Attorney Mark Bresee says no conflict for school board member Richard Barrera with job at Labor Council

Mark Bresee

The education elite--administrators and union officials and their respective lawyers--are already working together behind closed doors. They often oppose each other in public, but they're united in keeping the voters ignorant of how decisions are made in schools. Mark Bresee speaks from first-hand experience when he says, truthfully, that board member Richard Barrera's new job on the Labor Council isn't really a problem.

If anything, Barrera will probably be more likely to consider the wellbeing of students when deciding what demands he'll support for teachers.

Attorney: No Conflict for Labor Leader Trustee
By Wendy Fry
Jun 7, 2013
NBC 7 San Diego

An attorney for the San Diego school district has weighed-in on the controversy surrounding a trustee taking a job with the Labor Council.

Outside Counsel Mark Bresee says trustee Richard Barrera has no conflict-of-interest serving on both the school board, and as the chief of the Labor Council.

School trustee Barrera was recently elected as the leader of an umbrella organization that represents 135 unions, some of which are present in the San Diego schools.

"We are pretty much defined as a citizen's board," said Barrera about the school board. "So, obviously, people are going to have other jobs. If my compensation at the Labor Council was structured in a way that if a teacher's union gets a raise, then I get a raise, then I would be required to recuse myself but that's just not the case. My compensation has nothing to do with member union benefits."

The attorney, from the Atkinson, Andelson, Loya, Ruud & Romo firm hired by the district to do a legal analysis on the situation, agreed.

Barrera should refrain from participating in decisions on which the Labor Council has advocated a specific position, the lawyer also wrote.

In the meantime, an assistant to the board said Friday the board office has received more than 100 phone calls from the public expressing a negative opinion of the situation.

Tony Krvaric, chairman for the Republican party, said a robocall is going out to district parents informing them of Barrera's new job and connecting them to the district to complain.

"The board's own legal opinion urged caution when SDEA or CSEA issues are involved," Krvaric said. "What decisions on a school board don't affect the teachers unions, and who is going to pay for the legal analysis on each vote?"

To read the full legal opinon of the district's outside counsel, click here.

Source: http://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/Attorney-No-Conflict-For-Labor-Leader-Trustee-210639971.html#ixzz2VbPQWeX9

Lisa Berlanga is wrong about what is needed to turn around schools

UPforED will not make anything better as long as it thinks that teachers are the only interest group that is sabotaging education.

The entrenched and corrupted power of school district politicians and administrators is just as big a problem as the teachers' union. For BOTH groups, kids come second to personal agendas. In order to keep power in the hands of powerful administrators, board members and their union official secret pals, school districts and the teachers union cooperate behind closed doors a lot more than most people know.

It's just too tempting for the leaders of both groups to maintain the status quo.

I agree with Lisa Berlanga that the California Teachers Union has stood in the way of meaningful teachers evaluations--but administrators and politicians are equally guilty. Lisa's organization seems to want to let the wolf replace the fox in the henhouse.

UPforED could actually do some good if it got an effective system of teacher evaluation instituted. The evaluation system would not need to put much, if any, emphasis on student test scores. But it's about time we had eyes in the classrooms, simply recording what teachers are doing.

Principals are not doing, and probably can not do, a proper job of evaluating their own teachers. They have to play politics with powerful teachers to make their schools function. Evaluations should be done by people from outside a school, or, better yet, from outside a school district. Perhaps even volunteer parents could do some of the basic information gathering on teacher performance.

Why not work for meaningful teacher evaluations, Lisa?

Is it just too easy to target the teachers union?

School Board Election Key to Turning Around San Diego Schools
Oct 18, 2012
By LISA BERLANGA
Voice of San Diego

On Nov. 7, San Diego Unified School District moves forward with three new or re-elected board members reconfiguring a board of five, beleaguered by governing questionably in the students' best interests.

In the last few years, we've seen more than our share of controversies that United Parents for Education, or UPforEd, believes served the political expediency of adults to the personal disappointment of parents, and the educational letdown of students. Let's consider just a few decisions made by five people, elected by the majority of San Diego Unified voters that leads us to question their motives.

Recently, San Diego Unified decided not to pursue $15 million dollars in funds under Race to the Top. The Obama administration put forward Race to the Top criteria and guidelines, in an effort to improve student outcomes and close the achievement gap. Yet, San Diego Unified chose not to even apply for these funds. A parent has to ask why wouldn't the district pursue another source of funding during such tight budget times?

In another confounding example, the district faced spiraling healthcare expenses in 2010 to the tune of $167 million — the biggest share of cost aside from payroll. The issue came up this year and the unions blocked hearings on proposals from competitors of the California Schools Voluntary Employees Benefits Association without even a public hearing on the matter.

The media brought the issue to light discovering that in 20 years, the district hasn't put the healthcare bid out once despite best practices suggesting soliciting new bids every three to five years.

Because of decisions like these there is not enough money left in the budget to fund teachers. So our teachers, sometimes the best and brightest, get pink-slipped each year.

Yet for all these poor fiduciary decisions, voters continue to elect school board members who maintain the status quo and put what's best for kids' achievement second, placing the full burden on parents and teachers...

Lisa Berlanga response:

Lisa B
posted at 12:10 pm on Fri, Oct 19, 2012

Just for clarification my article was referencing school board members, not the teacher's union. However, I agree with you Maura, let's create a meaningful teacher evaluation system that would provide teachers with ongoing realevant feedback, supports, mentoring and professional development. Let's design a system that actually recognizing exceptional teachers and rewards them in some way. Let's share best practices and what is working amoung all the schools. Let's give the principals the authority to create teams of teachers who work together for years on a population of student's figuring out what works best for them. UPforEd is all for that but we need parents, teachers, administrators, board members and the teacher's union to work together to accomplish this. Anyone who agrees this is a great goal for our district, join us, www.upfored.org.


Maura Larkins response:

Hi Lisa:

It sounds like UPforEd is planning to sit around waiting for "parents, teachers, administrators, board members and the teacher's union to work together" to create a teacher evaluation system.

In the meantime, you're hoping to give administrators more power.

You say, "Let's give the principals the authority..."

If you give principals more authority over teachers BEFORE you have meaningful AND INDEPENDENT teacher evaluations, then you're just supporting the current system of personal agendas and school politics.

That's not exactly the same thing as getting all stakeholders to work together, is it?

You already have about 10% of teachers who have figured out what students need. Successful teaching is not a mystery. The expertise of those teachers should be accessed instead of giving principals more power to reward their (often mediocre) teacher cronies for loyalty.

UPforEd has a huge amount of money--enough to hire you as executive director, which is pretty impressive for a new organization. I suspect that Irwin Jacobs is your major benefactor. If this is true, it should be noted when you publish an opinion piece in VOSD, which is also flourishing due to Jacobs' generosity.

Instead of trying to get rid of the board members who failed to apply for Race to the Top (which means, of course, board members who are supported by the teachers union), why not put your huge amount of cash toward designing a teacher evaluation system, and then campaigning for it?

After you make it inevitable that effective teacher evaluations will be implemented, then the "parents, teachers, administrators, board members and the teacher's union" can finalize the details.

But that's not your goal, is it? You don't want effective, unbiased teacher evaluations. You just want more arbitrary power for administrators.


MORE COMMENTS


Wiz1 posted at 11:35 am on Wed, Oct 24, 2012.

As for Up for Ed, it started in 2011


ScrippsDad posted at 1:25 pm on Wed, Oct 24, 2012.

...UPforED started well before 2011, and again, you ignore the facts and you don't bother to do the research. I'm not sure how you can lay claim to the truth when you weren't there; I was and have been throughout so folks can take what you say as an uniformed outsider...


Maura Larkins posted:

Dear Scripps Dad:

I tried to take your advice about researching the beginnings of UPforEd, but it wasn't easy. I couldn't find this information on the UPforEd website.

I looked through three pages of Google results, and the earliest date I could find connected with UPforEd was Feb. 20, 2011, the date the organization registered its domain name.

I assume that most of the people involved in UPforEd had made efforts to change schools before the organization started--but you can't predate the start of the organization to the time when some members first started making efforts for schools.

In fact, weren't most of the founders of UPforEd once organized under the name San Diegans 4 Greater Schools? And didn't they start UPforEd after SD4 garnered some bad publicity during its failed effort to pack the SDUSD board with unelected members?

Perhaps you intend to say that UPforEd and SD4 are the same organization? Is that how you justify saying that UPforEd started before 2011?

If that's the justification for your statements, then you need to come out and state that UPforEd is simply a new name for an older organization. Otherwise, it will appear that you're trying to fudge the facts.

Until you make that argument, I think Wiz1 is correct when he states that UPforEd started in 2011.



ScrippsDad posted at 4:10 pm on Thu, Oct 25, 2012

Maura - so not true about UPforED being an offshoot or newer iteration of SD4 and I can tell you that straight because I am not or ever was in agreement with SD4 and was not a participant in SD4 and I'm a founding Board member of UP4ED.



Maura Larkins posted at 10:45 am on Tue, Oct 30, 2012

Dear Scripps Dad,
Where did UPforEd get so much money so quickly? Is Irwin Jacobs a major contributor? How about Rod Dammeyer and Buzz Woolley? Were assets transferred to UPforEd from SD4GS?


ScrippsDad posted at 7:54 pm on Tue, Oct 30, 2012

Maura - keep grasping at straws. No, Irwin Jacobs is not a major, or even, minor contributor. No assets (what assets might those be anyway?) were transferred fromSD4GS.

Seems you guys will believe what you want, make up what you want to believe regardless of facts...



Maura Larkins posted

Dear Scripps Dad:

I’ll respond to your statements one at a time.

“Maura - keep grasping at straws.”

Since when is asking questions the same as “grasping at straws”? Well, I suppose it is somewhat similar when the only answers that are forthcoming are as flimsy as stalks of dried grass. For example, what does it mean when you say that something is “not so true”? It sounds that you’re saying that it’s somewhat true. I believe you when you say that you did not support SD4, but why not admit that many SD4 people joined UPforEd when SD4 shut down? Here are just a couple of them:

1. Erica Holloway, spokesperson for SD4, is now spokesperson for UPforEd.
2. David Page, a major figure in SD4 (he would have been one of a small group of people given the responsibility for choosing several board members), is a board member of UPforEd.



“No, Irwin Jacobs is not a major, or even, minor contributor.”

Did you forget to include Rod Dammeyer and Buzz Woolley in this statement? Or am I to conclude that Dammeyer and Woolley are contributors? Now that you mention it, this does feel like grasping at straws. You seem to offer answers, but when I examine them, I see that there’s really not much there.

“No assets (what assets might those be anyway?) were transferred fromSD4GS.”

I suspect you’re being disingenuous when you ask what assets I might be talking about. Surely you read the stories Emily Alpert wrote about the big donors who gave many hundreds of thousands of dollars to SD4, enabling it to hire the La Jolla Group to circulate its petition. www.voiceofsandiego.org/education/article_c0d00cae-7b15-11e0-bfd6-001cc4c03286.html Nevertheless, I’ll take your answer at face value.

“Seems you guys will believe what you want, make up what you want to believe regardless of facts.”

Well, now, Scripps Dad, that is a very personal observation. You have no justification for saying this to me. And by the way, I was surprised when the editor published your insulting comment to Wiz1 when you said that he must be a bad science teacher since he expressed views for which you have contempt. I thought that VOSD had a policy of no ad hominem attacks. I am happy to see that your comment has now been removed. But I wonder, why are you so angry? Do you feel that the privacy of UPforEd is not being respected adequately? What’s wrong with having a calm, civilized discussion about who’s who among those who are spending large amounts of money to affect San Diego schools?

"Why Elites Fail" explains why school administrators and teacher unions work together to protect their turf at the expense of students

I have seen school administrators and teacher unions working together, at the expense of students, to protect their respective turf. The following brilliant article shows why this happens and asks whether true meritocracies are actually possible.

This article is adapted from Twilight of the Elites: America After Meritocracy, © 2012 by Christopher Hayes and published by Crown Publishers, a division of Random House Inc.

Why Elites Fail
Christopher Hayes
The Nation
June 6, 2012

  In 1990, at the age of 11, I stood in a line of sixth graders outside an imposing converted armory on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, nervously anticipating a test that would change my life. I was hoping to gain entrance to Hunter College High School, a public magnet school that runs from grades seven through twelve and admits students from all five boroughs. Each year, between 3,000 and 4,000 students citywide score high enough on their fifth-grade standardized tests to qualify to take Hunter’s entrance exam in the sixth grade; ultimately, only 185 will be offered admission. (About forty-five students, all from Manhattan, test into Hunter Elementary School in the first grade and automatically gain entrance to the high school.)

I was one of the lucky ones who made it through, and my experience there transformed me. It was at Hunter that I absorbed the open-minded, self-assured cosmopolitanism that is the guiding ethos of the current American ruling class. What animates the school is a collective delight in the talent and energy of its students and a general feeling of earned superiority. In 1982 a Hunter alumnus profiled the school in a New York magazine article called “The Joyful Elite” and identified its “most singular trait” as the “exuberantly smug loyalty of its students.”

That loyalty emanates from the deeply held conviction that Hunter embodies the meritocratic ideal as much as any institution in the country. Unlike elite colleges, which use all kinds of subjective measures—recommendations, résumés, writing samples, parental legacies and interviews—in deciding who gains admittance, entrance to Hunter rests on a single “objective” measure: one three-hour test. If you clear the bar, you’re in; if not, you’re out. There are no legacy admissions, and there are no strings to pull for the well-connected. If Michael Bloomberg’s daughter took the test and didn’t pass, she wouldn’t get in. There are only a handful of institutions left in the country about which this can be said.

Because it is public and free, the school pulls kids from all over the city, many of whom are first-generation Americans, the children of immigrant strivers from Korea, Russia and Pakistan. Half the students have at least one parent born outside the United States. For all these reasons Hunter is, in its own imagination, a place where anyone with drive and brains can be catapulted from the anonymity of working-class outer-borough neighborhoods to the inner sanctum of the American elite. “I came from a family where nobody went to college. We lived up in Washington Heights. We had no money,” says Jennifer Raab, who as president of CUNY’s Hunter College oversees the high school as well. “It was incredibly empowering.” When she surveys the student body, “it gets me very sappy about the American dream. It really can come true. These kids are getting an education that is unparalleled, and it’s not about where they come from or who they are.”

But the problem with my alma mater is that over time, the mechanisms of meritocracy have broken down. In 1995, when I was a student at Hunter, the student body was 12 percent black and 6 percent Hispanic. Not coincidentally, there was no test-prep industry for the Hunter entrance exam. That’s no longer the case. Now, so-called cram schools like Elite Academy in Queens can charge thousands of dollars for after-school and weekend courses where sixth graders memorize vocabulary words and learn advanced math. Meanwhile, in the wealthier precincts of Manhattan, parents can hire $90-an-hour private tutors for one-on-one sessions with their children.

By 2009, Hunter’s demographics were radically different—just 3 percent black and 1 percent Hispanic, according to the New York Times. With the rise of a sophisticated and expensive test-preparation industry, the means of selecting entrants to Hunter has grown less independent of the social and economic hierarchies in New York at large. The pyramid of merit has come to mirror the pyramid of wealth and cultural capital.

How and why does this happen? I think the best answer comes from the work of a social theorist named Robert Michels, who was occupied with a somewhat parallel problem in the early years of the last century. Born to a wealthy German family, Michels came to adopt the radical socialist politics then sweeping through much of Europe. At first, he joined the Social Democratic Party, but he ultimately came to view it as too bureaucratic to achieve its stated aims. “Our workers’ organization has become an end in itself,” Michels declared, “a machine which is perfected for its own sake and not for the tasks which it could have performed.”

...In his classic book Political Parties, he wondered why the parties of the left, so ideologically committed to democracy and participation, were as oligarchic in their functioning as the self-consciously elitist and aristocratic parties of the right.

Michels’s grim conclusion was that it was impossible for any party, no matter its belief system, to bring about democracy in practice. Oligarchy was inevitable. For any kind of institution with a democratic base to consolidate the legitimacy it needs to exist, it must have an organization that delegates tasks. The rank and file will not have the time, energy, wherewithal or inclination to participate in the many, often minute decisions necessary to keep the institution functioning....

Read more here: Why Elites Fai.l

Low level of teacher union buy-in dooms Colorado in Race to the Top

An Early Read on the Race to Top Winners
Education Week
August 24, 2010
Posted by guest blogger Sean Cavanagh, with contributions from Sarah D. Sparks and Stephen Sawchuk.

The results are in, and the list of Race to the Top winners in Round Two includes an eclectic mix of 10 states that had put together very different kinds of applications in their funding bids for the $3.4 billion in remaining federal funds.

The winners in this second and final round announced by the U.S. Department of Education today: the District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, and Rhode Island. They join first-round winners Delaware and Tennessee.

A few common threads among the 10 victorious Round Two applicants include their promises to take bold approaches to turning around low-performing schools, and in evaluating teachers.

...Rhode Island's bid, for up to $75 million... will not allow districts to assign a student to a teacher deemed ineffective two years in a row.

Several notable finalists were left off the winner's list: California and Colorado, as well as Arizona, which had greatly improved its score from the first go-around. Colorado lawmakers had revamped their state's laws on teacher evaluation since Round One, ensuring that half of an educator's rating will be based on student performance and that ineffective teachers could be dismissed more easily.

But my colleague Stephen Sawchuk notes that Colorado's level of union buy-in dropped significantly from the first round—the reviewers didn't look favorably on that disconnect in Round One.

The education system suffers from McChrystal syndrome: the powerful don't discuss the situation as a team, but merely exploit their own power

I liked San Diego Unified Superintendent Alan Bersin in many ways. He really wanted to fix schools. He didn't suffer fools gladly (and there are a lot of fools to deal with in the education field, as in every other field, I imagine). But like recently-fired General Stanley McChrystal, Bersin didn't understand the situation on the ground. Specifically, he didn't understand the power of the teachers union.

Bersin and McChrystal sabotaged their own war plans. Schools today are not unlike Afghanistan:

1. No one has genuine control;
2. Political corruption is rampant in school boards, administrations and the teachers union;
3. Winning the hearts and minds of the population is necessary--including teachers, students and parents.

What should Bersin have done instead of wielding raw power? The same thing McChrystal should have done: sit down and work with the team. One thing that happens very little in schools is serious, respectful discussions within and among different parts of the team. Gossip doesn't count; if it did, schools would be flourishing. A really radical change would be to create a corps of master teachers who aren't merely trained, but truly educated. Hopefully, administrators would come from the ranks of the best teachers. Today, many teachers move to administration because they aren't successful in the classroom.


On the Media: What McChrystal failed to understand
Michael Hastings, writing for Rolling Stone, was unlike other journalists who'd had access to Gen. Stanley McChrystal. For one, the skeptical, hardheaded Hastings was a kindred spirit.
June 26, 2010
James Rainey
Los Angeles Times

What would Gen. Stanley McChrystal and the hardened commanders on his staff have to fear from a bearded, pointy-headed reporter from a rock 'n' roll magazine?

The general and his aides had faced down terrorists and the enemies of America. They had welcomed into their midst journalists from top news outlets. The result had been stories that mostly made the men running the war in Afghanistan look like a bunch of can-do warriors.
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But Team McChrystal and its leader met their downfall this week because they failed to recognize, as soldiers like to say, that the opponent, and the situation on the ground, had changed.

Since the last time McChrystal and his men popped off to gain political advantage, the president of the United Stated had made it abundantly clear he wanted more team play. Sensitivity about the war had increased, as the U.S. deployment and casualties climbed.

Most important, the Rolling Stone reporter they invited in to write a profile, Michael Hastings, didn't have to tussle with the competing priorities of the mainstream beat reporters who had come before him. If McChrystal and his men had thought it through, they might have realized that Hastings was in for just one hit. Hastings didn't need to play nice in hopes of getting access to McChrystal down the road. The piece, as a result, was no-holds-barred.

Merely by reading his online bio they would have learned that this journalist they invited into their inner sanctum was something more than the "dirty Rolling Stone hippie" who Jon Stewart suggested had such an easy path to outdoing the dunderheaded mainstream media.

Hastings, 30, had already covered America's wars for five years. He had made plain his skepticism about the chances of victory in Afghanistan. He had boldly written about the death of his fiancée in an ambush in Iraq, turning aside critiques from some journalists that he was too ready to dissect a personal tragedy.

In one Web posting, the Vermont native and NYU grad wrote of his admiration for "writers who live their lives with integrity and without compromise." By phone from Kabul Thursday, Hastings said that in some ways he admired the renegade McChrystal. Recalling the darkly evocative fiction that McChrystal wrote as a West Point cadet (including one story in which the protagonist assassinates the president), Hastings commented: "His attitude was, like, [stick it to] 'The Man.' And those sorts of attitudes exist in me, on a certain level."...

Mine blast: Coal Boss Don Blankenship got $33 million but ignored safety in West Virgina mine where 25 killed

My question: were these workers represented by a union? It seems not. This is exactly the kind of work that cries out for unionization.

Coal Boss Don Blankenship Cast as Cavalier About Worker Safety in Lawsuits
Investors Also Critical of Massey CEO's 'Extravagant' Pay, Perks
By MATTHEW MOSK and ASA ESLOCKER
Apr. 8, 2010

As more details continue to surface about the checkered safety record of the Massey Energy coal mine where 25 workers perished Monday, the lavish lifestyle and allegedly cavalier attitude of the company's controversial chief executive, as described in lawsuits and corporate documents, are now coming under intensifying scrutiny.

Coal Boss Don Blankenship: If you take photos, "you're liable to get shot."

One miner who worked in Massey mines most of his 25-year career said working for CEO Don Blankenship was "like living under a hammer. It's all about the bottom line, we all know that." The miner, who would only agree to speak with an ABC News reporter if his name was not used, said Blankenship believes in "stretching the men to the limit … they want every ounce out of the men that they can get."

The public record describing Blankenship's bottom-line approach is long, much of it laid out in a series of investor lawsuits filed against Blankenship and his company, and in SEC documents submitted by a Wall Street investment house that made a failed bid to take control of Massey Energy four years ago. In these records, Blankenship was repeatedly criticized for both his approach to safety, and for what one investor called his "extravagant" package of pay and perks.

In just one year – 2005 -- Blankenship was paid $33.7 million in compensation, according to a 2008 lawsuit...



In Mine Safety, a Meek Watchdog
By MICHAEL COOPER, GARDINER HARRIS and ERIC LIPTON
New York Times
April 10, 2010

The Mine Safety and Health Administration was created almost 35 years ago, after deadly explosions at a Kentucky mine, with a mission to conduct more inspections of the nation’s mines and enforce safety standards more strictly. It was strengthened four years ago, after more disasters.

But it remains fundamentally weak in several areas, and it does not always use the powers it has.

The agency can seek to close mines that it deems unsafe and to close repeat offenders, but it rarely does so. The fines it levies are relatively small, and many go uncollected for years. It lacks subpoena power, a basic investigatory tool. Its investigators are not technically law enforcement officers, like those at other agencies, including the Food and Drug Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency.

And its criminal sanctions are weak, a result of compromises over the 1977 Mine Act that created the agency. Falsifying records is a felony, for example, while deliberate violations of safety standards that may lead to deaths are misdemeanors...




West Virginia disaster: Will Congress take on coal mining companies?
Mining companies have been slow to adopt new safety requirements. Critics say the West Virginia disaster shows that Congress needs to step in. The industry says it needs clearer guidance.
By Mark Guarino, Staff writer
Christian Science Monitor
April 7, 2010
Chicago

The deaths of 25 coal miners in West Virginia Monday in what is considered the worst mining accident in a quarter century is raising questions about whether a congressional overhaul of mine safety four years ago went far enough.

The Mine Improvement and New Emergency Response (MINER) Act, passed in 2006 in response to a disaster in Sago, W.V., that killed 13 miners, was intended to improve miner safety by mandating the installation of preventive and emergency technologies.

But Massey Energy Company, the company that owns the Upper Big Branch South Mine in Whitesville, W.V., where Monday’s accident happened, has been leveled numerous fines for environmental and safety violations in recent years.

Moreover, only 14 percent of mines have complied with MINER Act requirements to install improved communications systems.

This suggests that the MINER Act is not thorough enough in leveling consequences for mining companies or for establishing a timeline for coming to compliance, say several experts. The result is that the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) – the federal agency charged with monitoring coal companies and making them comply with safety standards – essentially has its hands tied.

“The record of [the Massey mine] is problematic, and it may be the [MINER Act] needs an additional amendment...




No signs of life heard in West Virginia mine
Jon Hurdle
Reuters
Wed Apr 7, 2010

MONTCOAL, West Virginia (Reuters) - Drills broke through into a stricken West Virginia mine early on Wednesday but rescuers detected no sign of the four miners missing since an explosion killed 25 people in a major U.S. mine disaster.

The rescue teams banged on pipes at Massey Energy's Upper Big Branch Mine in Montcoal, West Virginia, but heard no response from the men, Governor Joe Manchin told reporters.

Hopes were dimming that the men would be found alive after Monday's blast, the largest U.S. mine accident since 1984.

...Questions have been raised by experts and observers about Massey's safety record and the laws governing the mining industry. Mining has always been dangerous, but 2009 was the safest ever for U.S. miners, with 34 deaths, according to federal data, 18 fewer than 2008.

Massey's accident rate fell to an all-time low in 2009, the sixth consecutive year its safety record was stronger than the industry average, the company said on its website.

But Upper Big Branch Mine has had three fatalities since 1998 and has a worse-than-average injury rate over the last 10 years, according to federal records. Ellen Smith, editor of Mine Safety and Health News, said the mine has been repeatedly cited for safety violations.

"Maintenance of standards" has caused problems but sometimes helps smooth changes

How a Controversial Rule Played Out in Other Schools
By EMILY ALPERT
Voice of San Diego
Wednesday, Oct. 14, 2009

As bargaining grinds on between San Diego Unified and its teachers union over its expired contract, a public debate has erupted over a few paragraphs of legalese.

Teachers and their union say a new proposal will help kids by preventing teachers from being overloaded with new duties. Opponents say it will allow the union to veto any changes to what teachers do -- even small ones -- by enshrining all existing practices in the contract. It has pitted the principals union against the teachers union, divided and perplexed parents.

Yet both its backers and its critics point out that the proposal, known as "maintenance of standards," is nothing new...

...In New York State, a similar rule has sometimes been frustrating for Assistant Superintendent Cora Stempel at the Hyde Park Central School District. For instance, the union invoked it when counselors switched from paper forms to an electronic system to change students' classes, contending that it was new work, Stempel said. It hasn't halted change in the school district, but it has made it more difficult.

Hyde Park now gives the union two weeks' notice before making significant changes, which often allows them to work out any problems in advance and avoid grievances. Even if a grievance was filed, Stempel said that wouldn't necessarily stop schools from making changes, unless the union ultimately wins and forces them to reverse it. But it may slow down or alter its plans.

If the union balks completely, it can sway the school district to hold off on an idea to avoid grievances that the union might win. The threat of a grievance -- and the desire to avoid it -- can steer their decision.

"It's just good practice to work towards consensus anyway," she said. "But there are times that there are things I'd like to do, and I should be able to make that decision. It's sometimes a struggle."

One of the largest school districts with such a policy is Jefferson County Public Schools, a Colorado system with more than 80,000 students. Union leaders said they used it to push the school district to discuss -- not bargain -- changes to the date teachers were paid. Robert Archibold, Jefferson's executive director of employee relations, said it hadn't been a problem for them because few issues weren't covered by their contract, which is highly specific. No new programs had been blocked, he said.

Still, "it puts the brake on the district just going around changing things without having a conversation with us," said Lisa Elliott, the union's executive director. She might invoke it to challenge whether the district can immediately change how it handles pay errors. "But it's only related to working conditions and pay. It's not saying, 'You can't get a new set of textbooks.'"

Some of the worst clashes over the rule are documented in Wisconsin. The Salem Joint School District tried to remove a similar rule while bargaining with teachers in 1992, complaining that the union had objected to schools encouraging teachers to help at a lunchtime salad bar and requiring teachers to make their own photocopies. It stated that six grievances were filed based on the clause in a single year, compared to just one that had gone as far as a hearing in earlier years...