Tennesseans don't like tenure, split on unions on The Murfreesboro Post

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Tennesseans don't like tenure, split on unions

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Posted: Wednesday, March 2, 2011 10:55 am

Tennesseans take a dim view of teacher tenure but show no consensus on whether to do away with collective bargaining power for teacher unions, the latest MTSU Poll finds.

Fifty-four percent of state residents choose the statement, “Tenure makes it hard to get rid of bad teachers” as most representative of their viewpoint, while 29 percent choose the alternative statement, “Tenure protects good teachers from being fired without just cause” as most indicative of what they think. Sixteen percent say they don’t know, and the rest decline to answer.

Meanwhile, 37 percent of Tennesseans favor “eliminating the ability of teacher unions in Tennessee to negotiate with local boards of education about teacher salaries, benefits and other employment issues.” But a statistically equivalent 41 percent oppose such a move, and a substantial 22 percent are undecided.

“Compared to public opinion about teacher tenure, public opinion about collective bargaining for teacher unions seem to be still taking shape in Tennessee,” said Dr. Ken Blake, director of the MTSU Poll. “The people most likely to have any opinion at all on the collective bargaining issue are also, based on other measures in the poll, the ones most likely to be politically active and politically knowledgeable. They probably are creating a framework for the debate and soon will start contending with each other for the support of those who are undecided.”

Conducted Feb. 14 – 26, by Middle Tennessee State University’s College of Mass Communication, the telephone poll of 589 Tennessee adults chosen at random from across the state has an error margin of plus or minus four percentage points at the 95 percent level of confidence. Full results are available on the poll’s website, www.mtsusurveygroup.org.

The poll also finds President Obama currently trailing whoever the Republican 2012 presidential nominee might be.

Thirty-one percent of Tennesseans say they would vote for Obama if the election were held today, but a 48 percent plurality say they would vote instead for “his Republican opponent.”

14 percent say that they don’t know who they would vote for at this time, and 6 percent volunteer that they would vote for neither candidate.

The downward slide in Obama’s approval rating among Tennesseans seems to have leveled off though, according to Dr. Jason Reineke, associate director of the MTSU Poll.

“The president’s approval rating stands at 39 percent in Tennessee, a possible uptick from his 35 percent approval rating in our Fall 2010 poll,” Reineke said. “But, of course, he’s still down quite a bit compared to his 53 percent approval rating in the Spring 2009 MTSU Poll.”

In other findings, three in four Tennesseans considers illegal immigration a “somewhat” or “very” serious problem, and a 42 percent plurality describe as “about right” the new Arizona immigration law’s requirement that police making a stop, detention, or arrest must attempt to determine the person’s immigration status if police suspect the person is not lawfully present in the country. Another 25 percent say such a law “doesn’t go far enough,” and 28 percent say it “goes too far.”

Additionally, 55 percent characterize as “about right” the Arizona law’s requirement that people produce documents proving their immigration status if asked by police.

Twenty-three percent say that aspect of the law doesn’t go far enough, and 17 percent say it goes too far. Meanwhile, closing the Tennessee’s projected budget gap could prove politically difficult for state lawmakers.

A 52-percent majority of state residents think dealing with the budget gap will require either cutting important services (16 percent), raising state taxes (6 percent) or both (30 percent).

Despite these attitudes, though, Tennesseans show little support for cuts to any of five of the state’s largest general fund budget categories. Only 25 percent of state residents favor cuts to TennCare, 14 percent favor cuts to K-12 education, 24 percent favor cuts to higher education, and 17 percent favor cuts to children’s services. Cuts to a fifth major budget category, prisons and correctional facilities, drew the most support (44 percent), but the figure is still well below a majority.

Asked about gun regulation, Tennesseans divide essentially evenly on whether laws governing the sale of guns should be kept at their current levels (43 percent) or made more strict (41 percent).

Similarly, 45 percent of Tennesseans say they would support a nationwide law banning the sale of high-capacity ammunition clips, defined in the poll question as those that hold more than 10 bullets. But a statistically equivalent 42 percent say they would oppose such a law.

In still other poll findings:

• Sixty-nine percent of Tennesseans favor letting food stores sell wine.
• A 50 percent plurality think Congress should repeal the health care law.
• Support remains high for the religious rights of Muslims.
• Tennesseans think neither President Obama nor Congressional Republicans are doing enough to cooperate with each other.
• More Tennesseans approve than disapprove of new governor, legislature, but many are undecided.

For over a decade, the Survey Group at MTSU has been providing independent, non-partisan and unbiased public opinion data regarding major social, political, and ethical issues affecting Tennessee.

The poll began in 1998 as a measure of public opinion in the 39 counties comprising Middle Tennessee and began measuring public opinion statewide in 2001. Learn more and view the full report at www.mtsusurveygroup.org.

Tagged under Barack Obama, Health Care, Islam, MTSU, Poll, State

Member Opinions:

By: Brittanicus on 3/2/11
STOP COMPLAINING. SPEAK UP,

How many of us are disturbed about illegal immigration and the taxes taken from taxpayers to support their health care, education and other welfare programs are fully aware more could be done to stop this travesty? Firstly--building the real--Double layer border fence, as originated by Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) and signed into law as the 2006 Secure Fence Act. The Secure Fence Act of 2006’s goal is to help secure America’s borders to decrease illegal entry, drug trafficking, and security threats by building 700 mile physical barrier as a deterrents complete with concertina razor wire. However, soon after the Democrats and some Republicans cut funding, so it remained one-single-fence. It’s residue a misnomer because it's never been completed. Lobbyists for corporate welfare, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Carnegie, Ford Foundation and a whole range of radical ethnocentrism groups, along with the ACLU (My title The American Communist Lawyers Union) and a whole mob of pro-illegal alien, anti-sovereignty organization purchased our lawmakers.

Instead we should deploying the National Guard on the border, US federal troops or even recruiting an extra 5000 US Border Patrol agents; it would restrict illegal entry. But Decades of neglect, lack of concern of the legislators playing into the hands of lobbyists for campaign contribution have left America open to the invasion, and ordinary citizens legal residents open to attack by terrorists. For Americans who believe in the "Rule of Law" it is past time, to rescind laws based on "Political Correctness" before it ends in a massacre like the 9/11Trade Center mass murders. We need to permanently implement E-Verify as it is essential of removing illegal workers from being hired by employers. The General Accounting Office offered a thorough analysis of the E-Verify program, with numerous hints as to what employers may view from this program in the future.

The GAO describes a Driver’s License pilot program that is on the ongoing agenda early this year. The program is seeking to incorporate Driver’s License data into E-Verify, which could be used to substantiate the license number and expiration date when presented in a B listing on the I-9 employment verification document to identify irregularities. However, "State privacy laws (being politically correct again) may interfere with an expansion of this program. This report indicates that the pilot program does—NOT-- integrate the use of photographs, so as for now it seems unlikely that E-verify photo-matching will expand to include driver’s licenses, unless US citizens demand it. The report also describes plans to allow persons to “lock” their Social Security number within E-Verify in an effort to reduce ID fraud. Now patriotic Americans who have not been mentally programmed by Liberal Progressives should contact their Representative in Washington at 202-224-3121 or at State level.

Demand a mandatory E-Verify workers verification program for present workers and new employment using nationwide driver’s licenses. You have so much power with your vote and should use it as leverage, to entice Politicians to fully fund and execute E-Verify, fully. No more voluntary use and should carry penalties of second offense of imprisonment for 5 to 10 years. With first offense by an employer, fines of $25.000 dollars should be imposed and no excuses. REMEMBER THEY ARE STEALING YOUR JOBS. The relatively new secure communities should be federally installed, so every jail or prison can distinguish previous convicted, re-entry illegal aliens and turned over to ICE. The fingerprints of everyone arrested and booked are not only checked against FBI criminal history data-bases, but they are also checked against DHS (Dept of Homeland Security) immigration records. If fingerprints match DHS records, ICE determines if immigration enforcement action is required, taking into consideration the immigration status of the alien, In my book everybody who knowingly enters the United States without permission, should be classed as a felon, not some minor civic infraction. If America doesn't do something soon, we will be a nation of uneducated, low income poor from foreign countries. After all--we have our own poverty stricken population, to rise up to a living wage.

ICE reported that as of September 30, 2010, 4,204, 862 fingerprint submissions resulted in 343,829 database matches. As a result of Secure Communities, ICE (Immigration and Customs Service) had removed 64,072 persons. These are very frightening numbers of the types of people entering America, with Americans as victims. Isn't the Oath of Allegiance specify, specifically for our politicians to defend the United States from both domestic and foreign enemies? Secure Communities should be mandatory, with no opting out?

The United States is under tremendous financial strain from catering to corporate employers, farmers and agricultural industry. Americans are failing to witness they are paying immeasurable amount of dollars. Last estimate at just the federal level was 113 billion dollars a year, which could go towards paying a massive debt to Communist China. Another 60 billion dollars is transferred by illegal nationals on average of leaving the country to foreign banks. That 1 dollar paid in federal and State taxes by foreign nationals, receives a return in fraudulent tax rebates and other. The future holds massive irreversible overpopulation, eroding infrastructure and federal payouts for education of the offspring of illegal alien workers, known as the 14th Amendment provision. The birthright citizenship for babies may not be amended by the Supreme Court, but the parents can be deported.

They owe allegiance to another nation and should not be given any preferences; no pardons. Hospitals, schools and other entities should have a right, to report data how many foreign children are currently in the education system and applying for US birth Certificates as birthright babies. It's unfeasible not to pass on the multitude of information about the expenditures for free health care, education and the corruption and collusion in Washington regarding illegal immigration. Your Questions and answers can be found at NumbersUSA and Judicial Watch. The alarm should go out to every State, which simply remains unresponsive to its legal population and not following the example of Arizona as a foremost policing State. That illegal immigrant in the State of Arizona are leaving in large numbers, looking for another State to settle down and begin applying for food stamps, Medicaid and all freebies to soak your municipal and state treasuries.We reserve the right to halt another amnesty, the Dream Act (another amnesty) Sanctuary Cities and reduce and stop to a trickle any more immigration.

By: Sprtman on 3/3/11
A teacher never needs protection from being fired without just cause. It's just an illegitmate excuse to have tenure.

By: Sprtman on 3/3/11
You as newspaper have failed to inform the uninformed about these horrible evil teacher unions.

By: publius on 3/3/11
Teachers do need protection as do all public employees, their ultimate bosses are politicians whose opinions and actions are often easily purchased

By: SocEtTuem on 3/7/11
Teachers do need protection as do all public employees, their ultimate bosses are politicians whose opinions and actions are often easily purchased - By Unions!

By: nd88 on 3/7/11
Actually, teachers DO need protection from being fired without just cause. Happens all the time, whether you choose to believe it or not.

By: publius on 3/8/11
Unions are not the only entities that "donate" (wink wink) to politicians. The chamber of commerce, Banks, Insurance co's, oil co's to name a few. After the last few years we have all seen how the banks, insurance, and oil companies, have had our best interest at heart.(wink wink) public employees need the protection of a union. Collective bargaining is not evil, it is what gave us 40 hour work week, paid sick and vacation time, and pensions. None of these things are evil, if communities enter in to a bargain that they can not cover then how is this the fault of the union.
I am not suggesting that unions are always right and do not over step their bounds, but they are not the cause of our problems.