SDEA is Organizing to Build a
Foundation of Strength
By Camille Zombro, SDEA President and Marc Capitelli, SDEA Vice President

SDEA is organizing to build a foundation of strength: the strength to impact our important work with children, the strength to advance our profession, and the strength to protect public education from its many enemies.

The threats to our students, public education, our democracy and our union, are many, and they are exceptional! Only the strength and organization of the educators who make public education work every day for every child will
enable us to withstand these attacks.

The biggest issue facing us: the so-called "No Child Left Behind" iteration of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). Soon the testing curve becomes a mountain and the district, state and country will begin to
collectively freak out! Projections for California schools are that 98% will "fail". Our schools don't fail, NCLB fails our schools.

The ESEA is up for reauthorization this year (2007). Already, 50 schools in SDUSD are somewhere in the timeline for "Program Improvement," meaning that they have to dramatically restructure with no uniform process for planning and no guarantee of additional funding. In fact, 19 of our 23 middle schools, about 20% of our elementary schools and one third of our high schools are among these 50 schools. Our schools are not failures, NCLB fails our schools.

Let's not forget that the original intent of the ESEA was targeted not at schools or teachers, but at the root causes of poor student achievement:
poverty. NCLB is nothing short of a misguided attempt to draw attention away from poverty by blaming schools and diverting attention away from
the increasing economic polarization of American society. Throw into that the self-serving move to privatize education and spread the education
dollars to business and you have the perfect formula for the disaster NCLB has always been. This was not an "oops" on lawmakers. From day
one, NCLB was a calculated attempt to demolish public education. Our schools are not failures, NCLB fails our schools.

But the authors of this train-wreck aren't finished. New proposals and requirements are taking aim at our transfer rights and evaluation systems. The proposed "Highly Qualified Effective Teacher Requirement" would mean that teacher effectiveness would be connected with student test scores - guaranteeing, by definition, that 25% of all teachers are labeled as failures! Experience-balancing requirements in state and federal legislation are
attempting to blame SDEA's transfer article for the exodus of veteran teachers from high-poverty schools. Our schools are not failures, NCLB fails
our schools.

With each legislative cycle it seems that California looks more and more like a "right to work" state, diminishing our ability to effectively organize as a union. This is not by chance. Business is leading the charge to so weaken collective bargaining that that it can impose its will on workers.

California legislators already passed legislation enabling principals at API 1, 2 and 3 schools to reject teachers for positions, regardless of seniority or "priority consideration." The authors of that bill, SB1655 (under the advice of
Bersin and Schwarzenegger) intend to continue eroding transfer rights for teachers at all schools across the state.

Governor "Terminator" is renewing the attack on our pensions. Not only has he under-funded STRS in his proposed 2007 budget, he also wants to
reduce the maximum that educators can receive in service credit (by reducing the ceiling from 2.4% to 2.2% or less). This means that either we work longer or retire with less. The Governor also vowed to return to the ballot box with an initiative to privatize STRS and gut our defined benefit plans. "He'll be back," - will we be ready for him?

But that's not all... There are now four competing healthcare initiatives in the state legislature. Some could rescue us from the double-digit increases we've seen in recent years and provide all Californians with adequate
coverage and lowering the cost to organizations, like SDUSD, while maintaining its quality program. But others, including the Governor's
proposal, are so bad that even Wal-Mart offers better coverage to its employees!

At home in San Diego, we face chronic declining enrollment and the splintering of the district by 38 Charter schools. Next year over 10% of
students within SDUSD's boundaries will attend Charter schools. Our loss in Average Daily Attendance (ADA) over the last eight years is up to 13 %! At this time we have on the order of 230 teachers in excess status, trying to find jobs at new sites in the district. Meanwhile, the district is re-modeling costly new facilities for administration and considering new K-8 conversions (to the tune of $8 million for about 7 schools). It's a tight budget year, and as we look ahead to contract re-openers it will once again come down to priorities.

Are YOU a priority?

San Diego educators rank 35th of the 38 districts that are rated in the county. Add our health care to the equation, and we only bump up to 31st
on the list. The total loss in 20-year earnings for every SDEA member is about $80,000. That's like working for free for two years over a 20-year career or giving away $4,000 each year! I know we love our work, but we can't afford to do it for free. It shouldn't cost us to work in SDUSD!

We are at a crossroads. The choices are real and they are stark: Continue to do what we've done, getting the same results and expecting something
different (a definition of insanity), OR change our way of doing business to respond effectively to these threats and to move ahead.

We simply can't afford to continue to function as a "service-organization." With only a few people doing the work of SDEA, we will only continue to
get what we've gotten. There is a way to become more effective.

As we study unions that are effective and that have strong influence, we find that they are NOT the wealthiest, they aren't the ones with the best staff or the brightest members, and they aren't the ones with the best arguments. They are uniformly the ones who are organized to communicate quickly and effectively. They are made up of an active, informed and engaged
membership.

Employers respond to union proposals not based on the merits of those proposals, but on whether they believe the membership is active and
involved in the bargaining! Simply put, we can bargain with six or eight at the table or with 8,000+! You have all seen the Verizon cell phone ad with the happy customer talking on their cell phone backed up by a huge cadre of "network" workers keeping their service going. While in reality they are unseen, the visual is that they are there supporting you. Our reality, to be
successful, is the district realizing that you are there supporting those that work in your behalf.

So what do we mean by "organizing?"

Organizing is all about communication. It's about taking thoughtful actions that make us stronger and that unite us. This means that we don't take actions that divide membership or weaken our foundation. It does mean that we move together, taking meaningful steps of solidarity that enable us to affect the changes that are needed to protect our students, our profession
and our democracy.

During our membership meetings in March, we jump-started our organizing by asking participants to join a site organizing team made up of a Site Organizer and a number of Group Organizers (one per 5 to 10 members at each site). Hundreds of SDEA members across the city are taking responsibility for their destiny by heeding the call to action!

While our existing leadership structure of Association and Council Representatives remains intact, new leaders are emerging to take on the
work of organizing each site. This new team will take responsibility for face-to-face communication with ALL SDEA members at every site. Our plan does not stop with only communication. New leaders will be offered the
training to make them more effective and to strengthen our foundation. Help them with your support. Thank you to all our new leaders-and stay tuned as we start to move ahead in solidarity.

SDEA is changing! We are pouring a foundation of strength built with the power of our members. We are engaging all members in our work. We can
stop the lies about our schools. We can obtain the respect that our profession deserves. Wecan protect the foundation of Democracy, a free,
quality public education. We can continue to serve our students with love, devotion, and care. Our plan only works if we all pick-up the mantle
for our raison d'être! Democracy is messy. It takes a commitment to ideals and a willingness to exercise it to keep it strong. Now is the time for us to set the agenda. We have played on their field too long and it's time to bring it home and to play the game in "our house".

We are ready to build the foundation of strength in SDEA!