Oakland teaches and the district reached a contract agreement last night after two years of negotiations.  The district has been asking the teachers to pay for 50 percent of any future health care premiums increases, a demand to which the union refused to agree.  Neither side would reveal the details of the final agreement.  I’m sure the final agreement will protect teachers from the rising health care premiums the rest of us pay, but what I found particularly annoying about the deal was that the district and the union announced that parents should keep their kids home today.  The teachers had planned to strike today and district administrators said it would be to confusing to hold classes.  (Administrators had originally planned to hire strike teachers, but backed down on that plan when the union complained.)  If parents sent their kids to school today, the district said that they would be supervised, but not taught.

Parents who keep their kids home today should be asking for a tax rebate for the money the school is saving by not teaching their kids.  And the union should have to pay half of it. 

We are supposed to believe that these clowns all work to benefit “the children.”   Right.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 20th, 2006 at 12:00 am and is filed under Blog Posts.