EAG Insider: Superintendent bashing, Truth-o-meter

June 15, 2010

“No confidence” votes are nothing more than MEA tantrums
Superintendents attacked for not giving unions all they want

The Michigan Education Association has been screaming a lot lately about “teacher bashing.”
What about superintendent bashing?
By that, we mean the MEA’s dirty little habit of trying to smear the reputations of K-12 school superintendents, just because the union is not getting its way at the contract bargaining table.
The most recent example is in the Big Rapids district, where the teachers recently adopted a resolution of “no confidence” in Superintendent Tom Langdon, a week after rejecting a tentative contract that made sense for the cash-strapped district.

According to several sources, there was no reason for the union to attack Langdon. They say he’s done an outstanding job from an academic standpoint, and is doing his best to watch out for school finances and employee interests during negotiations with the union.

FULL GOODY BAG

For the record, the Big Rapids district has been without a teachers contract since August. After going though the arbitration process, the two sides reached a tentative agreement earlier this year on a contact that would have installed sensible controls on insurance and salary costs for the cash-strapped district.

That means the union could keep getting expensive MESSA insurance coverage, and the school would only pay up to its self-imposed cap. The leftover costs would have been picked up by teachers.

But Big Rapids teachers have never been forced to help pay for their own insurance, and they apparently don’t care to start now. FULL STORY