Tuesday, July 01, 2008

Court of Appeals Approve Posting Pro-Union Signs In Classroom

This story is one of the reasons that my kids are in private school.

Teachers have a right to post signs in classrooms supporting their side in a labor dispute, the state Court of Appeals panel in Milwaukee said in a decision released today.

The Milwaukee School Board filed the appeal after Milwaukee County Circuit Judge David Hansher affirmed a decision by the Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission that the board had not established sufficient reason for banning the signs.

The Milwaukee Teachers’ Education Association, the union representing the teachers, suggested that the signs be posted after attempts to reach a contract agreement for 2003-2005 failed. The teachers began wearing buttons during the school day that stated “attract and retain” in March 2004. A month later teachers displayed two-sided, 11x14-inch signs in their classrooms on windows, desks and walls.

The union later encouraged teachers to display the signs more visibly, particularly during parent-teacher conferences, along with letters from the union. The MPS administration sent a letter directing school principals to remove any public displays of literature that constituted “political advertising or advocacy.”

The kids are not political pawns to be used in a Giuoco Pianissimo against the School Board.  As Lance Burri says:

This commission has decided it’s all right for teachers to expose their students - a captive audience if there ever was one - to their side of a political question.

Indeed.

(4) Comments
Posted by Owen at 2023 hrs
Law + Politics + Politics - Wisconsin

  1. But don’t even think about putting some Jesus posters up on those walls… the country would erupt!

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on July 01, 2008 at 2307 hrs


  2. See…it is all about the children…using them as pawns to advance the cause and support the system.

    If you have kids in the public schools, ask them how often the subject of pay (teacher’s griping about it) happens to come up in the classroom in a typical school year. Wonder if a taxpayer’s advocate group could get equal time and exposure?

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on July 02, 2008 at 0019 hrs


  3. Apparently, now, the teacher’s own their own classroom.  I always thought the school district owned them, but I guess not.  The teacher’s own the classroom and apparently can do whatever they like.

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on July 02, 2008 at 0228 hrs


  4. I don’t get this decision.  An active teachers union guy, I think this decision runs in contravention of the SCOTUS decision (last term?) that severely restricted what a teacher can say in the classroom.  In effect, that ruling, as I remember it, said that the district hires a teacher’s words while he is on the job and has broad leeway in deciding what to allow. A very chilling fact to me.

    Could it be that MPS’s policy on this topic is vague? 

    For the record, I don’t think union materials have any place whatsoever in the classroom. Do union work off the job, not on the job.

    Posted by Mike on July 02, 2008 at 0846 hrs


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