have all the protective gear they need."

Garis catches wind of such scams three or four times a year, involving schools throughout the Las Vegas Valley. He occasionally gets calls from local businesses wondering whether a school is really selling ad space in a deluxe souvenir calendar with the season's line up . ( Usually it's not.)

District regulations discourage door-to-door soliciting by elementary school students. Most of the district's campus fundraisers ask students to sell items such as cookie dough or wrapping paper to their own families and immediate circle of friends. However, more enterprising youngsters are known to stake out entrances to grocery stores and knock on the doors of strangers' homes.

If you're unsure whether a fundraiser is on the up and up, Garis recommends contacting the school.

"We encourage everyone to ask, 'Is this legit ?' " Garis said. "That's the only way to shut these things down."

by Chip Mosher

Las Vegas City Life

October 11, 2007

THE TEACHER WAS ON THE PHONE asking a simple question. What happened to his arbitration hearing regarding the issue of a rogue administrator severely punishing him for doing the right thing? On the other end of the line, a Clark County Education Association (teachers' faux union) representative, Steven Horner, confessed confusion as to why, after nearly four years, the arbitration hadn't been held, since the average turnaround time to conduct such an independent hearing was 12 to 18 months. He said he'd find the problem and promised to call the teacher back with his case's status.

The teacher never heard back from Horner. Following multiple failed attempts to contact him again by phone and e-mail, the teacher finally gave up in a despair common to teachers who've had to rely on their faux union for such amateurish support in labor disputes.

Months later, the teacher ran into the evasive Horner at a picnic and, because they'd never met, introduced himself. The conversation went something like this:

"Yes, I know who you are," said Horner.

"Why didn't you call me back, as you promised to, about my arbitration that simply vanished into thin air?" asked the teacher.

"Because my boss told me not to contact you. I was just following orders," he answered.

"Like the Nazis?" the teacher said.

"Hey. Even you teachers have to bend over for your jobs on occasion, too," explained Horner.

"Only because teachers have been stuck with the Clark County Education Association to represent them against the school district," the teacher replied.

With that, Horner turned and walked away. How do I know this? Because I was the teacher.

That was last spring. This past week Horner's name popped up again at a local school. Recently, much to the amazement of many veteran teachers, their faux union is surprisingly showing up on campuses, trying to improve its decade-long image as an absentee, ineffective union. Sadly, though, this is not to fix its chronic incompetence, but rather the union is suddenly erecting a false front of concern for teachers -- in order to counter Teamsters Local Union 14, which also is vying for the right to represent the valley's teachers.

As part of the faux union's propaganda push, Horner was scheduled to appear at a school where, for teachers, he was a no-show. Exhausted teachers waited for him long after the school day ended. They had questions. Serious questions. Yet he didn't arrive. In his defense, Horner has said he came to the school's cafeteria, but didn't know exactly where to go for the meeting. After going to the main office, he apparently didn't possess the mental acuity to phone or page his female contact at the school, about where the meeting was. It was in her room, where the tired teachers were waiting, seemingly for Godot. Or, for a union to finally represent their interests.

And Horner's explanation?

"I did arrive at 2:05 and tried to check in no one [sic] was at the front desk however [sic] the AP [assistant principal's] secretary gave me directions, [sic] I will gladly reschedule at your convenience" [sic], Horner wrote to an unhappy teacher.

Note the shaky grammar.

Last year another teacher, being brutally terminated by the district, had been represented by Horner. Although she'd had many years of excellent evaluations in the L.A. Unified School District, this was her probationary year teaching in Clark County. Here, according to her, she'd been railroaded by a mean-spirited, vindictive principal -- a common occurrence in the district. Her contention was supported by several colleagues.

"I have called numerous times and I have not received any response to my inquiries regarding my termination. I am requesting a phone call from my union representative," she e-mailed Horner.

Days later, Horner e-mailed back: "As i told at our last meeting once the letter of non-renewal is issued then I turn over the documents to the lawyers. They will handle the the issues"

Again, note the grammar. This, from a man who represents teachers against district lawyers in disciplinary hearings.

The unlucky teacher, now gone from the district, responded to Horner: "That's the point. There have been no additional meetings, nor have you responded to my phone calls since the notice of my non-renewal."

Unfortunately, the elusive Steven Horner typifies the representation too many teachers get from their faux union, the Clark County Education Association. Sad to say.

Chip Mosher is a simple classroom teacher and faux union member.

by Chip Mosher

Las Vegas City Life

October 4, 2007

DEAR READER, I wanted to avoid the banality of school district issues this week by writing about the passing of French mime Marcel Marceau, and dead Buddhist monks on the streets of Myanmar. By writing about the death of such beautiful silence and, again, about the death of such beautiful silence. But not to be. C'est la vie.

Instead, I made the mistake of viewing local journalist Jon Ralston's gripping TV show Face To Face, which this past week featured leaders of two unions vying to represent teachers' interests in Las Vegas. Mary Ella Holloway, president of the Clark County Education Association -- teachers' current faux union -- verbally squared off against teacher Ron Taylor, a spokesperson for Teamsters Local Union 14.

The program started out predictably enough, each participant rhetorically jabbing and parrying politely, with both scoring minor points. Until halfway through the all-too-short 15-minute debate -- when Holloway, attempting to forensically sucker-punch Taylor, blurted out a doozy.

"We have access to his files," said Holloway, sounding and looking like J. Edgar Hoover in drag, while trying to discredit Taylor, a former member of her union.

Preceding and provoking this incendiary comment, the pit-bull-like host Ralston quoted, from an old news report, the executive director of the teachers' faux union, John Jasonek, who'd disparagingly said that Taylor had worked at five different local schools. But Taylor, a sought-after computer expert, responded -- honestly, it seemed -- that it was really six schools, in 15 years, where he was recruited by principals for his expertise.

On a video news clip, the faux union's Executive Director Jasonek, to trash Taylor, said: "Instead of being some righteous effort to make change from within, his [Taylor's] goal was to land a job with the Teamsters."

It's an odd statement from the top man at the teachers' faux union. Why? Because, according to inside sources, Jasonek led an effort last year to successfully oust Ron Taylor from this union, due to Taylor's efforts to create change inside the union -- the one which provides the bread and butter of Jasonek's documented personal financial affluence.

Following this insightful news clip, the debate took a turn toward the heart of the matter facing local teachers. This was the dialogue:

Ralston: You're just trying to hurt his (Taylor's) credibility, aren't you?

Holloway: We have access to his files -- but we can't talk about it.

Taylor: You have access to my files? You have access to my personnel files?

Holloway: No, no, no. The ones that are-- I-- I-- when CCEA--

Ralston: You see why he's so upset, if you have access to his personnel files? And it's said the school district is in bed with you--

Holloway: Please. Please. Please, Jon. It's not the personnel files. It's the files we have at CCEA when we do business with our-- with our people.

Ralston: That would have nothing to do with whether he's recruited by the principal of one of these schools or not.

Holloway: I think it would tell why he's changed schools so many times.

Whoops. After admitting she had access to Taylor's files and that she "can't talk about it," Holloway actually spoke about Taylor's files. "I think it would tell why he's changed schools so many times," she unethically said to Ralston. Thus, in her floundering, she ignored her own words and, even worse, Taylor's right to privacy.

On top of that, Holloway's weak implication that there was something nefarious about Taylor because of his "files" does little more than make a veteran teacher laugh. To many of those who have been around the school district a while, it is believed that many devious principals have often tried to keep good teachers in their schools by poisoning those teachers' personnel folders with outright lies. It's a pattern of Clark County School District ruthlessness against which the faux union's leadership, Holloway and Jasonek specifically, has consistently failed to protect teachers. Together, Holloway and Jasonek have bungled guarding the salaries and rights of Las Vegas teachers for most of a decade.

And during that time, 5,000 new teachers have disappeared from the district every five years. With the quietude of mimes. Or the silence of dead monks. Each with his own horror story to tell about those in charge, who, apparently, have had access to their files. C'est la vie.

Chip Mosher is a simple classroom teacher and faux union member.

Las Vegas Review-Journal

EDITORIAL: In the classroom

Compulsory attendance; administrators as teachers

The Clark County School Board last week moved to put in place a couple of changes approved by the Legislature earlier this year -- one that makes eminent sense, and one that doesn't.
First, the good news.

The board voted unanimously to implement a modest proposal to require that administrators actually spend some time in the classroom.

Under the plan, school district bureaucrats -- including Superintendent Walt Rulffes -- will teach or observe in a classroom for at least a half-day each school year.

No, a half-day isn't much, but it's a start toward recognizing complaints from teachers that administrators are out of touch with the day-to-day realities of the district's operations. And if administrators try to slide on this mandate -- for instance, by showing a video instead of actually trying to engage students -- let's hope teachers blow the whistle.

Predictably, Steve Augspurger of the Clark County Association of School Administrators union -- Question for another day: Why do bosses need a union? -- was whining about the requirement.

"If anybody should be observing classrooms, it should be the legislators who passed this law," he said. "We can't find enough qualified teachers. We can't find enough substitutes. So you exacerbate the problem by having administrators teach who may not have taught in a long time."

Forcing district desk jockeys to spend three hours a year in an actual classroom will cause problems? Boo hoo. Sell it to the rank and file.

Mr. Rulffes said he'd do his part, entering a classroom to teach algebra or maybe geometry. Perhaps he can concoct a formula to explain the relationship between school spending and student achievement.

Now, the bad news.

In approving the "administrators in the classroom" plan, the board also OK'd a provision raising the compulsory attendance age to 18 from 17. That means a student who hasn't yet completed his senior year in high school couldn't voluntarily leave until he turned 18.

Now, this isn't as bad as the plan floated earlier this year by the National Education Association to force kids to stay in school until the age of 21 -- really -- but it's certainly moving in that direction.

What exactly is the point? To lower the dropout rate? To encourage more students to attend college? Is there any evidence this will work? None that anybody offered to the board on Thursday evening.

And why do we want to clog up classrooms with 17-year-olds who obviously have no desire to be on campus? Is this good for the students who are truly trying to learn? How?
In fact, such students can cause disruptions that sidetrack teachers and distract other students.

Kids are already held in captivity by the public school system for 11 years. If the district hasn't succeeded by then in equipping a student with the basics he needs to survive in the real world, what good is another year going to do?

If this proposal is about easing the dropout rate or some other policy goal, it's doomed to failure. If it's a way for the district to secure funding by keeping more butts in the seats, it's shameful.

It has been reported that Teamsters representatives were handing out organizational/campaigning materials at one of our New Teacher Orientations. It is inappropriate for any labor organization to engage in campaigning activities on District property during District time, the representatives were directed to immediately case and desist. CCEA has since asked for confirmation that the District will prohibit such conduct now and in the future, and that confirmation has been given. Please make sure everyone with supervisory responsibility over personnel and/or District facilities knows that the District cannot and will not allow any labor organization campaigning activities on District property during District time.

CLARK COUNTY SCHOOL DISTRICT

LEGAL OFFICE

INTRA-OFFICE COMMUNICATION

August 30, 2007

To: Executive Cabinet

From: Bill Hoffman

Subject: Collective Bargaining Campaign Activities
__________________________________
I am informed that the incumbent bargaining agent which represents District licensed personnel is being challenged by at least one other bargaining agent to become the recognized bargaining agent. It appears that campaign activities are occurring in some school sites. Please distribute the following memo, which discusses campaign activities, to appropriate administrators:

1. Pursuant to Article 2-1 of the existing collectively bargained agreement (CBA) between the District and the Clark County Education Association, the Association is the exclusive representative of all licensed personnel employed by the District. The District may not condone or approve of practices which would undermine CCEA’s exclusive rights of representation.

2. Article 7 of the CBA grants to the CCEA specific contractual rights regarding the use of School District facilities which are not available to other persons, entities, businesses or non-recognized labor organizations.

The District has the right to restrict the use of its facilities in a manner consistent with the CBA and the District’s Policies and Regulations.

a. School Mailboxes, Interschool Mail Service, and Faculty Bulletin Boards. The Association shall have the use of school mailboxes and the inter-school mail service for the distribution of non-defamatory and non-campaign related material initiated by the Association. The Association shall have the use of faculty bulletin boards for posting of non-defamatory materials and non-campaign related materials.

Copies of all materials shall be given to the building principal. The material will be clearly identified and the

Association accepts the liability for such material.

District teachers shall be permitted use of School District mail services for district-related business, but not for campaign related materials. School facsimile machines and copiers may only be used for district-related business, but not for campaign related materials. School mailboxes, mail services, and faculty bulletin boards may not be used for campaign purposes.

b. InterAct. The Association, the Teachers’ Health Trust, and the CCEA Community Foundation shall have the use of the District’s electronic bulletin board/messaging system through InterAct for posting of non-defamatory and noncampaign related materials. In addition, there shall be a link through InterAct to the Association’s website. This link may not be used for purposes of soliciting membership.

Messages, materials and announcements posted on InterAct must be approved in advance by the Associate Superintendent, Human Resources Division, or her designee. InterAct may not be used for campaign purposes.

c. Facilities. The Association shall be allowed the use of school buildings and premises for association meetings and activities on regular school days as long as arrangements have been made with the principal of the building. Such activities shall not conflict with any regular or special educational activities and shall not involve additional or extra custodial services and/or other unusual expenses to the School District. Use of the buildings on other than school days requires the approval of the Superintendent in addition to the school principal. Any added expense resulting from the Association use shall be paid by the Association. Individual teachers will not be prohibited from the responsible use of the school facilities.

3. Access by non-employee representatives for purposes of campaigning. As a general proposition, the District may refuse to allow non-employee representatives from nonrecognized union organizations to have access to District property, provided there is an adequate opportunity for organizers to contact employees without entering District “Non-working time” means break times and duty-free lunch 1 periods as well as those periods of time before work and after work.

“Non working areas” means areas where employees are not 2 performing duties associated with their employment, for example, the teachers’ lounge and school parking lots.

Help with test may lead to suspensions

Teachers would get five days for reading questions to students

By Emily Richmond

Las Vegas Sun

Apparently believing their students were being set up to fail, two Clark County special education teachers refused to follow testing regulations and instead read aloud the questions on a statewide reading exam.

The state education department has recommended the teachers each be suspended for five days, even though Keith Rheault, Nevada's superintendent of public instruction, originally wanted them suspended for 30 days.

The incident took place March 22 at Doris French Elementary School during a standardized test used to measure student progress, as required by the federal No Child Left Behind Act. Schools that score poorly face progressively harsher penalties.

The suspensions must be approved by the State Board of Education, which oversees teacher licensing issues. Darrin Purana, assistant director of employee-management relations for the Clark County School District, said he could not discuss the specifics of the incident at French. However, his office conducts its own investigation when this type of situation arise s , and teachers can face penalties at the district level as well, Purana said.

Rheault said he supported the scaled-back sanctions after taking a closer look at the circumstances. He said it's possible the teachers were trying to spare the students from what was perceived as an unreasonable demand for performance, rather than attempting to inflate test scores.

Although the U.S. Education Department has expanded the list of how students with special needs can be accommodated in testing, teachers say the questions are still beyond the grasp of many of their pupils. Students not fluent in English also struggle with the tests.

In cases similar to what happened at French, teachers' actions, although misguided, are often an "act of caring," said Sue Daellenbach, testing director for the Clark County School District.
"Taking these tests can be a stressful thing for students, particularly those who are severely disabled," Daellenbach said. "Teachers are by nature caring people, and it's a tough thing to have to watch your kids struggle. But even if you think you're helping your student, you still have to follow the law."

At French, "the teachers admitted they were aware it is not permissible to read a reading test aloud, but believed they were acting in the best interest of the students," according to a state report summarizing the incident.

In addition to the suspensions, the state recommended a letter of admonition be placed in each teacher's personnel file.

The names of the teachers involved were not released by the district. Three other Nevada teachers were charged with improperly helping students with tests during the 2006-07 school year. Two teachers received 30-day suspensions, and the remaining case is to be heard next week.

Teacher Magazine
August 2, 2007

Principal Pulls Rank, Teacher Quits

According to a New York Times article, Austin Lampros, a New York City math teacher, resigned from his teaching post at the High School of Arts and Technology in Manhattan this year after the school’s principal altered a student’s grade so she could graduate. Lampros told the Times that, although the student rarely attended class, failed to turn in homework assignments, and even missed the final exam, a school administrator gave her special treatment and a passing grade.

When a representative from the teachers’ union complained, Lampros was permitted to fail the student. Using an override privilege granted by her contract, the principal reversed that student’s grade again.

The article suggests that Lampros is one of many teachers in New York City who feels pressured by administrators to pass marginal students in order to boost declining graduation rates. “It’s almost as if you stick to your morals and your ethics, you’ll end up without a job,” he said.

Las Vegas

The Clark County School District has reduced its teacher shortage by more than half by recruiting in Midwest cities that have laid off teachers or that have an abundance of unemployed teachers.

The school system was short 545 teachers as of Thursday, down from the 1,100 teacher shortage just a month ago. The district's greatest shortages are for secondary math and special-education instructors.

Byron Green, director of recruitment for the district, said recruiters are snatching teachers from Detroit, Cleveland, Chicago and Buffalo, N.Y.

Detroit and Cleveland have recently had teachers layoffs, Green said. But the other Midwest cities offered Clark County "a surplus of teachers that want to find a teaching job," Green said.
From June 1 until the weekend of July 20, recruiters with the district will have traveled to Chicago and Buffalo twice, and had three visits in both Detroit and Cleveland, he said.

Green said the district has been recruiting six days a week during the summer. He hopes the teacher shortage can be reduced substantially by the time classes resume on Aug. 27.

The district began the 2006-07 school year short 344 teachers and had between 400 and 450 vacancies during the school year. The vacancies were filled by substitute teachers.

A Theory X manager makes the following general assumptions:

• Work is inherently distasteful to most people, who will attempt to avoid work whenever possible.

• Most people are not ambitious, have little desire for responsibility, and prefer to be directed.

• Most people have little capacity for creativity in solving organizational problems.

• Motivation occurs only at the physiological and security levels of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

• Most people are self-centered. As a result, they must be closely controlled and often coerced to achieve organizational objectives

• Most people resist change.

• Most people are gullible and not particularly intelligent.

Essentially, Theory X assumes that the primary source of most employee motivation is money, with security as a strong second.

Hard Approach | Soft Approach
Under Theory X, management approaches to motivation can range from a hard approach to a soft approach.

The hard approach to motivation relies on coercion, implicit threats, close supervision, and tight controls -- essentially an environment of command and control. The soft appoach is to be permissive and seek harmony with the hope that in return employees will cooperate when asked to do so. However, neither of these extremes is optimal. The hard approach results in hostility, purposely low-output, and hard-line union demands. The soft approach results in increasing desire for greater reward in exchange for diminishing work output.

It would appear that the optimal approach to human resource management would be lie somewhere between these extremes. However, McGregor asserts that neither approach is appropriate since the fundamental assumptions of Theory X are incorrect.

The Problem with Theory X
Drawing on Maslow's Needs Hierarchy, McGregor argues that a need, once satisfied, no longer motivates. Under Motivation Theory X, the firm relies on money and benefits to satisfy employees' lower needs, and once those needs are satisfied the source of motivation is lost. Theory X management styles, in fact, hinder the satisfaction of higher-level needs.

Consequently, the only way that employees can attempt to satisfy their higher level needs in their work is by seeking more compensation, so it is quite predictable that they will focus on monetary rewards. While money may not be the most effective way to self-fulfillment, in a Theory X environment it may be the only way. Under Theory X, people use work to satisfy their lower needs, and seek to satisfy their higher needs in their leisure time. Unfortunately, employees can be most productive when their work goals and higher level needs are in alignment.

McGregor makes the point that a command and control environment is not effective because it relies on lower needs as levers of motivation, but in modern society those needs already are satisfied and thus no longer motivate. In this situation, one would expect employees to dislike their work, avoid responsibility, have no interest in organizational goals, resist change, etc., thus creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. From this reasoning, McGregor proposed an alternative: Theory Y.

Motivational Theory Y
The higher-level needs of esteem and self-actualization are continuing needs in that they are never completely satisfied. As such, it is these higher-level needs through which employees can best be motivated.

In strong contrast to Theory X, a Theory Y manager makes the following general assumptions:

• Work can be as natural as play if the conditions are favorable.

• People will be self-directed and creative to meet their work and organizational objectives if they are committed to them.

• People will be committed to their quality and productivity objectives if rewards are in place that address higher needs such as self-fulfillment.

• The capacity for creativity spreads throughout organizations.

• Most people can handle responsibility because creativity and ingenuity are common in the population.

• Under these conditions, people will seek responsibility.

Under these assumptions, there is an opportunity to align personal goals with organizational goals by using the employee's own need for fulfillment as the motivator. McGregor stressed that Theory Y management does not imply a soft approach.

McGregor recognized that some people may not have reached the level of maturity assumed by Theory Y and therefore may need tighter controls that can be relaxed as the employee develops.

Applying Theory Y Management - Business Implications
If Theory Y holds true, an organization can use these principles of scientific management to improve employee motivation:

• Decentralization and Delegation - If firms decentralize control and reduce the number of levels of management, managers will have more subordinates and consequently will be forced to delegate some responsibility and decision making to them.

• Job Enlargement - Broadening the scope of an employee's job adds variety and opportunities to satisfy ego needs.

• Participative Management - Consulting employees in the decision making process taps their creative capacity and provides them with some control over their work environment.

• Performance Appraisals - Having the employee set objectives and participate in the process of evaluating how well they were met.

If properly implemented, such an environment would result in a high level of motivation as employees work to satisfy their higher level personal needs through their jobs.

However, by far the more important issue is who caused AB459’s untimely death and forced its withdrawal. My knowledge and research of many events, experience and observance during the past two years make me believe that this killing of AB459 was committed by the CCEA at the insistence of the Clark County School District. The basis of this belief/position is the following.

1. For months, Mr. Segerblom has told me we needed just one Senate Republican vote to get this bill through the Senate as he would be able to get all the Democrats. It was my responsibility as a Republican to get at least the one Republican vote. I worked hard on this from November to May 16, and it appeared at the end we may have had the one Republican vote--better yet, it was on the Senate Education Committee. The degree of difficulty with the Republicans was not their unwillingness to help teachers but justified animosity toward the teachers’ union.

2. On May 9 at the Senate hearing, Mr. Segerblom reaffirmed we were definitely “very close” to winning if we could get the one Republican vote.

3. On May 9 at the hearing, it appeared the CCSD was quite concerned at losing the Senate vote as they put on a full-scale “dog and pony show” urging the Bill’s defeat with numerous witnesses from several educational organizations, CCSD’s lead counsel, a representative of the administrators’ union, and CCSD’s chief lobbyist. School Board members were present in Carson City and in the Las Vegas audience, and there was at least one major CCSD employee at the hearing. They had both rooms stacked and at the hearing one Republican on the committee made statements that had to cause concern to the CCSD. AT THIS HEARING NEITHER THE CCEA NOR THE NSEA SPOKE IN FAVOR OF THE BILL NOR ADVOCATED FOR IT IN ANY WAY.

4. Within days thereafter (May 12), I received good information that at least one Democrat on the Committee was going to vote against the Bill. That Senator is the one who owes her election entirely to the teachers’ union and teachers money as the union contributed approximately $350,000 of teachers’ dues money to get her elected even though she was at the time employed by the CCSD. Wouldn’t you think that the union could get her vote if they wanted to?

5. In my May 16 pointed conversation with Mr. Segerblom, he emotionally informed me that every Democrat on the committee (Weiner, Horsford, and Woodhouse) were going to vote against the bill guaranteeing its defeat. Some of his other comments about the union and other matters were enough to tell me the union had let him down and put him in a position that he had to walk away from the Bill and not force a vote in the Committee. I ask you and the world who else but the teachers’ union has such power over an Assembly Education Committee Chairperson and an Assemblyman Bill sponsor who has guided the bill to a 42-0 vote in the Assembly to force the killing of this Bill by withdrawal.

6. It is clearly evident that the beneficiaries of this effort by the teachers’ union is the Clark County School District and the three Democrat Senators on the Committee who were saved from having to vote. I do not believe that the four Republican members of the committee were at all hesitant to vote.

7. Most condemning of the teachers’ union is that we know that in important prior acts it has favored the CCSD over its dues paying teacher members.

Conclusion--I am more convinced than ever that the teachers of the Clark County School District have no friends in the education system in Clark County. Even the Nevada PTA with enthusiasm spoke against the bill at the recent hearing though two of its past presidents (Parnell and Smith) and its incoming President (Mo Dennis) as members of the Assembly voted for the Bill. In my well-considered opinion CCSD teachers should now consider four possible actions. These are:

a) Seek and obtain employment elsewhere. b) If you stay teaching in Clark County, seek out union representation other than the CCEA/NSEA as it is foolish to keep spending over $600 per year to have that money used to work against you. In this process be very careful that all your union needs and coverages are secure and safe before making such a change. As a disclaimer, I do not recommend, support, nor am I affiliated with any union of any type. c) Turn your frustration into “action energy” and support with participation all efforts to bring relief to Clark County teachers, and d) If for no better reason than humanity, get the word to teachers that are considering coming to the CCSD to be aware of the teacher abuse problems and issues in the CCSD.

Sincerely,
Charles E. Thompson

Published in Print: May 2, 2007
Leaders’ Blogs Offer Candid Views on Life In Schools

Principals, district chiefs are venturing into the world of online postings.
By Jeff Archer

Kimberly Moritz, the principal at Gowanda High School in western New York state, had never heard the word “blog” until she learned to set one up at an education conference last July. But when her third posting to her online journal drew 18 comments, she was hooked.

Since then, she’s posted entries two or three times a week, provoking online debates on student cellphone bans, teaching The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, teacher recruitment, and cheating. Comments come from students, teachers, and administrators, near and far.

“It’s very helpful for me professionally, to be able to organize my thoughts on a subject, to write about them, and then hear from my readers,” said Ms. Moritz, 43, whose blog, G-Town Talks, regularly gets hundreds of visitors a day.

Ms. Moritz is part of what, by many accounts, is still just a small community. While the total number of blogs has been pegged at more than 70 million, some experienced education bloggers estimate that the number of school leaders getting in on the act is in the hundreds.

That’s likely to grow, though, as early adopters spread the gospel of blogging. The American Association of School Administrators and the National Association of Elementary School Principals recently held their first sessions on blogging at their annual conventions.

The few principals and superintendents who do blog see great value in the tool. The ease of posting new items on the Web makes for a nimble form of communication. And by allowing public comments, the medium builds relationships—within school communities and among them, they say.

Open Dialogue
To be sure, blogs have pitfalls. They demand frequent updating to bring visitors back again and again. They represent a more open form of dialogue than administrators are used to. Some administrators, in fact, have shut down public commenting when things got out of hand.

Administrators Who Blog …
From Feb. 16, 2007:
“The Worthless Lesson Plan…
I say that we should start a revolution and quit making teachers fill out lesson plans for us but instead prepare for great classroom instruction. … "
Blog: Dr. Jan’s Blog;
Jan Borelli, Principal, Westwood Elementary School, Oklahoma City, Okla.

From March 27, 2007:
“Potential New Hires …
I’m more convinced than ever that teaching requires risk takers, people with passion about something outside of the classroom, like their hockey team, the band they’ve been playing in for years, or fish. … "
Blog: G-Town Talks;
Kimberly Moritz, Principal, Gowanda High School, Gowanda, N.Y.

From Feb. 6, 2007:
“Parent Conference From Across the Globe
… I put him on speaker phone and he participated in the parent conference from Iraq. It was mind-boggling that this father could take the time out from his stressful job in the middle of a war zone to talk with us about how his child was doing in math and reading. … "
Blog: Mr. P’s Blog;
Steve Poling, Principal, DeGrazia Elementary School, Tucson, Ariz.

From Feb. 26, 2007:
“So What Would You Tell the Congressman?
… Someone at the federal decision-making level needs to spend some time IN the classrooms of today and see if this level of ‘accountability’ is worth it. … "
Blog: The Wawascene;
Mark Stock, Superintendent, Wawasee Community Schools, Syracuse, Ind.
SOURCE: Education Week

But Scott McLeod, a Minneapolis-based educational technology expert, said the benefits outweigh the risks. Since last fall, he’s been helping principals set up blogs for free, and in February he started a blog written by administrators called LeaderTalk.

“People are talking about your organizations anyway,” Mr. McLeod said. “Would you rather they talk behind your back, and you don’t know about it? Or, would you rather it be in a way that you can respond to, and have other community members see it?”

Blogs, short for “Web logs,” emerged in the 1990s when new software made it much easier to publish on the Web. That meant individuals could then quickly post their thoughts, and their online readers could just as quickly react to them by posting their own comments.

In the field of education, the first to make the greatest use of blogs were writers, teachers, and technology experts, said James Farmer, the founder of Edublogs, a 2-year-old nonprofit service that hosts about 70,000 education-related blogs. “There are probably only a few hundred school administrators [with blogs], but it’s only a matter of time before it explodes, like it has in every other part of the edublog community,” said Mr. Farmer, who is based in Melbourne, Australia.

Among those principals and superintendents who do blog, the motives vary. Some blog to connect with other administrators facing similar challenges; others see their writing mostly as a way to communicate with their local constituencies.

In January, Mark Stock, the superintendent of the 3,400-student Wawasee community school district in Indiana, used his blog to send out word that students sent to a hospital after a bus accident were not seriously hurt. But he also posts alerts about education policy.

“My opinion comes through, but I’m not over the top with it,” said Mr. Stock, who sometimes conducts informal polls on such topics as the No Child Left Behind Act on his blog, called The Wawascene.

“I let the people on the comments take the sides,” he said. Principals who blog often do so for professional development. For instance, Steve Poling, the principal at DeGrazia Elementary School in Tucson, Ariz., has posted about how he landed his job, his first as a school leader, on his blog, Mr. P Talks.

Meanwhile, a veteran principal, Jan Borelli of Westwood Elementary School in Oklahoma City, offers lessons from more experience on Dr. Jan's Blog. Among her tips: Don’t think of teachers as friends, and don’t try to change anything your first year as principal.

“I’ve been a principal for a lot of years, and I always thought, ‘Man, if someone had just told me that,’ ” said Ms. Borelli. “People now e-mail me and say, ‘What would you do in this situation?’ and ‘Thank you for what you said.’ ”

To blog takes time, though. Blogs that aren’t refreshed at least a couple of times a week quickly lose their audience, experts on the phenomenon say. Many of the best-read blogs also are written in a personal style that many administrators may not be comfortable with.

Many administrators who blog have been instructed by their school boards or lawyers to add disclaimers saying that the views they express are their own, not their districts’. Many post rules for making comments, such as banning profanity.

Turning Ugly
Still, comments can turn ugly, particularly because they can be made essentially anonymously. Mr. Stock briefly pulled the plug on his blog when comments were made that included personal attacks following the departure of a popular high school football coach.
Clayton Wilcox, the superintendent of the 148,000-student Pinellas County, Fla., school district, retired a blog he’d run for more than a year last spring after a number of episodes in which comments became mean-spirited.

Overall, he said, blogging was a positive experience, providing him with useful input and letting him share his decisionmaking process with constituents. But, he added: “I was hearing from enough people that it was an embarrassment, and when I went back and looked at it, it was.”

In one such case, some racist remarks were made in comments on his blog after news that police had handcuffed a 5-year-old African-American girl at a Pinellas County elementary school—a video of which was made public. The comments were quickly removed.

The St. Petersburg Times, which conceived of the idea for the blog and hosted it on the online version of the newspaper, later relaunched it with a new format with multiple hosts, including Mr. Wilcox. But it has been largely inactive in recent months.

“I understand totally why administrators shy away from doing it,” said Will Richardson, a Flemington, N.J.-based education consultant and the author of a book on using Web tools, including blogs, in the classroom. “It’s risky, or at least it’s perceived as risky.”

But he and others argue that any potential downside needn’t scare administrators off. Not only can inappropriate comments be removed, but administrators also needn’t turn on the comment feature at all if they want to use their blogs just to let others in on their own thinking.

Ms. Moritz, the Gowanda High School principal, agrees that blogging, on balance, is good for administrators, and believes that the more open she is, the better. On whether to teach students Huckleberry Finn, she wrote, “They HATE it.” On recruiting teachers, she wrote, “Those who only want to play it safe … apply elsewhere.”

One of the thorniest issues dealt with on her blog involved a student at her school who had found answers to old state exam questions on the Web and used them to ace a school test that had the same items. She titled her posting on the case “Cheating or initiative?”

The posting drew 29 comments, mostly from students. Some said the student involved—who wasn’t named—should be punished. Some criticized how the exam was given. Ms. Moritz replied that the student hadn’t cheated, and pledged new procedures for test administration.

“It was somewhat difficult to manage, and sort of consumed us for a couple of days,” said the principal. “But I think if I hadn’t had the blog, the students would have gone the rest of the year getting angry about it. I’d rather deal with it than have it go on.”

Coverage of leadership is supported in part by a grant from The Wallace Foundation, at www.wallacefoundation.org.

By Kathleen Parker
The Washington Post Writers Group

CHARLESTON, S.C. -- In a new twist in American race relations, a federal court has ruled that a white teacher in a predominantly African-American school was subjected to a racially hostile workplace.
The case concerned Elizabeth Kandrac, who was routinely verbally abused by black students at Brentwood Middle School in North Charleston. Their slurs make shock jock Don Imus look like a church deacon.
Nevertheless, despite frequent complaints, school officials did nothing to intervene on Kandrac's behalf, arguing that the racially charged profanity was simply part of the students' culture. If Kandrac couldn't handle cursing, school officials told her, she was in the wrong school.

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