{"id":73529,"date":"2020-03-10T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-03-10T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=73529"},"modified":"2020-03-10T08:08:16","modified_gmt":"2020-03-10T13:08:16","slug":"73529","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=73529","title":{"rendered":"Behold The Racket"},"content":{"rendered":"

As this is written, I’m not sure if teachers in \ufffcthe Saint Paul Public schools are going to be going out on strike today. It seemed very likely.<\/p>\n

One things for certain: the teachers unions PR people have been earning their money. Minnesota Public Radio’s coverage of the strike in particular sounds as if it is written directly from teachers union talking points.\ufffc<\/p>\n

Seriously. You be the judge<\/a>:<\/p>\n

St. Paul educators lead the nation in a strategy of using their contract negotiations as a lever to not just get better pay for themselves, but to make their schools a better place for their communities, said Lesley Lavery, an associate professor at Macalester College who studies education.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

“Teachers are continuing their strategy of bargaining for the common good which they started about a decade rago,\u201d Lavery said. \u201cThey’re trying to listen to community members and listen to teachers’ concerns on the theory that teachers are working most closely with students.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Raise? Hell, you’re almost wanna give them a medal, don’t you?<\/p>\n

Seriously \u2013 the entire time of MPR is coverage smacks of one pseudo-governmental fiefdom scratching another pseudo-governmental fiefdoms back.\ufffc<\/p>\n

The center of the American experiment has some facts about the SPPS<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\ufffc\ufffcOn the surface, these salary increases may seem reasonable, but a deeper dive into the numbers provides more clarity around the union\u2019s demands. Pay increases are built into the salary schedule for the first 20-or-so years of a teacher\u2019s career. The 3.4 percent and 2 percent increases would be on top of the salary increase formula already included in the existing union contract, commonly called the \u201cstep and lane\u201d progression. Despite participating in countless media interviews leading up to the strike, the teachers\u2019 union has neglected to mention these built-in increases that already exist.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Unexpectedly.\ufffc\ufffc<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As this is written, I’m not sure if teachers in \ufffcthe Saint Paul Public schools are going to be going out on strike today. It seemed very likely. One things for certain: the teachers unions PR people have been earning their money. Minnesota Public Radio’s coverage of the strike in particular sounds as if it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-73529","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education","category-st-paul"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73529","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=73529"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73529\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":73531,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73529\/revisions\/73531"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=73529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=73529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=73529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}