More Local Unions Vote No-Confidence in Bergeson
Posted on: Friday, 9 May 2008, 15:00 CDT
By Howard Buck, The Columbian, Vancouver, Wash.
May 9--School employee labor units across Clark and Skamania counties have joined Evergreen and Vancouver district teachers in registering a no-confidence vote against state schools chief Terry Bergeson.
The motion approved Wednesday evening by leaders of the Riverside UniServ Council of the Washington Education Association states that "Washington students and schools deserve a new Superintendent of Public Instruction."
The Riverside group is made up of 14 bargaining units. The units include teachers and/or nonteaching staff in the Battle Ground, Evergreen, Ridgefield, Hockinson, Camas, Washougal, Stevenson-Carson and other Skamania County districts.
The Evergreen district teachers' union, which makes up about 40 percent of the Riverside ranks, had previously recorded a no-confidence vote. Vancouver teachers approved their own resolution Monday.
Riverside's resolution is at least the 30th such declaration in recent weeks. A WEA-wide resolution is expected when about 1,200 WEA representatives meet in Spokane next week.
The WEA already has sided against Bergeson, who is seeking a fourth term in this year's election. The union has endorsed former Richland School District Superintendent Rich Semler, outspoken critic of the Washington Assessment of Student Learning, or WASL, test that Bergeson has championed.
Ellen Joslin, Riverside president and Battle Ground teachers union leader, said the moves underscore educators' growing discontent with Bergeson and the exam.
"Our frustration is that Terry Bergeson seems even to have lost confidence of the (legislators) in Olympia," Joslin said. "She's been dishonest about the cost of the WASL, and she's been dishonest to the Legislature," she said.
Increasingly, state legislators have asserted control over WASL and high-school diploma rules.
Bergeson has said she is fighting burdensome federal penalties under the No Child Left Behind Act that are tied to Washington schools' WASL results.
"The testing burden is overwhelming the schools and the teachers," Bergeson told The Columbian this week. "It gets harder and harder every year. The bar keeps rising, and there's no recognition for the improvement of kids."
Bergeson said that if Congress reauthorizes No Child Left Behind, the law should be rewritten to change the way the states test immigrant children and children with disabilities. She also favors reducing the number of grade levels at which children are tested, and she supports rewarding teachers and schools that show improvement.
"The state should be able to develop its own accountability program that meets the guidelines of No Child Left Behind and put that through a peer review," she said.
But Joslin says Bergeson and the WASL are irreparably linked.
"It was up to each state to decide what the (student performance) measure would be" to meet NCLB standards, Joslin said. "She chose the WASL, the government didn't have any say in that."
Staff writer Kathie Durbin contributed to this story.
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Source: The Columbian
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