Teacher's New Contract

[poinographer]

Re: Teacher's New Contract

The reasons for testing that you describe are (if I may summarize) abstract things like harm to the "well-being" of the students and the need to "set an example" for the children. In my opinion, that's far too squishy to justify rolling back the right against unreasonable searches. Firefighters, law enforcement officers, equipment operators, etc., have a clear potential for physically harming an innocent party if they are impaired by drugs. Teachers (barring perhaps PhysEd and industrial arts) do not.

If, after all this sound and fury, we are simply concerned about teachers doing a poor job of teaching, then the proper response should be to call for random testing to detect substandard teaching! A sober teacher who can't teach would be undetected via a drug test.

Your rotten pillar analogy disturbs me. Precepts like "probable cause" and "innocent until proven guilty" are what separate our system of governance from the more oppressive alternatives.

[craigwatanabe]

Re: Teacher's New Contract

If it were me calling the shots, yes I'd include alcohol.

When at work if the substance is in your system and it affects your ability to work, then don't consume it.

I don't drink a whole lot, and if it's a day before work I won't drink at all or at least by that afternoon.

In most places if you're involved in an accident (your fault or not) you are subject to a mandatory drug test. If by chance you drank too much and there's some residual alcohol in your system, that's it, you fall under the company's policy regarding alcohol. If it's drugs...that's more serious.

I know of two guys who worked at Home Depot. They just had too much fun that weekend and come monday, one got fired after testing positive for drugs after an accident while on the clock. The other just got promoted to a supervisor and had to take a mandatory drug test. Both were fired after the results came in. The message was, if you do drugs and it's in your system on the job you will be fired.

If the company let it go, the message would then be, go ahead do drugs even if you test positive on the job. What kind of message is that?

That would be condoning drug use, and worse yet, if a customer or even a fellow employee were to get hurt because of impairment there's gonna be a big lawsuit happening real soon.

Okay so a customer is being helped by a sales associate who is under the influence. The customer asks for advice on how to use a certain power tool. The associate (under the influence) gives an inappropriate answer and the customer becomes injured when using the tool as a result. Lawsuit.

Okay so an associate is building a quote for a customer's windows and doors and he's under the influence so his quote is way off the mark. The customer get's a home improvement loan based on that quote. The loan is insufficient to meet the quote. Now the customer has to reapply for a higher amount. The Customer is really pissed off and demands we sell the windows and doors at the quote price. Guess what, we have to oblige. Company loses money.

Teacher comes in to work buzzing higher than a kite. He teaches to the kids that 5+5=42. The kids take that as the Gospel's truth and takes the test and fails. Oh by the way that test was the one NCLB uses to pass fail the school. The whole lot is scrutinized and is replaced including the drugged out teacher.

Who's affected? The teaching staff, the adminstrative staff, THE STUDENTS. And ultimately, the Taxpayer who has to foot the entire screwup.

[poinographer]

Re: Teacher's New Contract

Again, you're conflating crappy teaching with drug use. Test for the former, I say.

[craigwatanabe]

Re: Teacher's New Contract

The reasons for testing that you describe are (if I may summarize) abstract things like harm to the "well-being" of the students and the need to "set an example" for the children. In my opinion, that's far too squishy to justify rolling back the right against unreasonable searches. Firefighters, law enforcement officers, equipment operators, etc., have a clear potential for physically harming an innocent party if they are impaired by drugs. Teachers (barring perhaps PhysEd and industrial arts) do not.

If, after all this sound and fury, we are simply concerned about teachers doing a poor job of teaching, then the proper response should be to call for random testing to detect substandard teaching! A sober teacher who can't teach would be undetected via a drug test.

Your rotten pillar analogy disturbs me. Precepts like "probable cause" and "innocent until proven guilty" are what separate our system of governance from the more oppressive alternatives.

Are you saying that you don't mind a drugged out teacher teaching in class despite giving proper class instruction?

Whether there's no damage done by virtue of the ability to teach, just having a drugged out teacher in class condones drug abuse because not everybody can handle drugs or alcohol the same way. And some kid will look at that teacher who can "handle" their drugs as an excuse to do drugs. If he can so can I. Wrong.

[joshuatree]

Re: Teacher's New Contract

Again, you're conflating crappy teaching with drug use. Test for the former, I say.

Actually I believe in both. Drug test and performance based evaluation. I'm not a union fan. I would like to see public schools get privatized. You don't hear all these issues with private schools so obviously, they are doing something right.

[craigwatanabe]

Re: Teacher's New Contract

Actually I believe in both. Drug test and performance based evaluation. I'm not a union fan. I would like to see public schools get privatized. You don't hear all these issues with private schools so obviously, they are doing something right.

Yeah they fire those who abuse drugs and they do sponsor mandatory random drug testing. That's why private schools do so well. They control their teachers and they keep them by virtue of better support and higher pay.

Try going to a KSBE school's supply room and you'll find a lot of stuff for teachers to use. What's a public school's supply room? A purse, credit card and WalMart because they're open late after teachers are finished grading their students work, they head out to Walmart because it's the only store open late. Thank God EducationWorks moved to Iwilei.

I also believe in performance evals. To me that's as critical as drug testing as it covers all teachers.

[greentara]

Re: Teacher's New Contract

We are struggling for teachers in this state already. So in our infinite wisdom, we come up with new ways to eject current teachers.

All you idiots with the "reefer madness" mentality are so silly.

So true...Timkona

A large tanker truck destroyed part of a freeway in the East Bay this AM...luckily no one was killed, only because of the fact that it happened so early in the AM. I'm waiting for the toxicology report to come back interesting to see if he was tweaking ~ I'm thinking he was. Truckers on speed very volatile situation. http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/04/29/hig....ap/index.html

These are the people that should be tested. I'm for testing for the really "bad" drugs, btw how about booze should that be included? Most people don't get high and go beat up their wives, I have seen a lot of cases where people drink and become violent ~ just a thought. Opinion: no one should be under the influence of any drugs while at work period.

[poinographer]

Re: Teacher's New Contract

Well, privatization and non-union teachers are separate issues, my friend. I would hope that your distaste for the rights to organize and to bargain collectively is not at the heart of your support for random drug testing.

[joshuatree]

Re: Teacher's New Contract

Well, privatization and non-union teachers are separate issues, my friend. I would hope that your distaste for the rights to organize and to bargain collectively is not at the heart of your support for random drug testing.

Hardly at all, I consider drug testing and performance evaluation (privatization/unions) as separate issues but all issues I support. You seemed to have tossed in drug testing with detecting a crappy performing teacher, are you linking the two together?

I have nothing against the right to organize and to bargain collectively. But I hardly call it a right when one has no choice, you have to join the union if you want this job. You have to pay $600 annual dues. The union has lost its ways and gotten corrupt themselves.

[scrivener]

Re: Teacher's New Contract

Apparently, there is a wave of teachers having inappropriate relations with students, Craig. This, of course, is something that directly endangers children. Since I think we can all agree that NO TEACHER should be involved in inappropriate relationships with children, should teachers be randomly followed at night and should they randomly have their personal computers searched for incriminating emails and photos? Should their cars randomly be searched for DNA evidence? Should female teachers who give birth randomly be selected to have their children's fathers identified via DNA testing?

Why isn't the random drug-testing the same thing?

[craigwatanabe]

Re: Teacher's New Contract

Hardly at all, I consider drug testing and performance evaluation (privatization/unions) as separate issues but all issues I support. You seemed to have tossed in drug testing with detecting a crappy performing teacher, are you linking the two together?

I have nothing against the right to organize and to bargain collectively. But I hardly call it a right when one has no choice, you have to join the union if you want this job. You have to pay $600 annual dues. The union has lost its ways and gotten corrupt themselves.

But it was your choice to take the job or not. Hey in non-union jobs you have distinct choices too. Take the job as an at-will employee meaning fired for any particular reason or none at all.

Unions protect workers from unreasonable discipline or disciplinary measures not written into any collective bargaining contract. And $600 annual dues is to be represented when you feel your company unjustly targetted you. It's also to negotiate decent working conditions, pay and benefits.

Unions have always stipulated joining them in order to work at a unionized job. Why should a non-union worker get the same benefits as a unionzed worker who paid their dues?

Believe it or not some companies welcome unions because disciplinary measure are in black and white. There are clear lines of conduct and expectations with unionized companies.

Regarding seniority and promotion of non-qualified union workers, the same holds true for for non-union workers who have to face the reality of cronyism among brown-nosers. It's the same everywhere you go.

But for drug testing in the workplace, most companies don't discriminate between union and non-union workers, It's across the board in most cases.

Bottom line is that drug testing is a necessary evil because of the fact that there are workers that will break the laws and put a company in jeopardy liability wise. If you don't test and something happens it's willfull neglect.

If you do test and prevent something from happening, it's proactive.

Most liability insurance carriers will mandate drug testing as a way of limiting liability for it's clients. It's a clause within accepting insurance coverage.

You don't accept it, you don't get insurance. You don't meet the criteria for worker safety, you lose your operating permit. You lose your permits, you can't operate.

For a school, that may mean non-compliance and that means shutting down that school. Who loses? Everybody. So the tests are needed. It has nothing to do with privacy rights, it has nothing to do with unions, it has everything to do with compliance. One worker can bring down an institution.

Look at what happened to the Xerox building. One disgruntled employee, now the entire operation had to move.

Teachers who don't want random drug testing should be focusing their distaste on the few teachers that refuse to stay clean and jeopardize the entire operation instead of the DOE who is trying to stay compliant yet respect the teachers. There are compromises here and Random testing is the limit for which the DOE can dillute their efforts to.

Focus on who the real culprit is: The DOE for trying to eliminate drug abuse, or the drug abuser who refuses to abide by the rules that everyone else has to.

[poinographer]

Re: Teacher's New Contract

Joshuatree, review my last few posts to see how I came to "toss together" teacher performance and drug testing.

Basically, I am saying that drug use among teachers is a red herring. Good and less-good teachers may be using drugs on their off time. Frankly, I don't see any good reason to go on a moral crusade against a good teacher who happens to use drugs off campus.

To recap: Hold teachers to high pedagogical standards? Yes. Randomly test teachers for drugs simply to further some vague yet moralistic tough-on-crime rhetoric, an outcome that may actually thin the ranks of capable teachers (who value their right to privacy and/or use drugs)? No.

[craigwatanabe]

Re: Teacher's New Contract

Apparently, there is a wave of teachers having inappropriate relations with students, Craig. This, of course, is something that directly endangers children. Since I think we can all agree that NO TEACHER should be involved in inappropriate relationships with children, should teachers be randomly followed at night and should they randomly have their personal computers searched for incriminating emails and photos? Should their cars randomly be searched for DNA evidence? Should female teachers who give birth randomly be selected to have their children's fathers identified via DNA testing?

Why isn't the random drug-testing the same thing?

We can talk about teacher-student relations in other threads but for the record, I feel that is inappropriate as well, but we are talking about random drug testing, not screwing around with your students.

Remember Scriv, your arguement is about dignity and self-respect. Okay so we put teachers on a higher standard. So to satisfy your arguement, teachers shouldn't be screwing with students. You want to put that in the spot light go right ahead. It's not helping teachers reputations at all.

The focus here is on RANDOM DRUG TESTING. Let's not confuse the issues here.

[scrivener]

Re: Teacher's New Contract

Focus on who the real culprit is: The DOE for trying to eliminate drug abuse, or the drug abuser who refuses to abide by the rules that everyone else has to.

But that's not what you're doing, Craig. You're focusing on what's probably the 99.6% of teachers who don't use drugs (I made that stat up, but 87.4% of all stats are made up anyway). I agree: Let's focus on the abusers who refuse to abide by the rules. Get those people out of there. Is random drug-testing the only way to keep the profession clean?

Probable cause. It keeps the government out of our homes, out of our bodies, and in its place. There is no reason to suspect that a significant number of teachers is using drugs; if there is a reason to suspect that a certain teacher is using drugs, do something about that. But use the law the way the law was designed to be used.

[scrivener]

Re: Teacher's New Contract

The focus here is on RANDOM DRUG TESTING. Let's not confuse the issues here.

Yes, but you're the one who brought in examples of bursting hoses and rotting pillars. I'm bringing up the sexual relationships because your argument should apply to both situations, shouldn't it? Do you feel that random testing-for-sexual-relationships would be a fair way to treat teachers?