Recalibrating Professional Development for Teacher Success | ||
| This event is scheduled for Tuesday, April 12, 3 p.m. to 4 p.m. EDT. With school systems under pressure to boost achievement and improve human capital management, today’s education leaders recognize that effective teacher staff development is more important than ever. Yet teacher learning programs in many schools and districts remain disjointed and unfocused. In this webinar, we will explore how schools can create greater coherence in professional development programs—and in turn make teachers more successful—by aligning learning activities with clear objectives for teacher growth and by leveraging available research on instructional effectiveness. The presentation will also highlight ways in which interactive technology can be used to deliver and manage professional development. |
Monday, April 4, 2011
Recalibrating for Teacher Success - a Webinar
Click on Headline for details:
TODAY: Warner hosts charter schools discussion
| |||
03/30/2011 UTL Spring Forum on Urban Education—"Urban Charter Schools: Perspectives from the Inside" Monday, April 4, 2011 5 to 6:45 p.m. University of Rochester's River Campus Dewey Hall 1-101 Public debates over the role of charter schools in urban educational reform often provide cursory depictions of life within these institutions. This forum will examine the opportunities and challenges encountered by charter schools from the perspectives of educators, parents, and students who work at or attend local charters. By centering these insider perspectives, this forum will provide a unique opportunity to explore what urban educational stakeholders can learn from the urban charter school experience. The event is free and open to the public. Seating is limited. The event is sponsored by the Urban Teaching and Leadership (UTL) Program at the Warner School of Education. For more information, please ccontact Ed Brockenbrough at 585.275.5053 or ebrock@warner.rochester.edu. | |||
Messsage from Wisconsin
Click the headline
Tease:
As one of the 14 State Senators who left the state to delay action on Scott Walker’s attack on worker’s rights, I thought nothing could surprise me. Then last Friday, just after speaking to 200 neighbors at a rally, we got more stunning news. Showing a dangerous disregard for the rule of law, the Walker Administration announced that it is ignoring a court restraining order and enacting the budget repair bill.
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CJE Webmaster
Tease:
Dear TrueMajority Member,
|
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CJE Webmaster
Lets start a learning revolution
 | Let's Start a Learning Revolution http://vimeo.com/skillshare/ About this video: "Skillshare is a community to learn anything from anyone: http://skillshare.com Written & Produced by The Cultivated Word: http://thecultivatedword.com" |
Forward this email to your friends and family so that they can see it, too.
The Cult of KIPP
This research verifies many of the oft-heard criticisms of KIPP.
Copy then paste into your browser
https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0BxuSJ1Du__zuZGM0ZTUzNzAtNGYwZi00ZWRmLTk3ZDItZjBkMzRhMGVlOWJh&hl=en
Copy then paste into your browser
https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0BxuSJ1Du__zuZGM0ZTUzNzAtNGYwZi00ZWRmLTk3ZDItZjBkMzRhMGVlOWJh&hl=en
The Story of Rhee (hehe)
“Rhee the Reformer: A Cautionary Tale”
APRIL 1, 2011
by Sabrina
A ton of smart people have already written a lot of smart critiques of “Erase to the Top”– otherwise known as the unfolding story about testing “irregularities” in the DC Public Schools under then-chancellor Michelle Rhee. (RheeFirst has a collection of all the coverage here.) So I won’t do a whole big prose-y deal today– it’s been done.
However, as far as I can tell, I am the first to tell this story in the style of Dr. Seuss. Enjoy
http://failingschools.wordpress.com/2011/04/01/rhee-the-reformer-a-cautionary-tale/
APRIL 1, 2011
by Sabrina
A ton of smart people have already written a lot of smart critiques of “Erase to the Top”– otherwise known as the unfolding story about testing “irregularities” in the DC Public Schools under then-chancellor Michelle Rhee. (RheeFirst has a collection of all the coverage here.) So I won’t do a whole big prose-y deal today– it’s been done.
However, as far as I can tell, I am the first to tell this story in the style of Dr. Seuss. Enjoy
http://failingschools.wordpress.com/2011/04/01/rhee-the-reformer-a-cautionary-tale/
Clergy, Community, and Labor March on April 4th
Clergy, Community, and Labor March on April 4th
WHAT: Clergy, Community, and Labor unite for a brighter future on the anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.
WHERE: Meet at Aenon Baptist Church, 175 Genesee St., Rochester and marching south on Genesee St. to Wilson Commencement Academy Auditorium, 501 Genesee St.
WHEN: Monday, April 4th, 4:30pm
MARCH WITH US – APRIL 4
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. died on April 4, 1968 while supporting Memphis public sector workers in their fight for collective bargaining rights.
Dr. King was organizing the Poor People's March on Washington, DC that spring. He understood that the surest way to fight poverty was to organize into unions. Just days before, he spoke to the delegates of 1199 and urged them to aid other workers.
Dr. King exemplified the critical connection between the struggle for social justice (the civil rights movement) and the struggle for economic justice (the trade union movement).
2011 – how little has changed. The fight continues. April has been designated a national day of protest in honor of Dr. King's example.
MARCH WITH US – APRIL 4 – ROCHESTER, NY
Please see the attached leaflet for further information. Leaflets and posters are available from 1199 SEIU in any quantity. Call us at (585) 244-0830 or reply to this email.
Sponsored by the Rochester and Genesee Valley Area Labor Federation, AFL-CIO
Metro Justice, 167 Flanders Street, Rochester NY 14619
phone:585-325-2560 fax:585-325-2561
WHAT: Clergy, Community, and Labor unite for a brighter future on the anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.
WHERE: Meet at Aenon Baptist Church, 175 Genesee St., Rochester and marching south on Genesee St. to Wilson Commencement Academy Auditorium, 501 Genesee St.
WHEN: Monday, April 4th, 4:30pm
MARCH WITH US – APRIL 4
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. died on April 4, 1968 while supporting Memphis public sector workers in their fight for collective bargaining rights.
Dr. King was organizing the Poor People's March on Washington, DC that spring. He understood that the surest way to fight poverty was to organize into unions. Just days before, he spoke to the delegates of 1199 and urged them to aid other workers.
Dr. King exemplified the critical connection between the struggle for social justice (the civil rights movement) and the struggle for economic justice (the trade union movement).
2011 – how little has changed. The fight continues. April has been designated a national day of protest in honor of Dr. King's example.
MARCH WITH US – APRIL 4 – ROCHESTER, NY
Please see the attached leaflet for further information. Leaflets and posters are available from 1199 SEIU in any quantity. Call us at (585) 244-0830 or reply to this email.
Sponsored by the Rochester and Genesee Valley Area Labor Federation, AFL-CIO
Metro Justice, 167 Flanders Street, Rochester NY 14619
phone:585-325-2560 fax:585-325-2561
RTA's Urbanski announces Brizard budget
From: Adam Urbanski
To: RTA Faculty Representatives
Cc: RTA Executive Council
Sent: Tuesday, March 29, 2011 10:59 AM
Subject: Schools and Values
Colleagues, Superintendent Brizard is presenting his proposed FY 2011-2012 budget to the Board of Education at 6PM tonight. Although speakers are not allowed at tonight's meeting, public forums on the proposed budget are scheduled for April 5 and 12 (also at 6PM and also at Central Office). Please save these dates and plan to attend. We will monitor tonight's presentation, review Brizard's proposals and then report to you and to our members. Meanwhile, please see the attached excellent blog by a concerned parent who is a School-based Planning Team member at SOTA. It masterfully exposes the so-called "Equitable Student Funding" fiasco. Adam
Unions Fight Back!!
Unions Strike Back at Anti-Labor Legislation
Protesters join a rally to speak out against a Republican bill seeking to strip teachers of their collective bargaining rights near the state Capitol in Nashville, Tenn., earlier this month.
Teachers Mobilize With Short-, Long-Term Aims in Mind
By Stephen Sawchuk
Premium article access courtesy of Edweek.org.
Besieged by state proposals to eviscerate collective bargaining, eliminate teacher tenure, and make it harder to collect dues, teachers’ unions are fighting back.
Lawsuits supported by local union affiliates have for now blocked anti-union legislation in Alabama and Wisconsin. Unions are drawing on membership networks, e-mail “blasts,” and phone banks to mobilize teachers and connect them to local politicians. Rallies and demonstrations, meanwhile, have kept the issue in the minds of the public.
Most of the action is occurring at the state level, but by providing state and local affiliates with specialized aid, the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers are playing an important role in supporting the efforts. Both unions have raised or plan to raise dues to help pay for efforts to delay, block, or mitigate the impact of such legislation.
Observers note that the unions’ longer-term strategy, though, hinges on winning in the court of public opinion and being able to capitalize on such sympathy in the 2012 elections.
Under Attack
Bills to eliminate or curtail collective bargaining, do away with teacher strikes, or curb union-dues deductions are advancing in more than a dozen state legislatures.
SOURCE: Education Week Library Interns Ruth Lincoln and Amy Wickner
“With the resources left to them, I would think unions would fight as hard as they can, because this really is a threat to their organizational existence,” said Charles H. Franklin, a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who has been closely tracking the situation in that state. “Until the treasuries are exhausted, I would assume the unions will put everything they can into creating a Democratic majority in the legislatures.”
The unions have long been closely allied with Democrats, and newly ascendant Republican governors and state legislators are pursuing most of the measures the teachers’ groups oppose.
Ground Zero
Conservative lawmakers, some backed by tea-party activists and other right-leaning groups, have largely blamed teachers’ and other public employees’ unions for budget shortfalls. More than a dozen bills seeking to revoke or curb collective bargaining by those employees are making their way through legislatures.
Unions have recently sought to make the case that cooperation with teachers on changes to pay and evaluation will lead to better education policy, but such legislative action has put them in a defensive posture.
“I think the focus on professional issues is really important, and I don’t think the unions have gotten enough credit for it,” said Julia Koppich, a San Francisco-based consultant who has written about teacher collective bargaining. “But they can’t at the same time roll over and play dead and say everything else they’ve worked for doesn’t matter. It does.”
Ground zero for such legislation remains Wisconsin, where Gov. Scott Walker, a Republican, signed into law on March 11 a measure that, among other actions, curbs the scope of public-employee bargaining.
As far back as February, the 98,000-member Wisconsin Education Association Council, or WEAC, began to coordinate a response to the legislation through the regional NEA support network, UniServ.
“UniServ has played a major role in all of this,” said James R. Carlson, the director of the Kettle-Moraine UniServ Council, which organized many of the rallies and protests in Madison, the state capital. “It’s been the center of our world over the last six weeks, not only with contractual matters, but also legal challenges, and organizing efforts.
“When you mobilize both veterans and people new to the profession, you’re infinitely stronger and more effective,” Mr. Carlson continued. “[Gov.] Walker is trying to outlaw us, but the opposite will occur; we’ll become more vital.”
Public-employee unions in the state, including WEAC, have won a reprieve for now. On March 18, a state judge blocked publication of the bill, temporarily preventing it from taking effect. The union supported the lawsuit, which argues that GOP lawmakers violated open-meeting laws when using a procedural tactic to pass the bill.
In the meantime, the UniServ councils also have played a central role in aiding approximately 100 local bargaining units to negotiate contract extensions, thereby locking those contracts in place for several more years. The extensions “provide some stability in what is a very chaotic environment,” said Mary K. Bell, the president of WEAC.
Many of the extensions make benefit concessions similar to those called for in the Walker bill, which required union members to cover more of the cost of their healthcare and pensions, but they do retain other working conditions favored by unions, according to the Wisconsin Association of School Boards.
Looming on the horizon are attempts to recall state senators through special elections, something both conservative and liberal forces are organizing.
Campaign-finance laws prevent WEAC or its parent union, the NEA, from contributing to, or organizing volunteers for, an effort to recall eight Republican senators until the elections are actually scheduled. But the unions likely will make use of their political action committees—separate funds to which members voluntarily contribute—if and when such elections come to pass, Mr. Carlson said.
Of the eight GOP senators, three won their 2008 races with less than 52 percent of the vote, and could potentially be in danger in a recall election, according to Mr. Franklin of the University of Wisconsin. Any successes, he said, might be more symbolic than practical, given that the legislation has been approved.
“All this organizing may well strengthen pro-union and Democratic forces in the state,” Mr. Franklin said, “but undoing the legislation is a much harder thing to accomplish and is likely to be a much longer-term process.”
Tactics to lessen the blow of anti-bargaining proposals are on view even in those states in which a rightward tilt in the Capitol makes it likely that such proposals will pass in some form.
Working Cooperatively
With multiple pieces of legislation moving through the Statehouse in Nashville, the Tennessee Education Association has made strategic decisions about which fires to fight. So far it hasn’t condemned a bill, supported by Gov. Bill Haslam, a Republican, to extend the time for teachers to earn tenure from three years to five, despite concerns about the proposal.
“I have to give the governor credit; he’s stayed out of some of these divisive issues about bargaining,” said Jerry Winters, the tea’s director of government relations. “We owe him some cooperation in trying to move his agenda.”
Instead, the union has been pushing lawmakers to soften a bill to do away with teacher bargaining, and those results seem to be paying off. A House panel in Tennessee recently crafted a compromise measure to maintain collective bargaining, but remove policy factors such as teacher evaluations from negotiations. Mr. Winters attributed the accord partly to good working relationships with some moderate Republicans who supported the compromise.
Gov. Haslam and Speaker of the House Beth Harwell, a Republican, have endorsed the proposal, but it is not clear whether Senate Republicans will agree to the compromise.
In Alabama, the state NEA affiliate has been fighting back against a measure, signed into law by outgoing Gov. Bob Riley in December, that prevents associations from collecting dues for political activities through automatic payroll deductions. Though teachers don’t have bargaining rights in Alabama, the 105,000-member Alabama Education Association is an influential interest groups in the state.
The AEA contends that the law was written expressly to hobble its activities, by defining “political activity” so broadly as to apply to nearly any kind of internal communication or member polling. It sued to block the law, arguing that it impinges on the union’s First Amendment free-speech rights. In a victory last week, a state judge sided with the union, temporarily suspending the law’s implementation.
An appeal is likely, but the AEA has not waited for the matter to crank through the judicial system. Since the bill’s passage, the union has hired some 300 part-time recruiters to persuade individual teachers to have dues deducted automatically from their bank accounts, according to Susan E. Kennedy, the funding and revenue manager for the AEA. So far, the union has signed up 83 percent of current and retired members.
“I think we’re going to take some losses early, but I think in terms of destroying the organization, that’s not going to happen,” Ms. Kennedy said. “Our members are dedicated, educated, professional women for the most part—and I just don’t expect that one legislative cycle is going to be able to undo what these incredible members have done.”
Although most of the union mobilizing has taken place at the state level, the two national teachers’ unions have played an important part in supporting that work.
“It is our strength that we have numbers,” Ms. Bell of WEAC said. “The NEA family has been remarkably helpful as our union really changes and amps up to address the concerns of our members.”
The 3.2-million member NEA has offered in-house legal counsel to its state affiliates, sent additional staff members to states as requested, and helped organize volunteers to man phone banks and even serve hot meals to protesters. And since Gov. Walker’s plan passed in Wisconsin, more than 70,000 NEA members have been in touch by phone with their lawmakers, according to Karen M. White, the political director for the NEA.
AFT officials have also been busy. In what was billed as the first-ever e-mail blast to the entire 1.5 million membership, the union’s president, Randi Weingarten, encouraged members to sign the union’s “We Are One” solidarity pledge.
Engaging in rallies, sit-ins, and other forms of protest that state unions have organized is costly, and both national unions have also drawn from “crisis funds” specially set up to keep members informed of legislative proposals viewed as threats.
Unlike PAC money, those funds come out of members’ dues and can be sent to state and local affiliates as needed, regardless of size or population.
Last July, AFT representatives approved a dues increase of 55 cents per full member per month beginning in September 2010—and an additional 55 cents per month beginning in September 2011. The increases were partly put toward the union’s Solidarity Fund, which supports efforts to combat anti-union legislation.
The NEA’s Ballot Initiatives/Legislative Crisis Fund, established in 2000, is currently paid for with about $10 annually out of each full teacher’s annual national dues, currently $166. That amount could soon increase substantially. The NEA’s executive committee and board of directors recently signed off on a proposal to levy an additional $10 annually per member to increase the size of the crisis fund. The proposal will be put to the union’s Representative Assembly in July, Ms. White said.
Additional aid would be welcome, according to state affiliate officials.
Attacking unions “is a national movement,” said Mark Pudlow, a spokesman for the Florida Education Association, which is dealing with a newly enacted law that would phase out teacher tenure in the state.
While the national unions have provided assistance, Mr. Pudlow said, “they can only go so far as to how much they can help, when there are brush fires in just about every state.”
Effect on Reform Efforts
All the activism displays the unions’ organizing muscle and political acumen, but it also comes at a time when some unions have attempted to better articulate their role in helping improve aspects of teaching and learning as well.
For some, the two sets of issues—bread-and-butter bargaining rights and upgrades to the teaching profession—are not easily extricated from one another.
What’s at stake “is not just 20th-century collective bargaining rights, it’s fighting for professional voice,” said Mary Cathryn Ricker, the president of the St. Paul, Minn.,teachers’ union, an affiliate of both the NEA and the AFT. “More and more of us are using our collective bargaining rights to push for professional ideas bubbling up from the classroom.”
In recent weeks, senior Obama administration officials have made similar arguments. In concert with the two national unions, the administration last month brought together 150 superintendents and their local union leaders to discuss ways of using bargaining to advance reform proposals. ("Unions, School Leaders Vow to Collaborate, But Action Uncertain," Feb. 23, 2011.)
The professional-issues subtext is especially relevant, observers say, for the AFT, whose affiliates have signed several well-publicized contracts overhauling teacher evaluations and pay. The union has also put millions of dollars into an Innovation Fund to help local affiliates adopt such ideas.
For Ms. Weingarten, who has staked her union’s future in large part on the reform possibilities of collective bargaining, the legislative attacks are doubly offensive.
“There’s a lot of hypocrisy going on from the right wing, and even some of the so-called reformers,” she said. “They talk about how important teachers are, and in the same breath fiercely oppose any attempts for them to have the tools and conditions to do their jobs.”
AFT officials underscored that the union is still moving forward with its professional-issues priorities. In the midst of all the action, the union has supported the introduction of a bill in Connecticut to codify its recently unveiled ideas for tying teacher evaluations to due process procedures.
For critics, though, such actions are secondary. The extent of union pushback to the legislative proposals, they say, reflects the lengths to which unions will go to protect rights won over the past 40 years.
“They’re worried,” said Mike Antonucci, a prominent teachers’-union watchdog. “They’re fighting this in every state, instead of building a firewall around Wisconsin.”
Vol. 30, Issue 26, Pages 1,14-15
Protesters join a rally to speak out against a Republican bill seeking to strip teachers of their collective bargaining rights near the state Capitol in Nashville, Tenn., earlier this month.
Teachers Mobilize With Short-, Long-Term Aims in Mind
By Stephen Sawchuk
Premium article access courtesy of Edweek.org.
Besieged by state proposals to eviscerate collective bargaining, eliminate teacher tenure, and make it harder to collect dues, teachers’ unions are fighting back.
Lawsuits supported by local union affiliates have for now blocked anti-union legislation in Alabama and Wisconsin. Unions are drawing on membership networks, e-mail “blasts,” and phone banks to mobilize teachers and connect them to local politicians. Rallies and demonstrations, meanwhile, have kept the issue in the minds of the public.
Most of the action is occurring at the state level, but by providing state and local affiliates with specialized aid, the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers are playing an important role in supporting the efforts. Both unions have raised or plan to raise dues to help pay for efforts to delay, block, or mitigate the impact of such legislation.
Observers note that the unions’ longer-term strategy, though, hinges on winning in the court of public opinion and being able to capitalize on such sympathy in the 2012 elections.
Under Attack
Bills to eliminate or curtail collective bargaining, do away with teacher strikes, or curb union-dues deductions are advancing in more than a dozen state legislatures.
SOURCE: Education Week Library Interns Ruth Lincoln and Amy Wickner
“With the resources left to them, I would think unions would fight as hard as they can, because this really is a threat to their organizational existence,” said Charles H. Franklin, a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who has been closely tracking the situation in that state. “Until the treasuries are exhausted, I would assume the unions will put everything they can into creating a Democratic majority in the legislatures.”
The unions have long been closely allied with Democrats, and newly ascendant Republican governors and state legislators are pursuing most of the measures the teachers’ groups oppose.
Ground Zero
Conservative lawmakers, some backed by tea-party activists and other right-leaning groups, have largely blamed teachers’ and other public employees’ unions for budget shortfalls. More than a dozen bills seeking to revoke or curb collective bargaining by those employees are making their way through legislatures.
Unions have recently sought to make the case that cooperation with teachers on changes to pay and evaluation will lead to better education policy, but such legislative action has put them in a defensive posture.
“I think the focus on professional issues is really important, and I don’t think the unions have gotten enough credit for it,” said Julia Koppich, a San Francisco-based consultant who has written about teacher collective bargaining. “But they can’t at the same time roll over and play dead and say everything else they’ve worked for doesn’t matter. It does.”
Ground zero for such legislation remains Wisconsin, where Gov. Scott Walker, a Republican, signed into law on March 11 a measure that, among other actions, curbs the scope of public-employee bargaining.
As far back as February, the 98,000-member Wisconsin Education Association Council, or WEAC, began to coordinate a response to the legislation through the regional NEA support network, UniServ.
“UniServ has played a major role in all of this,” said James R. Carlson, the director of the Kettle-Moraine UniServ Council, which organized many of the rallies and protests in Madison, the state capital. “It’s been the center of our world over the last six weeks, not only with contractual matters, but also legal challenges, and organizing efforts.
“When you mobilize both veterans and people new to the profession, you’re infinitely stronger and more effective,” Mr. Carlson continued. “[Gov.] Walker is trying to outlaw us, but the opposite will occur; we’ll become more vital.”
Public-employee unions in the state, including WEAC, have won a reprieve for now. On March 18, a state judge blocked publication of the bill, temporarily preventing it from taking effect. The union supported the lawsuit, which argues that GOP lawmakers violated open-meeting laws when using a procedural tactic to pass the bill.
In the meantime, the UniServ councils also have played a central role in aiding approximately 100 local bargaining units to negotiate contract extensions, thereby locking those contracts in place for several more years. The extensions “provide some stability in what is a very chaotic environment,” said Mary K. Bell, the president of WEAC.
Many of the extensions make benefit concessions similar to those called for in the Walker bill, which required union members to cover more of the cost of their healthcare and pensions, but they do retain other working conditions favored by unions, according to the Wisconsin Association of School Boards.
Looming on the horizon are attempts to recall state senators through special elections, something both conservative and liberal forces are organizing.
Campaign-finance laws prevent WEAC or its parent union, the NEA, from contributing to, or organizing volunteers for, an effort to recall eight Republican senators until the elections are actually scheduled. But the unions likely will make use of their political action committees—separate funds to which members voluntarily contribute—if and when such elections come to pass, Mr. Carlson said.
Of the eight GOP senators, three won their 2008 races with less than 52 percent of the vote, and could potentially be in danger in a recall election, according to Mr. Franklin of the University of Wisconsin. Any successes, he said, might be more symbolic than practical, given that the legislation has been approved.
“All this organizing may well strengthen pro-union and Democratic forces in the state,” Mr. Franklin said, “but undoing the legislation is a much harder thing to accomplish and is likely to be a much longer-term process.”
Tactics to lessen the blow of anti-bargaining proposals are on view even in those states in which a rightward tilt in the Capitol makes it likely that such proposals will pass in some form.
Working Cooperatively
With multiple pieces of legislation moving through the Statehouse in Nashville, the Tennessee Education Association has made strategic decisions about which fires to fight. So far it hasn’t condemned a bill, supported by Gov. Bill Haslam, a Republican, to extend the time for teachers to earn tenure from three years to five, despite concerns about the proposal.
“I have to give the governor credit; he’s stayed out of some of these divisive issues about bargaining,” said Jerry Winters, the tea’s director of government relations. “We owe him some cooperation in trying to move his agenda.”
Instead, the union has been pushing lawmakers to soften a bill to do away with teacher bargaining, and those results seem to be paying off. A House panel in Tennessee recently crafted a compromise measure to maintain collective bargaining, but remove policy factors such as teacher evaluations from negotiations. Mr. Winters attributed the accord partly to good working relationships with some moderate Republicans who supported the compromise.
Gov. Haslam and Speaker of the House Beth Harwell, a Republican, have endorsed the proposal, but it is not clear whether Senate Republicans will agree to the compromise.
In Alabama, the state NEA affiliate has been fighting back against a measure, signed into law by outgoing Gov. Bob Riley in December, that prevents associations from collecting dues for political activities through automatic payroll deductions. Though teachers don’t have bargaining rights in Alabama, the 105,000-member Alabama Education Association is an influential interest groups in the state.
The AEA contends that the law was written expressly to hobble its activities, by defining “political activity” so broadly as to apply to nearly any kind of internal communication or member polling. It sued to block the law, arguing that it impinges on the union’s First Amendment free-speech rights. In a victory last week, a state judge sided with the union, temporarily suspending the law’s implementation.
An appeal is likely, but the AEA has not waited for the matter to crank through the judicial system. Since the bill’s passage, the union has hired some 300 part-time recruiters to persuade individual teachers to have dues deducted automatically from their bank accounts, according to Susan E. Kennedy, the funding and revenue manager for the AEA. So far, the union has signed up 83 percent of current and retired members.
“I think we’re going to take some losses early, but I think in terms of destroying the organization, that’s not going to happen,” Ms. Kennedy said. “Our members are dedicated, educated, professional women for the most part—and I just don’t expect that one legislative cycle is going to be able to undo what these incredible members have done.”
Although most of the union mobilizing has taken place at the state level, the two national teachers’ unions have played an important part in supporting that work.
“It is our strength that we have numbers,” Ms. Bell of WEAC said. “The NEA family has been remarkably helpful as our union really changes and amps up to address the concerns of our members.”
The 3.2-million member NEA has offered in-house legal counsel to its state affiliates, sent additional staff members to states as requested, and helped organize volunteers to man phone banks and even serve hot meals to protesters. And since Gov. Walker’s plan passed in Wisconsin, more than 70,000 NEA members have been in touch by phone with their lawmakers, according to Karen M. White, the political director for the NEA.
AFT officials have also been busy. In what was billed as the first-ever e-mail blast to the entire 1.5 million membership, the union’s president, Randi Weingarten, encouraged members to sign the union’s “We Are One” solidarity pledge.
Engaging in rallies, sit-ins, and other forms of protest that state unions have organized is costly, and both national unions have also drawn from “crisis funds” specially set up to keep members informed of legislative proposals viewed as threats.
Unlike PAC money, those funds come out of members’ dues and can be sent to state and local affiliates as needed, regardless of size or population.
Last July, AFT representatives approved a dues increase of 55 cents per full member per month beginning in September 2010—and an additional 55 cents per month beginning in September 2011. The increases were partly put toward the union’s Solidarity Fund, which supports efforts to combat anti-union legislation.
The NEA’s Ballot Initiatives/Legislative Crisis Fund, established in 2000, is currently paid for with about $10 annually out of each full teacher’s annual national dues, currently $166. That amount could soon increase substantially. The NEA’s executive committee and board of directors recently signed off on a proposal to levy an additional $10 annually per member to increase the size of the crisis fund. The proposal will be put to the union’s Representative Assembly in July, Ms. White said.
Additional aid would be welcome, according to state affiliate officials.
Attacking unions “is a national movement,” said Mark Pudlow, a spokesman for the Florida Education Association, which is dealing with a newly enacted law that would phase out teacher tenure in the state.
While the national unions have provided assistance, Mr. Pudlow said, “they can only go so far as to how much they can help, when there are brush fires in just about every state.”
Effect on Reform Efforts
All the activism displays the unions’ organizing muscle and political acumen, but it also comes at a time when some unions have attempted to better articulate their role in helping improve aspects of teaching and learning as well.
For some, the two sets of issues—bread-and-butter bargaining rights and upgrades to the teaching profession—are not easily extricated from one another.
What’s at stake “is not just 20th-century collective bargaining rights, it’s fighting for professional voice,” said Mary Cathryn Ricker, the president of the St. Paul, Minn.,teachers’ union, an affiliate of both the NEA and the AFT. “More and more of us are using our collective bargaining rights to push for professional ideas bubbling up from the classroom.”
In recent weeks, senior Obama administration officials have made similar arguments. In concert with the two national unions, the administration last month brought together 150 superintendents and their local union leaders to discuss ways of using bargaining to advance reform proposals. ("Unions, School Leaders Vow to Collaborate, But Action Uncertain," Feb. 23, 2011.)
The professional-issues subtext is especially relevant, observers say, for the AFT, whose affiliates have signed several well-publicized contracts overhauling teacher evaluations and pay. The union has also put millions of dollars into an Innovation Fund to help local affiliates adopt such ideas.
For Ms. Weingarten, who has staked her union’s future in large part on the reform possibilities of collective bargaining, the legislative attacks are doubly offensive.
“There’s a lot of hypocrisy going on from the right wing, and even some of the so-called reformers,” she said. “They talk about how important teachers are, and in the same breath fiercely oppose any attempts for them to have the tools and conditions to do their jobs.”
AFT officials underscored that the union is still moving forward with its professional-issues priorities. In the midst of all the action, the union has supported the introduction of a bill in Connecticut to codify its recently unveiled ideas for tying teacher evaluations to due process procedures.
For critics, though, such actions are secondary. The extent of union pushback to the legislative proposals, they say, reflects the lengths to which unions will go to protect rights won over the past 40 years.
“They’re worried,” said Mike Antonucci, a prominent teachers’-union watchdog. “They’re fighting this in every state, instead of building a firewall around Wisconsin.”
Vol. 30, Issue 26, Pages 1,14-15
Analysis of Brizard's Budget
Brizard's budget:
This is a very powerful analysis!
Liz Hallmark, a parent on SBPT at SOTA , spoke out at the last BOE and has a blog on the issue.
Check out the article at the address below
http://schoolsandvalues.blogspot.com/
Add this address to those you will want to follow.
This is a very powerful analysis!
Liz Hallmark, a parent on SBPT at SOTA , spoke out at the last BOE and has a blog on the issue.
Check out the article at the address below
http://schoolsandvalues.blogspot.com/
Add this address to those you will want to follow.
The New Thought Police
American Thought Police
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: March 27, 2011
Recently William Cronon, a historian who teaches at the University of Wisconsin, decided to weigh in on his state’s political turmoil. He started a blog, “Scholar as Citizen,” devoting his first post to the role of the shadowy American Legislative Exchange Council in pushing hard-line conservative legislation at the state level. Then he published an opinion piece in The Times, suggesting that Wisconsin’s Republican governor has turned his back on the state’s long tradition of “neighborliness, decency and mutual respect.”
So what was the G.O.P.’s response? A demand for copies of all e-mails sent to or from Mr. Cronon’s university mail account containing any of a wide range of terms, including the word “Republican” and the names of a number of Republican politicians. If this action strikes you as no big deal, you’re missing the point. The hard right — which these days is more or less synonymous with the Republican Party — has a modus operandi when it comes to scholars expressing views it dislikes: never mind the substance, go for the smear. And that demand for copies of e-mails is obviously motivated by no more than a hope that it will provide something, anything, that can be used to subject Mr. Cronon to the usual treatment.
The Cronon affair, then, is one more indicator of just how reflexively vindictive, how un-American, one of our two great political parties has become. The demand for Mr. Cronon’s correspondence has obvious parallels with the ongoing smear campaign against climate science and climate scientists, which has lately relied heavily on supposedly damaging quotations found in e-mail records. Back in 2009 climate skeptics got hold of more than a thousand e-mails between researchers at the Climate Research Unit at Britain’s University of East Anglia. Nothing in the correspondence suggested any kind of scientific impropriety; at most, we learned — I know this will shock you — that scientists are human beings, who occasionally say snide things about people they dislike. But that didn’t stop the usual suspects from proclaiming that they had uncovered “Climategate,” a scientific scandal that somehow invalidates the vast array of evidence for man-made climate change. And this fake scandal gives an indication of what the Wisconsin G.O.P. presumably hopes to do to Mr. Cronon.
After all, if you go through a large number of messages looking for lines that can be made to sound bad, you’re bound to find a few. In fact, it’s surprising how few such lines the critics managed to find in the “Climategate” trove: much of the smear has focused on just one e-mail, in which a researcher talks about using a “trick” to “hide the decline” in a particular series. In context, it’s clear that he’s talking about making an effective graphical presentation, not about suppressing evidence. But the right wants a scandal, and won’t take no for an answer. Is there any doubt that Wisconsin Republicans are hoping for a similar “success” against Mr. Cronon? Now, in this case they’ll probably come up dry. Mr. Cronon writes on his blog that he has been careful never to use his university e-mail for personal business, exhibiting a scrupulousness that’s neither common nor expected in the academic world. (Full disclosure: I have, at times, used my university e-mail to remind my wife to feed the cats, confirm dinner plans with friends, etc.)
Beyond that, Mr. Cronon — the president-elect of the American Historical Association — has a secure reputation as a towering figure in his field. His magnificent “Nature’s Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West” is the best work of economic and business history I’ve ever read — and I read a lot of that kind of thing. So we don’t need to worry about Mr. Cronon — but we should worry a lot about the wider effect of attacks like the one he’s facing. Legally, Republicans may be within their rights: Wisconsin’s open records law provides public access to e-mails of government employees, although the law was clearly intended to apply to state officials, not university professors. But there’s a clear chilling effect when scholars know that they may face witch hunts whenever they say things the G.O.P. doesn’t like.
Someone like Mr. Cronon can stand up to the pressure. But less eminent and established researchers won’t just become reluctant to act as concerned citizens, weighing in on current debates; they’ll be deterred from even doing research on topics that might get them in trouble. What’s at stake here, in other words, is whether we’re going to have an open national discourse in which scholars feel free to go wherever the evidence takes them, and to contribute to public understanding. Republicans, in Wisconsin and elsewhere, are trying to shut that kind of discourse down. It’s up to the rest of us to see that they don’t succeed.
A New Name & New Identity...
A New Name And Renewed Focus For Coalition For Common Sense In Education
March 21st, 2011 1:24 pm
ET Andrew Reed
Rochester Urban Education Examiner
The local education reform group Coalition for Common Sense in Education, or CCSE, has modified its name to reflect its renewed purpose in the battle to more justifiably reform our foundering public education system. The Coalition for Justice in Education (CJE) believes the new moniker more closely echoes the efforts of other local organizations in promoting the equitable design and distribution of resources that impact 'a variety of school-related areas,' according to a statement by CJE Chairperson, Dan Drmacich.
According to Mr. Drmacich, the name change 'more symbolically and effectively communicates our emphasis on fairness & equity for all students.' Additionally, Drmacich pronounces that such a change is representative of the group's more intensive focus on matters pertaining to the 'U.S. Constitution, common cultural values and research.'
The CJE was one of several local organizations that produced a community-wide education summit, held Friday and Saturday, March 11 and 12, at the Rochester Plaza Hotel. Approximately 250 people reportedly attended the summit, which occupied a significant portion of the second floor of the complex, with seminars that were facilitated by both locally and nationally recognized education authorities. These discussion groups provided opportunities for community members of all stripes to both deliberate and expand on what are considered the hallmarks, or working principles, that were originally developed by the Community Education Task Force (CETF), which was another sponsor of the summit. Eight concurrent seminars were conducted during both the morning and afternoon sessions, both deliberating and expanding on what are also considered the 'Eight Principles for Change.'
Former City of Rochester Mayor Bill Johnson, who is vying to once again be the city's mayor, was one of the keynote speakers for the kickoff session on Friday evening. For additional information regarding the CJE, please refer to its Facebook page. The group plans to launch its own website within the next month. Drmacich has also conveyed that a series of upcoming forums are being sponsored by the CJE, including a talk-back community event involving Senators Joe Robach and George Maziarz, who serve on the State Senate Education Committee. All CJE meetings are held at the Rochester City School District's School Without Walls, with the next scheduled gathering set for Wednesday, April 6, at 4pm. *
March 21st, 2011 1:24 pm
ET Andrew Reed
Rochester Urban Education Examiner
The local education reform group Coalition for Common Sense in Education, or CCSE, has modified its name to reflect its renewed purpose in the battle to more justifiably reform our foundering public education system. The Coalition for Justice in Education (CJE) believes the new moniker more closely echoes the efforts of other local organizations in promoting the equitable design and distribution of resources that impact 'a variety of school-related areas,' according to a statement by CJE Chairperson, Dan Drmacich.
According to Mr. Drmacich, the name change 'more symbolically and effectively communicates our emphasis on fairness & equity for all students.' Additionally, Drmacich pronounces that such a change is representative of the group's more intensive focus on matters pertaining to the 'U.S. Constitution, common cultural values and research.'
The CJE was one of several local organizations that produced a community-wide education summit, held Friday and Saturday, March 11 and 12, at the Rochester Plaza Hotel. Approximately 250 people reportedly attended the summit, which occupied a significant portion of the second floor of the complex, with seminars that were facilitated by both locally and nationally recognized education authorities. These discussion groups provided opportunities for community members of all stripes to both deliberate and expand on what are considered the hallmarks, or working principles, that were originally developed by the Community Education Task Force (CETF), which was another sponsor of the summit. Eight concurrent seminars were conducted during both the morning and afternoon sessions, both deliberating and expanding on what are also considered the 'Eight Principles for Change.'
Former City of Rochester Mayor Bill Johnson, who is vying to once again be the city's mayor, was one of the keynote speakers for the kickoff session on Friday evening. For additional information regarding the CJE, please refer to its Facebook page. The group plans to launch its own website within the next month. Drmacich has also conveyed that a series of upcoming forums are being sponsored by the CJE, including a talk-back community event involving Senators Joe Robach and George Maziarz, who serve on the State Senate Education Committee. All CJE meetings are held at the Rochester City School District's School Without Walls, with the next scheduled gathering set for Wednesday, April 6, at 4pm. *
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