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I never thought that I would see the day when our Washington Teachers’ Union would support a proposed contract that seeks to eliminate the due process rights of teachers. But our proposed contract is full of dangerous pitfalls ahead.
Namely, the red tier — which has been sold as the “safe” tier — takes away teachers’ seniority rights. The green tier strips permanent teachers of tenure. New teachers will be forced into a four-year probationary period, and raises and bonuses are based on 100 percent private funding.
Failure to vote for this contract, D.C. Chancellor Michelle Rhee states, and teachers will receive no cost-of-living raises.
No credible school system seeks to maintain and attract a cadre of career professionals using these draconian methods. DCPS teachers should vote “No” on this contract and support going to impasse in the name of fair and collective bargaining.
Member, Board of Trustees
Washington Teachers’ Union Board
Police chief should listen to constructive criticism
Re: “D.C. police among most professional in the nation,” from readers, July 25
Like a good football team, a good police department requires a balance between defense and offense. To achieve that balance — whether one is playing football or protecting the citizens of the District of Columbia — there is always room for improvement. In addition, there will always be constructive criticism about the areas that need to be improved because no system is perfect.
Once we fail to acknowledge constructive criticism, we have failed to perform our responsibilities to the best of our ability because we have become complacent and satisfied with our level of performance and do not have a plan to fix anything.
I agree with columnist Harry Jaffe that the quality of policing is down in the Metropolitan Police Department, especially in Northeast D.C., where seven people were murdered over a period of three days. I am disappointed with Chief Cathy Lanier’s response because she failed to show the percentage of cases in Northeast that have been closed.
Cargill Kelly
Building more roads makes no sense
Re: “Let’s use tolls to finance roads,” editorial, July 24
Your editorial got it about half right. Tolls can raise the funds needed to pay for transportation infrastructure and can help to manage congestion. But the predicted increase in demand for roads over transit is unlikely to occur.
The recent run-up in oil prices isn’t a fluke. It reflects our inability to increase supply as more oil fields enter decline each year. We need to bring 3 million barrels per day of new supply into the marketplace each year just to offset the amount of production that is lost each year to depletion, but world oil production hasn’t increased since 2005. Of the 98 nations that produce oil, 64 are thought to be past their peak production.
America’s peak was in 1970. Many oil experts believe we will soon leave this plateau and production of finite oil supplies will enter decline. The only debate is over the timing.
It makes no sense to build more roads when peak oil is at hand. But we do have a pressing need to build more transit that can meet our mobility needs with less energy use. We should implement tolls and then use the funds to build transit.
Hope Chinese security isn’t what it used to be
Since we are hearing so much about security for the Olympics, I am reminded of my experience with Chinese security. Several years ago, I flew from Moscow to Beijing. We were over Siberia all night in an old Air China plane I think was held together with duct tape. When we arrived in Beijing, the airport was crammed full of people. I had previously heard that Chinese officials were conducting very thorough checks of their visitors.
I was standing in the crowd when a Chinese man came up to me, stared me straight in the eye, then dropped his eyes to my two suitcases as though asking if they were mine. I nodded “yes.” With a shrug, he picked up both suitcases and told me to follow him out of a side door to his taxicab.
With no further ado, he drove me to my hotel.
When it came time for me to leave China, I was really scared. After all, there was no stamp or anything in my passport to show that I had ever entered the country.
As I was ready to depart, the customs officers paid absolutely no attention to my passport and just waved me on to the airplane. Do you suppose that cab driver was a brother-in-law of the chief of customs?
U.S. Secret Service (retired)
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