Bend-La Pine Chapter #6 of OSEA

Contracting Out

Contracting out student transportation leaves school districts open to a wide range of unexpected costs and problems, University of Oregon’s Dr. Gordon Lafer told the Winston-Dillard School Board on Wednesday, March 13.

With a group of OSEA members and interested community citizens in attendance, Lafer told the board that potential double-billing, public subsidization of a private commercial fleet, wage and benefit cuts, and overcharging for buses are some of the risks that come with contracting out.

The findings are from “All Costs Considered III,” the latest study by the University of Oregon’s Labor Education and Research Center (LERC), which raises troubling issues following the Central Point School District’s decision to contract out its student transportation.

Randi Weingarten at a Massachusetts high school

Smears vs. solutions

Summer is upon us, and parents, children and teachers are winding down from what has been an exhausting and fully operational school year—the first since the devastating pandemic. The long-lasting impact of COVID-19 has affected our students’ and families’ well-being and ignited the politics surrounding public schools. All signs point to the coming school year unfolding with the same sound and fury, and if extremist culture warriors have their way, being even more divisive and stressful.

What unions do

In AFT President Randi Weingarten’s latest New York Times column, she describes what it is exactly that unions do. Though unions are the most popular they have been in decades, anti-union sentiment still thrives in red states and across the nation. “Several years ago, The Atlantic ran a story whose headline made even me, a labor leader, scratch my head: ‘Union Membership: Very Sexy,’” Weingarten writes in the column. “The gist was that higher wages, health benefits and job security—all associated with union membership—boost one’s chances of getting married. Belonging to a union doesn’t actually guarantee happily ever after, but it does help working people have a better life in the here and now.” Click through to read the full column.

Randi Weingarten and NYC teacher Tamara Simpson

In defense of public education

Attacks on public education in America by extremists and culture-war peddling politicians have reached new heights (“lows” may be more apt), but they are not new. The difference today is that the attacks are intended not just to undermine public education but to destroy it.