BATs WEEKLY ROUNDUP
By: Marla Kilfoyle,
General Manager of BATs and Melissa Tomlinson, Asst. General Manager
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| Ohio BAT Dawn Neely Randall and Ohio Democratic Chairperson Chris Redfern |
BATs had an amazing
week. On Sunday we learned that Civil
Rights Hero James Meredith agreed to do a phone-in message to kick off our DC
Rally. On Tuesday, BATs swarmed Highline
School District in Burien, Washington for contracting with TFA. Highline has a very high number of NBCTs. As a result of that action, many BATs
received return emails from the BOE of Highline acknowledging our concerns
about hiring TFA to teach children. Tennessee BATs were among those teachers that
have fought very hard to get their teacher evaluation system reversed. They
were successful this week! Tennessee
BATs and FCEA also hosted gubernatorial candidate John McKamey. Ohio BAT Dawn Neely Randall had a nice chat
this week with State Representative AND Chairman of the Ohio Democratic Party,
Chris Redfern. She was vocal about her local district's testing schedule and other educational issues. Also, we learned from Ohio, that Janet
Garrett, a major supporter of BATs and a teacher, announced she was running for
U.S. Congress, 4th Congressional District. Allen J. Cannon, a N.J. BAT, is also running
for Congress for the 12th District.
BATs were active on twitter this past week. A Thunderclap was set up for Wednesday,
4/30/14, to stop Rowan University from honoring N.J. Governor Chris
Christie. The hashtag,
#nodegree4Christie, will be used. BATs
are angry that a University, known for its teachers college, is hosting an anti-public
school governor. On Friday, we were
contacted by the AFT to help with the Pearson: Stop Gagging our Teachers
campaign and supported their petition which saw over 7000 signatures in just
one day ~ And that’s the BAT Weekly Roundup ~ week ending 4/25/14!
In Oklahoma, BATS joined forces with our state PLACs (Parent Legislation Action Committees) and EFFORT SOS (Educators for Funding, Openness, Responsibility, and Trust - Save our Schools) and spent the entire week writing, emailing and calling our state legislators. Today's announcement:
ReplyDeleteLegislative Update Monday April 21- Friday, April 25
Thursday, April 24 marked another deadline in the legislature. Yesterday was the last day for a bill to be heard in the opposite house. Those bills that did not get heard are now "dead." It was a very successful day yesterday for common education in Oklahoma- many bills were defeated that would have been detrimental to common education, and many more bills like that did not even get heard on the floor! We would like to thank everyone who responded to the numerous alerts over the last 2 weeks- your involvement in the process helped defeat many bills and helped promote good bills! Thank you! Below is a summary of the bills we have repeatedly discussed that passed or died with this deadline.
Elections/ Bond Issues
SB 1816 THIS BILL FAILED TO GET A HEARING ON THE HOUSE FLOOR! THIS BILL IS NOW CONSIDERED DEAD.
Funding
HB 2642 This bill passed the Senate on April 16, 2014 with a vote of 43 Yeas to 1 Nay and will go back to the House to accept changes.
SB 1971 This bill failed to pass the House on April 24, 2014 with a vote of 55 Nays to 23 Yeas.
Charters
SB 573 The bill was heard yesterday on the House floor and failed to pass by a vote of 64 Nays, 26 Yeas and 11 not voting.
Testing
SB 1654 The bill passed with a vote of 70 Yeas, 7 Nays and 24 not voting.
Vouchers
HB 2414 This bill passed the Senate on April 15, 2014 with a vote of 31 Yeas to 16 Nays and will go back to the House to accept amendments. (Not happy!)
Great service! Thanks for consolidating all this information.
ReplyDelete