Furlough game of bluff
October 25th, 2009 by Jerry BurrisSeems as if there is a bit of a game of chicken going on between Gov. Linda Lingle and the folks who represent Hawaii’s teachers.
Here’s how it goes: Lingle imposed a 14 percent spending restriction on the Department of Education. She suggested furloughs of teachers might be one way to reach that goal.
The DOE and the Unions worked out a furlough plan, which calls for 17 furlough days a year, focused on Fridays during the regular school year. Lingle says in retrospect she might not have pushed for furloughs if she knew they would be taken out of instructional days. The option would have been to take furloughs during days otherwise set aside for career development, training and the like,
Now, union president Wil Okabe says Lingle is “rewriting history” by claiming she didn’t realize the furlough plan would work out the way it has.
It’s not clear who is calling whose bluff here. What is clear that the result of all this is that Hawaii has the shortest school year in the country right now. That’s shameful. There is nothing to stop the DOE and the teachers from shifting some of the furlough shifts to non-instructional days. And there is nothing to stop Lingle from working with Democrats in the Legislature to find money to restore some of the lost funding to the DOE.
That’s what should happen.
October 25th, 2009 at 8:27 pm
The furloughing of teachers does not have to mean that schools have to close. Why can't they just furlough certain teachers on certains days, and have teachers who are working cover for those teachers on furlough? During furlough weeks, they can have 20% of the teachers on furlough each day. The furloughed teacher can prepare a class instruction plan, which the helping teacher can execute. This way the students will not lose instruction time.
October 26th, 2009 at 2:05 pm
If the DOE were really about educating kids, they would have laid off all non-teaching (not in the classroom) DOE members and left the teachers to teach.
Aloha,
Keahi