For everyone out there, how much do you know about what is going on in our unicameral? Because here in our lovely state of Nebraska, there is a lot that is going on. Especially with education.

Nebraska is unique, in that we still have collective bargaining open for our educators to use. What is collective bargaining? Well, it's a negotiation over wages and other conditions of employment that is usually done by an organized body of employees. Nebraska is one of the states that still has this in effect for our public-sector workers. Unfortunately, Iowa lost theirs within the last year. This may not seem very important, but it's how the public workers have been able to bargain for their wages, their benefits and everything else to do with their contracts.

I'm bringing this up right away because I want to make it widely known. We don't want to lose this tool, especially not now when there appear to be a lot of changes on the way.

Changes such as the LB595 and the LB415. But what are these?

The LB595 is about corporal punishments in the school. Sound familiar at all? I know I saw a couple things about this bill on Facebook and in other media. This is revolving around giving teachers the right to use physical force or restraint to break up a fight. Such as pulling a student away by putting an arm against one student's chest while putting a hand up in the other student's face, or by grabbing a bat and using that. The bat is an example I was given, and is a good one to use. This bill in no way would help any situation, and it doesn't set down what a teacher can and cannot do, basically giving them no limitations in breaking up a fight. The teacher would also not be held liable to any legal action, and whatever they do would not be considered corporal punishment. How is this in any way a good bill to have? What is this going to teach kids?

The other bill, LB415, has to do with a teacher's retirement and the rule of 85. They want to change the age of retirement for teachers from 55 to 60, and also change some of the benefits and provisions that are given. Now this is a tricky topic, I believe, especially since there are so many views. I actually had the opportunity to speak to District 33's senator and he appears to be in favor of the bill. Why? Double-dipping. A teacher or administrator can retire from one district, such as from the Hastings Public School system, and can enter into a new pension program in another district, such as Lincoln, as long as they wait 180 days to do so. After speaking with a member of SEAN, this double-dipping happens more often in the administrative portion of education. I guess when a teacher has been teaching for thirty plus years decides to retire, they're really going to be retired. I do see retired teacher's sub, but that is entirely different from what I'm talking about. With the double-dipping, they are actually taking up full-time positions within the new administration or as a new teacher in that district.

I'm seeing it a little differently. When teachers retire that usually opens up spots for newer teachers who start out at a lower pay, so that means the school will be saving up money for a couple years. I also think that with new teachers comes newer teaching styles, and more contemporary styles of teaching that will help kids as well as the system grow.

Another bill, LB337, is one that would seriously cut the system down. Now, what does this one do? It's going to mess with taxes by cutting the income tax rate which would give the rich Nebraskans a ridiculous tax break while the middle income class would see a raise of about $39/year in their taxes and the poor wouldn't get any tax relief at all. I've read that there might be an increase to property taxes. Excuse me? What is that? The biggest thing is that if this somehow makes it through, it's going to cut $300 million from the state budget! You know what happens when the state budget is cut? Critical services, such as public education, get the hit when the local governments have to pick off the tab in order to do something else that may or may not be important. Bills similar to this were passed in Kansas and Oklahoma, only to lead to a lot of problems within their school systems.

I don't know about you, but I definitely do not want that for the Nebraska school system.

After reading about these, only three of the many education bills being discussed, what are your thoughts? Do you oppose or support any of these bills? I know that so far, I'm leaning towards being a big opposer of at least two of them. Let's support our Nebraska educators and future educators by making sure more people know about what is going on, and maybe we can stop the bad ones from going through.