by Andrew Walden
Here is a copy of the 2010 HSTA Legislative questionnaire. This is your opportunity to see what the HSTA wants from the Legislature and what the candidates it endorses may be agreeing to.
For instance question #7:
“HSTA opposes any legislation to provide public funds for tax subsidies (tax credits, tax deductions) or vouchers for private education, religious or home school expenses, or inclusion of vouchers within the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).”
As a bonus for candidates, we at Hawai`i Free Press have supplied some handy-dandy answers guaranteed to ensure you do NOT get the HSTA endorsement. Our answers are underlined, the balance of the text is unchanged.
---30---
HSTA Legislative questionnaire without answers>>> LINK
HSTA Gubernatorial questionnaire>>> LINK
2010 ELECTION
HSTA GOVERNMENT RELATIONS COMMITTEE
QUESTIONNAIRE
HAWAII STATE LEGISLATURE
Candidate's Name:
|
Office Sought:
|
State Senator
Senate District:
|
|
State Representative
House District:
|
|
|
Political Party Affiliation
|
|
Political Party Affiliation
|
Occupational Background:
Educational Background:
Political Background:
Community Service:
What schools do your children attend or have your children attended? Public or private? If your children attend(ed) non-public schools, please indicate your reason(s):
Please list or attach legislation you have introduced pertaining to education, labor, and public employment.
1. What are your top three legislative priorities?
a. elimination of public employee union PACs
Please explain.
Labor is immensely harmed by the practice of electing beholden politicians and then ‘negotiating’ with them. Because the public sector, like the private sector, is not a bottomless well of lucre, the best labor contracts are formed in the crucible of adversarial negotiations. Furloughs are an excellent example. Had the HSTA been facing a BoE committed to the efficient management of the DoE instead of a BoE consisting of politicians beholden to the HSTA, the result would have been tough union negotiators and tough HSTA PR efforts which would have tirelessly exposed the waste, fraud, and corruption in DoE professional services contracting. By demanding the elimination of this fraud, the HSTA could have forced the DoE to re-focus its finances on the classroom and furloughs could then have been avoided. Instead the HSTA routinely tolerates the corruption and “boiling dysfunction” of the system because it is run by a BoE beholden to the HSTA. Your efforts to team up with the BoE to grab more money out of the General Fund can no longer be fruitful. By eliminating your PAC, I intend to reorient your union to the business of using collective bargaining to represent classroom teachers, something it is not now doing.
b. Abolition of binding arbitration.
Please explain.
Because binding arbitration always depends on the decision of some visiting arbitrator, the result is usually to split the difference between the financial demands of the two sides. This is a way of life which has now run out of “other peoples’ money.” By forcing HSTA and BoE to engage in meaningful collective bargaining, I expect to see the HSTA become a force which demands that the BoE clean up the DoE’s financial house. This would be in HSTA’s interest because money now being wasted could be redirected to the classroom—including to the salaries of frontline teachers. As in the answer above, the strategy of HSTA and other public employees unions to deal with beholden politicians has reached an end. Instead of raising more taxes from the people and from the suffering tourism industry, we must clean house. That is where HSTA can find money for better contracts.
c. Support for Appointed BoE.
Please explain.
As stated above, I intend to see that you are no longer negotiating with beholden politicians.
2. What do you see as the strengths and weaknesses of Act 51?
Act 51 created the School community councils which have been able to undermine the HSTA/BoE/DoE “Furlough Fridays” strike/lockout by eliminating some or all furloughs in many schools. Its primary weakness is the fact that it does not question the use of moneys that the DoE is wasting on contracts which are listed as school-level expenses but in reality do little or nothing to improve student or teacher performance. Instead it has schools competing for the pool of money left over after the do-nothing bureaucrats and connected contractors get their cut. Because DoE's grotesque overhead is a built-in assumption, the process is designed to rob schools of programs. The lack of programs is then used as a justification to close the schools.
The following are position statements on some critical issues of the Hawaii State Teachers Association. For each issue, please indicate whether you support or oppose HSTA’s positions. Please attach additional pages if you want to elaborate on or explain your response. Be sure any additional pages clearly indicate the position or question to which you are referring.
3. HSTA believes the state must provide quality benefits for its public school teachers as both recruiting and retention incentives because of the teacher shortage in the State as well as throughout the United States. HSTA opposes any continuing erosion of teachers’ health and retirement benefits.
a. The Collective Bargaining Law, Chapter 89, gives public employees the right to participate in deciding their wages, hours, and conditions of work. HSTA supports the preservation and strengthening of the intent and purpose of Chapter 89. HSTA opposes any action that diminishes the rights, benefits, or protections granted public employees through collective bargaining or state legislation.
Do you support or oppose HSTA’s position? Support c Oppose c
Please explain.
As explained above, binding arbitration must go. Instead of using the adversarial collective bargaining process, HSTA and other public employee unions are facilitating political corruption which consumes millions of tax dollars that could have been used to improve contract terms for teachers. You are your members' worst enemy. Ironically you speak of “incentives” the bête noir for the HSTA when based on student performance. Instead you want hiring bonuses and retention bonuses. How about higher salaries for entry level teachers topped by pay for performance bonuses. It is time for teachers unions to start treating their members as professionals, not wage slaves.
b. The law has capped the employer’s cost of retirees’ health benefits premium. By capping the retirees’ cost, the employer can determine the unfunded liability of the cost of retirees’ health benefits. If the cost of retirees’ premiums is more than the employer’s cap as stated in law, HSTA supports increasing the employer’s cap so the retirees can continue to receive health benefits at no cost to them.
Do you support or oppose HSTA’s position? Support c Oppose c
Please explain.
HSTA has had an opportunity to fix VEBA and instead has driven it into insolvency. Now you want the State to solve the crisis you created yourself. As stated above, this is the type of malfeasance and artificial crisis creation which comes from the smug belief that your beholden politicians can tax the people more and more to bail you out. This has led you not only to ignore political corruption and corrupt DoE contracting—something that some of your members are uniquely positioned to expose—but to be slovenly in the management of your own members benefit funds. Other unions have done quite well with this type of fund. But they did not perceive that they would be bailed out so they had to use professional management techniques.
c. HSTA believes the State Legislature should fund a version of the National Defense Education Act to provide adequate loans and grants and loan forgiveness programs for Hawaii’s students wishing to be teachers. Loan forgiveness programs would require students to teach in the State of Hawaii for a designated length of time.
Do you support or oppose HSTA’s position? Support c Oppose c
Please explain.
Such a State program would be duplicative of the federal program and expensive to boot. Instead of trying to gild the lily one more time, we need to incentivize teachers to come to Hawaii based on the quality of our schools, and the quality of pay and working conditions. Instead of addressing these issues in the collective bargaining process and attacking the diversion of DoE funds from the classroom, you have relied on beholden politicians and tolerated their corruption. These politicians have also assisted the landed aristocracy in withholding land from the housing market, (for example OHA’s 14-year ceded lands case) thus placing Oahu, Maui and Kauai among of the most expensive places to live on earth. This too affects the desirability of a teaching career in Hawaii. One good thing about the National defense Education Act is that it encourages military veterans to go into teaching. That is a wave which could undo much of the damage done to Hawaii by the academic Marxists who have infiltrated and taken control of our schools since 1968. So I am sure that what HSTA means by "a version of" is "a version" which does not focus on veterans.
d. HSTA supports legislation and funding of programs and activities that reward continuing education for teachers and provide cost-free opportunities for faculties to pursue professional development.
Do you support or oppose HSTA’s position? Support c Oppose c
Please explain.
The UH School of Education (as with almost every such school in the US) is run by a bunch of Gramscian operatives dedicated to using the classroom as a propaganda center to undermine America. It is counter productive to act as if such classes constitute “professional development” when they are in fact designed to twist teachers mentality and redirect them to mis-teach students that they have no chance in life because of racism, sexism, homophobia, etc. The result is that some HSTA “teachers” now openly proclaim they cannot instruct students of certain ethnicities such as Filipinos, Samoans and other Pacific Islanders--and thanks to HSTA, they get to keep their jobs after admitting that they cannot do it. If it were an association of teaching professionals the HSTA would be committed to eradicating this attitude which serves only to demoralize its own membership, worsen working conditions, and circumscribe the future of so many of our children. Instead of more "diversity" and "tolerance" propaganda, teacher training should focus on furthering knowledge in the teacher's area of scientific, literary, historical, or artistic expertise.
e. HSTA supports legislation to pay teachers in a timely manner to include partial pay periods. Teachers whose school years begin after their normal pay period receive their partial pay spread over their next 24 pay periods.
Do you support or oppose HSTA’s position? Support c Oppose c
Please explain.
All employees should expect to be paid on time. If the DoE financial wizards can work out convoluted systems to hide waste, fraud, and corruption, surely they can work out a system to pay teachers on time.
4. To ensure student success and to bring Hawaii in line with national research on effective class size, HSTA believes that individual class size should not exceed 18 to 1.
Do you support or oppose HSTA’s position? Support c Oppose c
Please explain.
It is absurd to address class size before one addresses discipline. It is far more important for the DoE and for Principals to support teachers’ in disciplining their students to achieve an orderly classroom. Demanding a cut in classroom size without addressing the lack of discipline is another example of gilding the lily.
5. HSTA supports legislation for mandatory kindergarten in Hawaii.
Do you support or oppose HSTA’s position? Support c Oppose c
Please explain.
Until basic and obvious reforms are achieved in the DoE it is far better to continue the process of advancing private pre-K education as outlined by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation—whose efforts you resist with a burning passion. You be sure to let me know when the DoE cleans up its act. Then we’ll talk.
6. HSTA supports legislative efforts to preserve public education and opposes the diversion of public funds or tax credits to non-public schools.
Do you support or oppose HSTA’s position? Support c Oppose c
Please explain.
Because of your failure to even try to clean up the DoE, Hawaii’s best hope rests with the expansion of private schools via vouchers. The most promising developments in the DoE revolve around the efforts of private schools such as Kamehameha and Edison. HSTA has nobody to blame for this but itself.
7. HSTA opposes any legislation to provide public funds for tax subsidies (tax credits, tax deductions) or vouchers for private education, religious or home school expenses, or inclusion of vouchers within the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).
Do you support or oppose HSTA’s position? Support c Oppose c
Please explain.
It is mindblowingly self-centered of HSTA to oppose the funding of private education for autistic and other IDEA students. Does the phrase “Felix Consent Decree” mean anything to you? The DoE’s abject failure to provide anything even vaguely resembling adequate educational opportunity for Felix students is an unchangeable reality which you must accept if you are to ever have any credibility with this soon-to-be elected official. I will not put the alleged interests of your union above the education of handicapped children. Shame on you for even asking. You disgust me._____
8. HSTA opposes any expansion of non-conversion charter schools. Before the legislature expands the number of non-conversion charter schools, the Department of Education must have a good handle on the current charter schools.
Do you support or oppose HSTA’s position? Support c Oppose c
Please explain.
HSTA and its beholden BoE along with the DoE bureaucracy have done everything in their power to crush charter schools—including providing charters to the most marginal of applicants in order to use up all the available charter slots. And now you want me to ensure that your gambit succeeds? Request denied.
9. HSTA supports a single, state-wide school system with one elected Board of Education.single, state-wide school system with one elected Board of Education.
Do you support or oppose HSTA’s position? Support c Oppose c
Please explain.
I will be campaigning for a yes vote on the proposed constitutional amendment calling for an appointed BoE. Anything that weakens your grip on the BoE and DoE is good for Hawaii’s children and teachers.
10. HSTA supports preserving basic student support services such as librarians, counselors, tech coordinators, etc.
Do you support or oppose HSTA’s position? Support c Oppose c
Please explain.
I oppose your negotiating position demanding that all such employees be returned in order for Furlough Fridays to be cancelled. If HSTA wants these employees back so much, then HSTA should use its inside knowledge of waste, fraud, and corruption within he DoE in order to find the funds. As explained above, every penny necessary to eliminate Furlough Fridays is already in the DoE budget. I will not be party to your shakedown operation.
11. HSTA supports legislation and funding to eliminate repair and maintenance backlog and keep repair and maintenance current to fix our schools.
Do you support or oppose HSTA’s position? Support c Oppose c
Please explain.
Before pouring more money into contracts, the DOE’s procurement system must be overhauled to eliminate the waste, fraud, and corruption identified in Marion Higa’s 2005 partial procurement audit. For the first time since 1973, a comprehensive DoE audit must be conducted by an independent outside auditor.
12. HSTA supports legislation and funding to reduce construction backlog for public schools. HSTA also supports legislation authorizing state tax credits for interest-free school construction bonds.
Do you support or oppose HSTA’s position? Support c Oppose c
Please explain.
Before pouring more money into contracts, the DOE’s procurement system must be overhauled to eliminate the waste, fraud, and corruption identified in Marion Higa’s 2005 partial procurement audit. For the first time since 1973, a comprehensive DoE audit must be conducted by an independent outside auditor.
13. HSTA supports legislation and funding to provide a working phone in every classroom and to provide sufficient electrical and telecommunications and infrastructure to accommodate school activities.
Do you support or oppose HSTA’s position? Support c Oppose c
Please explain.
Before pouring more money into contracts, the DOE’s procurement system must be overhauled to eliminate the waste, fraud, and corruption identified in Marion Higa’s 2005 partial procurement audit. For the first time since 1973, a comprehensive DoE audit must be conducted by an independent outside auditor. BTW which of you is connected to the contractor that is trying to get this plum job?
14. HSTA supports legislation and funding to increase the safety and security of all schools.
Do you support or oppose HSTA’s position? Support c Oppose c
Please explain.
No additional funding in needed. What is needed is the elimination of politically correct rules which prevent your members from exerting discipline in the classroom. This takes willpower, not money. When will HSTA start standing up for its members and stop using everything as an excuse for more money?
15. HSTA supports the utilization of alternative energy sources in the schools.
Do you support or oppose HSTA’s position? Support c Oppose c
Please explain.
Before pouring more money into contracts, the DOE’s procurement system must be overhauled to eliminate the waste, fraud, and corruption identified in Marion Higa’s 2005 partial procurement audit. For the first time since 1973, a comprehensive DoE audit must be conducted by an independent outside auditor. After that they can let alt energy contracts. Better hurry up and clean up the mess.
16. HSTA supports legislation to amend the State Constitution to repeal the Expenditure Controls, Article VII, Section 5, which controls the state’s expenditure by creating an expenditure ceiling and prohibits the state from spending the monies needed to invest in public education.
Do you support or oppose HSTA’s position? Support c Oppose c
Please explain.
As explained above ad infinitum, the DoE doesn’t need any more money and the State doesn’t need any more debt. We have a Council on Revenues for a reason.
17. HSTA supports legislation to amend the State Constitution to repeal the Disposition of Excess Revenues, Article VII, Section 6, which prohibits the state from having any savings since tax refunds or tax credits must be given to the taxpayers of the state, thus, prohibiting the state from spending the monies needed to invest in public education.
Do you support or oppose HSTA’s position? Support c Oppose c
Please explain.
Only if this is tied to the abolition of all Special Funds.
18. HSTA supports legislation to fully fund charter schools.
Do you support or oppose HSTA’s position? Support c Oppose c
Please explain.
Finally something we agree on. But don’t get too excited. I also support conversion of all existing DoE schools to charter schools.
19. In Hawaii, the lowest 20 percent of income earners pays about $12.60 in taxes out of every $100 they earn, while the top 1 percent of income earners pays about $5.80 of $100 they earn. HSTA supports legislation that distributes the tax burden more evenly among all income earners.
Do you support or oppose HSTA’s position? Support c Oppose c
Please explain.
You want tax hikes. I want a tax cut for low income families and abolition of the GE Tax on necessities such as food, fuel, utilities, rent, and medicine. These positions are opposites. Low income families would be helped by a tax cut, but they are not helped by tax increases aimed at the high earners whose business activities drive employment gains.
20. Research shows that investments in public education have a greater net impact on job growth, income growth, income distribution and productivity than tax cuts and subsidies. HSTA supports legislation that would stimulate our state economy through investments in public education and place a limit on tax cuts and subsidies.
Do you support or oppose HSTA’s position? Support c Oppose c
Please explain.
Investing in education is the opposite of investing in the DoE. To send more money to the DoE is to reward the thieves who are now diverting millions of DoE’s existing funds away from the classroom.
21. HSTA supports legislation to allocate all funds to schools according to a weighted student formula with the following conditions.
a. HSTA recognizes that there are essential elements that need to be in place in a child’s education to ensure student success. Schools must have adequate funding for sufficient computers, software, equipment, and textbooks for every child. All laboratories, shops, and learning spaces must be properly equipped and maintained. Students, faculty and support staff must have the training necessary to be proficient in current technology.
b. Teachers must be active decision-makers on how the money is spent.
c. Teachers’ salaries must come from a central salary account based on the average teacher’s salary.
d. Collective bargaining must be preserved.
Do you support or oppose HSTA’s position? Support c Oppose c
Please explain.
Given the HSTA’s record as the political bulwark of the DoE/BoE it is impossible to accept these words at face value. This is just a means to keep the HSTA’s deathgrip on the DoE/BoE. The difference between centralized control and local control is shown by the contrast between the HSTA/DoE/BoE strike/lockout known as “furlough Fridays” and the local schools who eliminated many or all instructional furlough days acting independently. When you write "teachers must be decision makers" you mean "HSTA must make the decisions." We've already seen how this works in real life. We know who you are and what you are and we've had enough.
22. HSTA supports creating a funding source specifically for education.
Do you support or oppose HSTA’s position? Support c Oppose c
Please explain.
This is just an excuse for a tax hike. As explained above, DoE must clean up its financial house before demanding any more money.
Signature Date
Mailing Address: Work Phone:
Home Phone:
Business Email: Fax Number:
Personal Email: Cell Phone: