Teacher support for Common Core at ‘critical juncture’

Teacher support for Common Core at ‘critical juncture’

Political Pro, Stefanie Simon, Feb. 20, 2014

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2014/02/common-core-teacher-support-103737.html#ixzz2uDjNFUwi

The share of teachers with reservations about Common Core has increased. | AP Photo

By STEPHANIE SIMON | 2/20/14 3:15 PM EST

The rollout of the Common Core academic standards is at a “critical juncture,” as teachers are increasingly skeptical of the initiative — and could turn against it in large numbers, scuttling its chances of success, the president of the nation’s largest teachers union said Thursday.

Dennis Van Roekel, president of the National Education Association, told POLITICO that he intended to sound a very loud alarm bell when he wrote an open letter this week warning that implementation of the Common Core has been “completely botched.”

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2014/02/common-core-teacher-support-103737.html#ixzz2uDjc94A0

The union has been polling its members and conducting focus groups all winter. Early results indicate that enthusiasm for the academic standards has slipped since a poll of NEA members last year found that 26 percent endorsed the Common Core wholeheartedly, 50 percent backed it with reservations and 13 percent didn’t know enough to form an opinion.

(Also on POLITICO: The school standards rebellion)

Overall support “hasn’t diminished that much,” but the share of teachers who have reservations about the standards has notably increased, Van Roekel said.

What’s more, teachers are deeply frustrated. Asked how this school year has gone so far, large numbers say it’s been worse than previous years. Much of that distress, Van Roekel said, is because implementation of the new standards — which aim to change the way math and language arts are taught at every grade level — has been “completely botched” in most states and school districts.

“We could lose” the teachers’ support altogether, Van Roekel said. “We haven’t yet. But we need to do a course correction or we’ll lose them.”

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Losing teacher endorsements would be a serious blow for supporters of the Common Core standards, which were written by state organizations and nonprofit groups and have been heavily promoted by President Barack Obama.

Common Core promoters might be able to win on the policy front, keeping the standards in place in most of the 45 states that have adopted them, even without teacher union support, said Jeffrey Henig, a professor of education and political science at Columbia University’s Teachers College.

“But if they’re sincerely envisioning this as a redirection of American education, they need to have teachers working with them, not hiding under their desks or protesting in front of the school,” Henig said.

Indeed, supporters of the Common Core have long said they’re counting on teachers to promote the standards to parents and help quell a growing opposition movement on both the left and the right.

(Also on POLITICO: New fund for undocumented students)

Van Roekel said he still believes his teachers can serve as effective ambassadors for the Common Core — but only if they see changes in their classrooms, and quickly. Their No. 1 plea: More time and more resources to help them make the transition.

“You don’t bull-through-the-china-shop your way through this,” Van Roekel said. “No. You take the time to do it right.”

Supporters of Common Core said they’re eager to work with teachers and are confident most educators are still on board, despite a recent rebellion in New York and Van Roekel’s urgent warning, sent Wednesday to the NEA’s 3 million members.

“All the polling I’ve seen is teachers supporting the standards,” said Chris Minnich, executive director of the Council of Chief State School Officers, which helped write the academic guidelines.

Proponents of Common Core also dismiss public anger — including moves to scrap the standards in Wisconsin, Indiana, Michigan and elsewhere — as insignificant and blown out of proportion.

(Also on POLITICO: NEA slams 'botched' Common Core)

“Just as a small minority of the public opposes Common Core, a small minority of teachers do, too,” said Michael Petrilli, executive vice president of the Fordham Institute, which supports the standards.

Until recently, that was probably true, Henig said.

Most teachers had high hopes, he said, that the Common Core would help them move away from a narrow curriculum dominated by prepping kids for multiple-choice standardized tests. They loved the standards’ emphasis on problem solving, critical thinking, analysis and discussion.

Yet the Obama administration has pushed a tight timetable that meant many states rolled out Common Core at the same time as they introduced tough new teacher evaluation systems and pioneered new exams. Teachers overwhelmed by the changes — and frustrated at a rollout schedule that gave them little time to write new lessons or find curricular resources — came to see the Common Core as a disruption, and a menacing one at that, Henig said.

“That’s turned into the beginning of a pretty substantial backlash among many teachers,” he said.

To get teachers to rally behind the Common Core, Van Roekel said, states need to bring educators in to review and possibly revise the standards; come up with the resources to buy new curricular material; and give teachers time to collaborate on strategies for integrating the standards in the classroom. He also called for a two-year moratorium on making high-stakes decisions, such as teacher job performance ratings, based on student scores on the new Common Core exams.

“We have to make a course correction to be sure we do this right,” Van Roekel said, “so we don’t lose the most positive thing we’ve done in education in America.”

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2014/02/common-core-teacher-support-103737.html#ixzz2uDjgBq8i

[Common Core ELA was not by educators from any level; Common Core Math was from college professors, not from any K-12 educators. The impetus came from some CCSSO, NGA and Acheive Inc., the latter of which has changed into Acheive the Core. Notice how until a few months ago Acheive websites referred to no physical address for the organization, and afforded no way to contact them.]

De Blasio Needs to Revisit the No Snow Day Policy to Avoid Future Cases of Lost or Injured Students

So sad, the teacher in the picture and the music video has an empty classroom. Her students? They're in the street, tossing snowballs.
But seriously, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and Schools Chancellor Carmen Farina must get square with the public on the apparent virtually no snow day school closures policy.
De Blasio and Farina's refusal to call a snow day on February 13 generated widespread frustration for parents and the teachers union, the United Federation of Teachers. Attendance was very low, the lowest this academic year, officially at 44.65 percent.
As WNYC's SchoolBook reported on February 13 after the close of the school day, before 2014 attendance had only dropped below 66 percent four times since 2007. In the one and half months of 2014 attendance has dropped below 66 percent three times, on January 22, February 5 and February 13.

One might suspect that this virtually no closures policy is a de facto constitutional policy in New York City, spanning across mayoral administrations, whether liberal (e.g., Koch or Dinkins) or aggressively neo-liberal (e.g., Bloomberg), as there have been only 11 snow days since 1978. Given the safety issues and the parental uproar, we must open a frank discussion as to why this is happening, as our supposedly most left-wing mayor in decades is toeing the same line as every other mayor. As bloggers noticed in the last record low attendance no snow day fiasco, January 22, every other big city school system from Philadelphia to Boston shut their school system.

So Farina said that schools must be open otherwise students will not get hot meals. Now, I'm all for wrap around service, but her argument seems a little specious on closer consideration. How did the logical slipperiness of this statement elude media commentators, for no one noted that her argument falls apart when one considers that the schools do not serve meals on the weekends or during holidays or vacations (other than during the summer meals programs).
Furthermore, very suggestive was Farina's comment Thursday, aside from the claim that the schools are open to serve hot meals, but her comment that Macy's is open, saying that therefore the schools should be open as well (all the while, governor Cuomo declared a state of emergency for New York City and the surrounding region). The new in vogue term in the DOE and in Common Core is "inferential thinking." Some inferences that can be drawn are that, if Macy's is open, Macy's workers are needed, and that there must be no impediment to store staffing.
Below: Alekandr Trubetskoy's map of how many inches of snow are necessary for given school systems to cancel school.

(The NYC counties should be accurately depicted with the dark blue used for upper Wisconsin. Aren't there many students in the green or light blue regions that are missing school-provided hot meals also?)

The media commentators, speaking to enable city policy, have justified the policy with the reasoning that if the subways are working, then all of the children can get to school.
There are a number of problems with this thinking. The subway-focused perspective is a Manhattan-centric perspective ignores the outer boroughs where there are more elevated and surface rapid transit trains, exposed to snow and ice. Moreover, it ignores the fact that there can be streets and side-streets yet to be cleared.

Grounds for caution in the Avonte Oquendo and no zoned school eras
Make no mistake, the greatest tragedy on the Michael Bloomberg era, as noted last month, was the tight-fisted policy against proper staffing, the regime intimidating staff from reporting crises in a timely manner and co-location of multiple schools in a single building that converged to put a special-needs student at risk of flight.
De Blasio and Farina's no snow day school closures policy places students at similar risk. First, with snow amounts, and strong winds there is the risk that a student can get lost in a snow drift or knocked down by wind or snow plow.
Moreover, as some blog readers have noted, the elimination of the zoned neighborhood middle or comprehensive high school that had been the norm just a few years ago when Farina was last in the school system has meant a revolution change in how students get to school. (Yes, there are some new schools that have special academic or trade majors but by and large the new "academies" have "missions" that students do not choose and merely have a trimmed-down bare bones Regents-oriented programs devoid of specialized electives tailored to students' interests.)  For, whereas students in the past could walk to their neighborhood school, now, excepting those few lucky students still attending schools in their neighborhood such as in eastern Queens or Staten Island, students now pack into buses or subways for one to two hour commutes to reach their schools, making much of these trips alone. It is at these schools packed with commuting students that we would find the abysmal attendance rates of 40% or less that figure in the informal school attendance survey at right on this page, lest the mayor and chancellor expect students to wait for delayed (or packed when they arrive) buses or subway trains. Aside from snow issues, is it really a safe policy to insist that parents expect that their child travels to school on their own over the transit system. With the new "school choice" [sic] policies some students as young as those in the lower elementary grades must travel to schools as solitary commuters.

De Blasio and Farina, if you are putting the staffing prerogative of Macy's and other employers before the welfare of thousands of schoolchildren, you had better get your priorities straight. You can kowtow to the city's business elite and quivver before the demogogic media (think of the drubbing News Corp.'s New York Post gave de Blasio) only so much. The voters might not so easily forget these missteps the time the next election comes.

Massachusetts Teachers Aim To Knock Down Student Shaming "Data Walls"

From Truth-out.org:
By Sarah Jaffe, in In These Times, February 14, 2014
Massachusetts Teachers Aim To Knock Down "Data Walls" 

Last year, K-12 teachers in the Holyoke, Massachusetts school district were told to try a new tactic to improve test scores: posting “data walls” in their classrooms. The walls list students by name and rank them by their scores on standardized tests. This, they say administrators told them, would motivate children to try harder on those tests.

Teachers did so, many unwillingly. Agustin Morales, an English teacher at Maurice A. Donahue Elementary School in Holyoke felt pressure to comply, but finds the data walls cruel. One of his top students did poorly on a standardized test in November and found her name at the bottom of the data wall. Afterward, in a writing assignment for class, she “wrote about how sad she was, how depressed she was because she'd scored negatively on it. She felt stupid.”

“So why do I hate data walls?” he continued. “Because of how she felt that day. She felt worthless. She felt like she wasn't as good as other people.”

Teachers are mobilizing: as part of their activism work, the Educators for a Democratic Union, a caucus in the Massachusetts Teachers Association, is working against the data walls and other corporate-backed "reforms."

 And parents are mobilizing with teachers: For example, in Holyoke they decried them as "public humiliation of children."


Read the rest of Jaffe's article at Truth-out.org: http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/21861-massachusetts-teachers-aim-to-knock-down-data-walls 

The Daily Caller yesterday dubbed a person promoting the data walls, used with students in elementary, middle and high school grades, as "psychopathologically cruel," while others in the DC's story refer to these walls as demoralizing and shaming.

Don't Forget the New Victims of NYPD Violence in the Occupy Wall Street Protests

A very good new site, Activist Post, has an article on a woman recently sexually assaulted by the NYPD, yet who the NYPD is charging with felony assault.

New York City's new mayor, Bill de Blasio, needs to demonstrate a change and stop the New York Police Department's persecution of political dissenters and gratuitous sexual assault. He is to be applauded for changing the police department's policy regarding stop and frisk. He must extend that spirit toward reforming how the police department interacts with protestors.

Appeal to New York City public advocate Letitia James on her behalf, one Centre Street, 15h Floor, New York, NY, 10007 (212) 669-7200

Woman Faces 7 Years in Prison After Altercation With NYPD At Occupy Protest

Drop the charges against Cecily McMillan. McMillan was sexually assaulted, beaten unconscious and into seizures by NY Police, but the city is charging her with felony assault over the incident.

Cecily McMillan, image source

Kevin Zeese
Activist Post

Occupy participant Cecily McMillan is being prosecuted for felony police assault and may face up to 7 years in prison. In reality, it is the NYPD that should be on trial for their assault on McMillan. The trial has already been delayed because of the credibility of the arresting officer; however, New York City should review the case and drop all charges against McMillan.
On the Sixth anniversary of Occupy Wall Street Cecily McMillan arrived at midnight to Zuccotti Park to meet some friends and go out to celebrate her birthday. Instead, she would find herself unconscious, in seizures and badly bruised.

McMillan was not in Zuccotti to protest, but she arrived as the police began to violently break up the crowd. She felt someone grab her right breast she involuntarily swung her elbow around and hit the offender in the face. It turned out to be an undercover police officer, Grantley Bovell. She was violently arrested, knocked to the ground, unconscious and began suffering seizures while she was handcuffed. It would be 15 to 20 minutes before an ambulance arrived. Photos of McMillan show bruises from fingers that grabbed her breast, a swollen eye and other bruises.

Officer Bovell has some serious problems in his history as a police officer including alleged police abuse. As PolicyMic reports:

Officer Bovell has been accused of brutality before. He was named in a lawsuit in the Bronx Supreme Court, filed by Reginald Wakefield, a young black man who was 17 at the time, that alleges the police maliciously used an unmarked police car as a weapon to knock him off his dirt bike in the course of a pursuit. In court filings, Wakefield said his nose was broken, two teeth were knocked out and his forehead lacerated following the encounter with Bovell and other officers on March 21, 2010. The suit is still active, according to court records.

And, now it has come out that he has some serious credibility problems, as a result if he testifies his credibility will be put in doubt. The District Attorney has provided McMillan’s defense attorney, Martin Stolar, documents that show Bovell was part of 500 officers tied to the infamous 2011 Bronx ticket-fixing scandal. Stolar told PolicyMic: “He was involved and internally disciplined.”

If this case goes to trial the NYPD should be put on trial by the defense and the full embarrassment of its response to Occupy Wall Street exposed. The NYU School of Law and Fordham Law School, issued a detailed report that found that the NYPD consistently wielded excessive, aggressive force with batons, pepper spray, scooters and horses. In addition there were mass arrests that were often arbitrary, gratuitous and illegal, with most charges later dismissed. NYPD has been sued by occupy protesters resulting in settlements of $50,000, $82,000 with more still pending. NYPD abuse of protesters is a long-term problem as the 2004 protests against the RNC shows. In that case the largest settlement for police abuse in history was announced last month -- $18 million. Videos show how the NYPD randomly picked people out of crowds during the occupy protests even if they were doing nothing illegal or were even involved in the protest.

And, it seems that there was a consistent practice of New York police officers grabbing women’s breasts. As anthropologist David Graeber wrote:

Arbitrary violence is nothing new. The apparently systematic use of sexual assault against women protestors is new. I’m not aware of any reports of police intentionally grabbing women’s breasts before March 17, but on March 17 there were numerous reported cases, and in later nightly evictions from Union Square, the practice became so systematic that at least one woman told me her breasts were grabbed by five different police officers on a single night (in one case, while another one was blowing kisses.) The tactic appeared so abruptly, is so obviously a violation of any sort of police protocol or standard of legality, that it is hard to imagine it is anything but an intentional policy.

But, put all of that history of NYPD violence against citizens and sexual assaults against women aside and just look at the McMillan case. Martin Stolar points out in a video that in order for there to be a crime there must be criminal intent. McMillan did not intend to assault a police officer. Her breast was grabbed from behind by an undercover officer, she reacted involuntarily by swinging around and hitting him with her elbow. An involuntarily reaction is not intent to assault someone. If there was any intent to assault someone it came from Officer Bovell, not from Cecily McMillan.

The New York District Attorney would be wise to drop all charges against McMillan before the trial begins on March 3. With the disclosures about Bovell’s past alleged police abuse and involvement in the ticket fixing scandal, their key witness is no longer credible. The history of police violence and sexual assault against woman adds to the credibility of the allegations of McMillan against Bovell and they are supported by photographs and videos. And, finally, the facts in this case do not support a criminal prosecution as there was no criminal intent.

It is time for the criminal charges against Cecily McMillan to be dropped. The NYPD has done enough damage, the District Attorney should not be adding to these injustices.

Kevin Zeese serves as Attorney General in the Justice Branch of the Green Shadow Cabinet

For more on this case see:

Justice for Cecily, the support group working for justice in the Cecily McMillan case.

Bizarre Prosecution Of Cecily McMillan For Police Assault Delayed, Popular Resistance by Kevin Zeese, February, 14, 2014.

This Occupy Activist Could Go to Prison for Standing Up to the Cop Who Grabbed Her Breast, PolicyMic by Peter Rugh, February 13, 2014.

Cecily McMillan's Occupy trial is a huge test of U.S. civil liberties. Will they survive?, The Guardian by Chase Madar, February 13, 2014.

Occupy Protester Who Suffered Seizure During Arrest Stands Accused Of Felony, The Gothamist by Christopher Robbins, February 10, 2014.

Activist Allegedly Beaten Into Unconsciousness By Police Faces 7 Years In Prison For Elbowing Cop, Think Progress by Aviva Shen, February 10, 2014.

Can Cuomo Do Common Core Homework? New York: Parents Launch CCSS Math Homework At Governor – @NYGovCuomo

Originated from conservative site. But they've got a point: can NY Governor Andrew Cuomo do the homework? A panel is needed to review the Common Core. Are you kidding? Any panel of parents can tell you it is nonsense. Make sure to read this analysis at Perdido Street School blog. It turns out that Cuomo packed the panel with Common Core supporters. And, the United Federation of Teachers pres. Michael Mulgrew supports Cuomo's sop to (rightly) disgruntled parents. Teachers across NYS: is this the kind of person you want supplanting current president Dick Iannuzzi with a proxy?
Postscript: the Regents tentatively considered some changes to modify the impact of the Common Core. Common Core Gov. Cuomo went ballistic. The Regents finally reversed on their initial consideration to revise the Common Core impact. Remember, Mulgrew all through this has supported Gov. Cuomo. Read ICEUFT's analysis: Mulgrew's only complaint coming from his simple two sentence analysis is that the Common Core curriculum needs to be sharpened. NYS teachers: your local district leader will be voting in a special assembly in New York City in April. Who do you want charting the future of NYS teacher union politics?: Dick Iannuzzi or Mulgrew's puppet Karen Magee?

New York parents are launching their children’s Common Core math homework – AT Governor Cuomo. Mark Ferreris, a leader in Stop Common Core in New York State, came up with the idea of sending the children’s homework to the Governor. Tired of seeing their children “suffer each night with abusive, age-inappropriate homework that destroys both their self-esteem and their freedom to truly learn,” Ferreris and other organizers planned the campaign and created a public Facebook event page at Stop Common in New York State, set for February 28, 2014: https://www.facebook.com/events/1433445366892441/

New York parents will simply send their child’s homework via email or regular mail to Governor Cuomo. They plan to title each email or tweet: “CAN YOU DO THIS? –Because Our Children Can’t.” 

“Let him get a taste of the suffocating, mind-numbing curriculum that he’s helped shove down our children’s throats which will enslave their impressionable minds….. It’s simple, it’s quick and it’s for YOUR CHILDREN…. Flood him with emails daily or send weekly updates to him,” said organizers.

If you are in New York, here is the contact information for your governor: 

Email: Gov.Cuomo@chamber.state.ny.us

MAIL: Governor Andrew M. Cuomo – Office of the Governor – NYS State Capital Building – Albany, NY 12224 Tweet: @NYGovCuomo
 —————
 Wondering what the homework actually looks like? Here are a few samples.
 EngageNY/Common Core Math Homework
 This one is from a first grade class:


Governor Cuomo, can you do it? The next one is from a kindergarten class. (Where are the plus, minus, or equals signs? What is a “number bond”?)


This next one is for second graders. It could as well be for college students; it makes no sense.


Here’s one for third graders that avoids simplicity and clarity, deliberately:

In Hartford Courant: Why I Want To Give Up Teaching

Hartford Courant, January 17, 2014, OP-ED

Why I Want To Give Up Teaching 

Liz Natale, a West Hartford teacher who wrote about her frustration and anger with education reforms apparently reflects the views of many Connecticut teachers. The column went viral and the leader of the state's largest teachers union said that teachers overwhelmingly share the columnist's views. (John Woike, Hartford Courant / January 22, 2014)

By ELIZABETH A. NATALE | OP-ED The Hartford Courant

7:55 p.m. EST, January 17, 2014

Surrounded by piles of student work to grade, lessons to plan and laundry to do, I have but one hope for the new year: that the Common Core State Standards, their related Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium testing and the new teacher evaluation program will become extinct.
I have been a middle school English teacher for 15 years. I entered teaching after 19 years as a newspaper reporter and college public relations professional. I changed careers to contribute to society; shape young minds; create good and productive citizens; and spend time with youngsters lacking adults at home with time, energy and resources to teach them.
Although the tasks ahead of me are no different from those of the last 14 years, today is different. Today, I am considering ending my teaching career.
When I started teaching, I learned that dealing with demanding college presidents and cantankerous newspaper editors was nothing. While those jobs allowed me time to drink tea and read the newspaper, teaching deprived me of an opportunity to use the restroom. And when I did, I was often the Pied Piper, followed by children intent on speaking with me through the bathroom door.
I loved it!
Unfortunately, government attempts to improve education are stripping the joy out of teaching and doing nothing to help children. The Common Core standards require teachers to march lockstep in arming students with "21st-century skills." In English, emphasis on technology and nonfiction reading makes it more important for students to prepare an electronic presentation on how to make a paper airplane than to learn about moral dilemmas from Natalie Babbitt's beloved novel "Tuck Everlasting."
The Smarter Balance program assumes my students are comfortable taking tests on a computer, even if they do not own one. My value as a teacher is now reduced to how successful I am in getting a student who has eaten no breakfast and is a pawn in her parents' divorce to score well enough to meet my teacher evaluation goals.
I am a professional. My mission is to help students progress academically, but there is much more to my job than ensuring students can answer multiple-choice questions on a computer. Unlike my engineer husband who runs tests to rate the functionality of instruments, I cannot assess students by plugging them into a computer. They are not machines. They are humans who are not fazed by a D but are undone when their goldfish dies, who struggle with composing a coherent paragraph but draw brilliantly, who read on a third-grade level but generously hold the door for others.

 

For the rest of the teacher's "I Quit" op-ed, visit the original Hartford Courant page.

Breaking News: MTA LIRR Union Votes to Strike in March

*MTA LIRR workers seeking increase city workers could only dream of
Well, you have the UFT which is so ossified that its 11th Commandment is Thou Shalt Not Strike.
Yet, the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) Long Island Railroad (LIRR) workers' union voted 500-0 tonight to go on strike. The strike could happen as early as March.

At dispute is its contract and salary increase. An Obama administration labor panel recommended a 17 percent increase, yet the MTA balked at it.

New York City unions should follow the LIRR union's stance.

Lucky LIRR workers: they are covered by federal law, not by biased, anti-labor NYS Taylor Law.
There was a time --2006-- when New York City's labor leaders --including the United Federation of Teachers' then president Randi Weingarten-- spoke out against the Taylor Law at the City Council's Committee on Civil Service and Labor. Weingarten said, "The city's ability to stall without repercussions means unions have virtually no leverage." Have we ever heard Mulgrew put it so succinctly about the Taylor Law?
The Times also wrote, 

The labor leaders said the law had repeatedly given City Hall an upper hand in labor talks, provided incentives for the city to drag out negotiations years after contracts expire, and established the framework for a system of "pattern bargaining" in which all public employees are expected to accept the same terms that are accepted by a union picked out by the city to set a bargaining precedent.

In 1994, under Andrew Cuomo's father, Mario, the workers struck for three days. They got a 8.7 percent over three years.

No concessions! Full retroactive pay! Ample salary increases to match rent and other New York City cost of living increases since 2009!

Here is the background of the Obama labor panel's recommendation in LIRR contract considerations, from Anton News of Nassau County, January 9, 2014:

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) made a strategic mistake recently when it said that its planned 2015 fare hike may be reduced to four percent from 7.5 percent.

In essence, the MTA, the Long Island Rail Road’s (LIRR) parent, was announcing it’ll forgo an estimated $200 million in fare box revenue in 2015, given the MTA’s improved financial standing. The MTA conveyed this message as the LIRR was telling an emergency presidential panel, in early December, that the LIRR could only give the bulk of its unionized employees a cumulative general wage increase (GWI) of four percent over a five-year period, dating back to 2010 and extending into 2014. Meanwhile, advocates for most of the LIRR’s unions, representing about 5,500 of the LIRR’s approximately 6,400 employees, were trying to convince this panel its members deserved a GWI of 18.5 percent over a six-year period (2010-2015).

President Obama’s three appointees sided, big-time, with the LIRR’s unions, when releasing its 51-page, non-binding report on the LIRR’s ongoing labor dispute. The panelists, two of them from Massachusetts and the other from Maryland, called for the LIRR to reach an accord that would give its unionized employees what amounts to a GWI of 14.75 percent over a six-year period. The panel’s final recommendation would have been 17 percent over six years, but even the president’s appointees agreed with LIRR management’s contention that these LIRR employees should contribute to their health insurance premiums. By 2015, the panel believes the LIRR should pay 97.75 percent of its unionized employees’ premiums. Today, the LIRR picks up a union employee’s entire health insurance tab.

The LIRR management team’s bid to get the presidential panel to endorse any of its proposed work-rule changes also went nowhere, such as those governing staffing requirements at Richmond Hill, or ones that would make it easier to reassign LIRR track workers to undertake bridge and building maintenance. To combat these findings, the LIRR ought to find a way to explain to the media how antiquated work rules drain the LIRR’s coffers and perpetuate inefficiencies. The LIRR’s labor unions are the only ones benefiting from the status quo when it comes to allocating personnel.