Archive for the ‘Workers' Rights’ Category

Why I’m a NO on Senate Bill 191, regarding teachers’ jobs

Tuesday, May 11th, 2010
Senate Bill 191 is a bill that would tie teachers’ jobs to the performance of their students on standardized test.  I do not support the bill and I voted against it yesterday in Appropriations Committee tonight.  I will be voting against it again tonight on second reading in the House.  Teachers have an enormous impact on our children’s lives; and I support evaluating our teachers.  But, this bill is a step in the wrong direction.  For starters, the governor’s Council for Educator Effectiveness was just formed in January to examine these issues and it should be given the opportunity to find consensus on these questions with all stakeholders at the table.  But, when teachers jobs are tied to standardized tests it creates a vast array of problems for Colorado’s educational system.  The bill requires that the State Board of Education adopt guidelines for a system to evaluate the effectiveness of teachers and principals and requires that all school districts must adjust their local performance evaluation systems to meet the adopted guidelines.  The bill also requires that at least 50% of the teacher and principal evaluations come from the growth of the students on standardized tests. For starters, we would have to implement new standardized tests in Colorado that would cost millions to create.  CSAPS today cost us $21 million annually for just 4 subjects and for just 6 different grades.  I do not believe that you can assess the complete student curriculum on multiple-choice standardized tests.  Curriculum like creative writing, art, music, social studies, physical education, and history currently are not tested on the CSAPs.  Creating all of these new tests for every grade level will cost millions at a year when education funding has been cut more than $300 million.  But, more importantly, values like social skills, maturity growth, and learning how to learn (and not just facts) are not tested on standardized tests.

One of my concerns about Senate Bill 191 is that it eliminates due process for teachers.  The current due process system has worked sufficiently.  But, if we’re going to make a change then it should be done with all parties at the table talking collaboratively.  It does not always make practicable sense measuring teachers by growth on standardized tests.  Children have vastly different levels of support networks at home.  Some students have parents at home who demand that they complete their homework nightly; other students have less than perfect family networks.  The success of these students on standardized tests are often vastly different from one another.  Yet, under SB 191, teachers could place their job on the line when they teach higher risk students.  Teachers will feel induced to move to schools where students perform better on their tests for better job security.  This will discourage teachers from teaching at some of higher risk schools.  Similarly, there are several other variables that could affect the success of students on standardized test, like whether students take several sick days during the year.  However, the teacher will be held responsible when those students do poorly on their tests and could lose their job.  Teachers will have to pray that they have a classroom of students who are healthier.  I also have concerns that if this bill passes, that students will have the power to fire their teachers because they are “too tough.”  Students will realize that when a teacher assigns too much homework or makes them work too hard that they can get the teacher fired by intentionally bombing their standardized tests; and students have no personal benefit or risk in doing well or poorly on the standardized test.

The vote on 191 will take place sometime tonight on second reading.  I will be a no vote, and will be presenting amendments to try to make some improvements to the bill.  But, with this bill being pushed through in the final two weeks of session, and without proper vetting and negotiations, I cannot vote for it tonight.

Posted in Education, Workers' Rights | 4 Comments »

Keeping people working – Workshare act of 2010

Thursday, April 1st, 2010

My focus this session has been to protect jobs.  That’s why I’m running the Work Share Act of 2010. This bill is going to save jobs.  The Colorado Workshare Program is a voluntary program that would give businesses an alternative to laying off employees by allowing them to reduce the overall work hours of all employees.  Under the bill, employees share the remaining work while receiving unemployment compensation benefits for the reduced work hours.  The bill would save the state money.  Rather than paying out full unemployment benefits for 26 weeks, the state would pay out proportional partial unemployment benefits to those employees who had their work hours cut for 18 weeks.  Employers would have to certify to the state that they were going to lay off employees, and they rather chose to cut back on all workers’ hours proportionally.  Businesses would have cost savings and wouldn’t have to retrain new workers after a temporary lay off.  Employees would keep their jobs, and lost wages would be replaced by unemployment dollars. This is a jobs bill that is critical for the economic future of this state to ensure job security.  This bill will save jobs in Colorado and I am excited to sponsor it.  Similar programs have been successful in 17 other states, saving money in every state where the program exists.  See a recent NBC program about these programs nationally.

Posted in Workers' Rights | 5 Comments »

Protecting Injured Workers’ Rights

Tuesday, February 9th, 2010

I’ve been working hard this session on a bill to protect the privacy of injured workers.

I was proud to serve as the vice-chair of the Pinnacol Interim Committee, which met over the summer.  The committee examined issues related to Colorado’s quasi-government workers’ compensation insurance company.  The committee met six times and discovered several problem areas with Pinnacol, including: small businesses are paying workers comp insurance rates 10% higher than they should, Pinnacol has a bonus incentive system to deny claims, and Pinnacol spent $4.7 million to spy on thousands of injured workers even though only 11 were convicted of fraud.

We passed seven bills to address those specific concerns among others.  I passed a bill through the interim committee to limit spying by workers’ comp insurance companies of injured workers to only cases where the insurer has a reasonable basis to suspect fraud.  Currently, Pinnacol initiates spying even if there is no suspicion of a worker conducting fraud.  We heard testimony from several injured workers who believe that Pinnacol has been abusing its ability to spy, perhaps even using it as an intimidation technique to help secure a settlement.  Many injured workers felt treated like criminals after being spied on by Pinnacol. We should remember that these are injured workers; and a videotape of someone does not compensate for a medical care.  While Pinnacol spent $4.7 million in surveillance on thousands of workers, only 10 (out of 50,000+ claims) were actually convicted of fraud in 2008 (0.02%).   The bill would:

  • Require that surveillance may only occur in cases where the insurer or employer has a reasonable basis to suspect fraud or the worker made a material misstatement concerning the claim
  • If surveillance is taking place that the injured worker may request an expedited hearing before a pre-administrative law judge where the insurer must provide the injured worker with copies of materials collected
  • In the expedited hearing, the Pre-ALJ may put an injunction against the surveillance if there’s no reasonable basis shown or if the worker didn’t make a material misstatement or if the insurer didn’t have a reasonable basis to initiate surveillance
  • If surveillance material is collected without a reasonable basis, a $1000 fine would be charged for unauthorized surveillance
  • Finally, the bill provides for protecting the identity for a witness of whistleblower who provides evidence used to prove fraud.

Posted in Workers' Rights | 12 Comments »