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The pretty blue and white yard sign in the teacher’s yard said:
Senator Vinehout
Stand up for parent involvement in schools
Stop Blocking AB 116
The message really isn’t very clear but sounds as though I am getting in the
way of parents and teachers working together.
The message is totally wrong.
What is more interesting, however, is the yard sign serves an example of
what is known in Madison as relationship management - a nice term for trying
to whip a legislator into line when she doesn’t do what a lobbyist wants. It
is part of the Madison culture that needs to be changed.
In this case it was the lobbyist for the Wisconsin Education Association
Council who, when I told him I wouldn’t vote for his bill, contacted all the
teachers in the district to lobby me and put up yard signs. That’s perfectly
fair. Members of all kinds of organizations and with all kinds of interests
contact me every day in very positive ways.
Occasionally, however, the intent is punitive and coercive. When this
happens, the message from the lobbyist back to the members in the district,
to motivate them to contact me, is usually incomplete and often misleading.
The bill that caused the yard signs to sprout is a good example. It would
allow parents to use the Family Medical Leave Act to take time off from work
to attend a parent/teacher conference or other school activity. My first
question was: what is there about a parent/teacher conference that requires
a medical leave? There was no good answer.
I wanted to know what the problem was that needed to be solved by the
proposed law. Again, there was no good answer. Nobody had numbers to show
there is a problem getting parents to attend parent/teacher conferences and
there was certainly nothing to indicate that giving a parent a few hours of
medical leave would motivate them to go to such a conference. It began to
look like a solution looking for a problem.
Wisconsin’s Family Medical Leave Act was passed years ago to keep employees
from being laid off or fired when they took time off for their own or family
member’s serious illness or the birth of a baby. The law is more generous
than the federal Medical Leave Act and has served Wisconsin well.
Expanding it to cover other situations presents problems as I found out two
yeas ago when I tried to include immediate family members helping their
soldiers prepare for deployment.
I researched how other states deal with employees who need time off to
attend school activities. In California, parent/teacher conferences are
included under the employee relations law. Companies can’t discriminate
against an employee who uses existing time off for school activities. That
sounded like a good solution to me, but the WEAC lobbyist insisted the
Medical Leave Act had to be changed - nothing else was acceptable. At that
point he started relationship management.
In four years no teacher or administrator ever mentioned any problem with
getting parents to parent/teacher conferences. Teachers I talked to, when I
described the proposed law, wonder why it is being proposed. One went on to
describe their state lobbyist as heavy handed with the attitude of “it’s my
way or the highway”.
Lobbyists, like others in Madison who play the insider’s game, often lose
touch with the members of the organizations for which they work. While
teachers and administrators are struggling with tight budgets, program cuts
and teacher layoffs, the WEAC lobbyist is wasting time raising the pressure
to change the Family Medical Leave Act to include parent/teacher
conferences.
I am reminded of Helen Reddy’s old song, “That ain’t no way to treat a lady
- no way. But maybe it’s a way for us to end.”
That is the problem with trying to “manage” a relationship. It can get
managed to death.
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