TEACHER DRUG TESTS: WASTE OF TIME

I'm a terrible procrastinator, particularly when it comes to doing
things that a) bore me, b) constitute a meaningless exercise, or c)
insult me. The latter two, by the way, often do both at the same
time. Rather than do them I hope that, if I ignore them, they'll just go away.

Too often, however, the boring, the meaningless and the insulting
have staying power beyond belief. Thus it is with the provision in
the 2007 contract between the Hawaii State Teachers' Association and
the state in which teachers agreed to random drug-testing.

You'll remember, no doubt, that a year ago 60 percent of Hawaii's
teachers, starved for a raise, voted to ratify a contract with the
state that included a provision for random drug testing of teachers.

Bribing the teachers to agree with random drug testing was a piece of
blatant political pandering and fear-mongering on the state's part.
It was silly at best - thuggish at worst. It seemed so distasteful to
me, so insulting to Hawaii's teachers, that I blotted it from my memory.

Well, it's back. Last week, the state's chief negotiator, Marie
Laderta - after a meeting with Gov. Linda Lingle - reminded me with
the following statement: "We fully expect the Hawaii State Teachers'
Association will live up to the agreement between HSTA and the State
of Hawaii Board of Education which was signed in good faith on June 25, 2007.

"The agreement included 'reasonable suspicion and random drug and
alcohol testing procedures applicable to all Bargaining Unit 5
employees that are intended to keep the workplace free from the
hazards of alcohol and controlled substances'and 'implement such plan
no later than June 30, 2008.'

"Despite consistent verbal assurances by Department of Education that
random drug and alcohol testing would move forward as agreed, we now
find out at the end of business on the deadline date of June 30,
2008, implementation has not occurred."

Then this ominous final warning from chief negotiator Laderta:
"Accordingly, we are prepared to immediately seek all appropriate
remedies at our disposal."

Our good governor went beyond ominous; she accused the leadership of
the Board of Education of seeking to renegotiate the contract's
random drug testing clause. She was quoted as saying: "They came in
at the 11th hour after everything had been agreed upon ... and said
we want to change the whole scheme here. It was just not right. What
they wanted to do really was just avoid random drug testing."

Wouldn't you? The Board of Education, the administrators in the
Department of Education and the 13,500 DOE employees in our public
schools have important, expensive work to do: like teaching the
children readin', writin' and 'rithmetic - in preparation for the
state's tests and the fed's many, many (often punitive) tests.