AFT President Signals Openness to Reforms

This from Ed Week:

Other than vouchers, Randi Weingarten says “no issue should be off the table, provided it is good for children and fair to teachers.”

Randi Weingarten positioned herself as an education reformer during her first speech in the nation’s capital since taking over as president of the American Federation of Teachers. She signaled her union was wide open to discussing once-taboo issues ranging from merit pay to charter schools to tenure changes.

“With the exception of vouchers, which siphon resources from public schools, no issue should be off the table, provided it is good for children and fair to teachers,” said Ms. Weingarten, who took over the reins of the 1.4 million-member union in July....

Teachers to have 1st major union led by women

Randi Weingarten,

Antonia Cortese and

Lorretta Johnson

are set to lead

the American Federation of Teachers.

This from USA Today:

WASHINGTON — Hillary Clinton's bid to become the first female U.S. president could falter, but another milestone for women probably will fall into place this summer with little fanfare: Three women are slated to become the first to run a major labor union.

Delegates to the American Federation of Teachers' biennial meeting here in July are expected to elect Randi Weingarten their new president, along with two other longtime AFT officials: Antonia Cortese and Lorretta Johnson as secretary-treasurer and executive vice president, respectively.

The three announced their candidacy last week at a small, private event for top union officials.

"It's powerful because these are three knowledgeable women," says Marietta English, president of the Baltimore Teachers Union. "This is the year for women. I'm excited."

With more than 1.4 million members, AFT is one of the largest unions in the USA and its second-largest teachers union, behind the National Education Association (NEA), which has more than 3 million members. Unlike its rival, AFT represents many big-city teachers and is a member of the AFL-CIO...

Unions: Harmony or Strife?

This from Del Stover at American School (the American School Board Journal):

When striking teachers display a giant inflatable rat outside a school—and name their new mascot after the superintendent—it’s clear that relations between school leaders and the teachers union are not good. Another clue: Teachers are spitting on cars crossing the picket line.

Name calling, rumor mongering, nails spread across the driveway of a teacher who chose not to strike, intransigence at the bargaining table—school officials saw it all during last year’s bitter, four-week strike in Richmond Heights, Ohio. “It got particularly nasty,” recalls Superintendent Walter Calinger. “The methodology was to attack unmercifully. Don’t worry about the truth of the matter. Attack. Attack. Attack.”

Thankfully, most school boards never confront such brass-knuckled tactics when dealing with their union. Last school year, there were only a score of teacher strikes, hardly a noteworthy figure given the nation’s nearly 15,000 school systems. If anything, the numbers suggest the National Education Association (NEA) and American Federation of Teachers (AFT) have decided to forsake militancy in favor of singing “Kumbaya” with school boards.

Not ready to buy that? Then let’s try another explanation: Decades of contract talks have resolved the most divisive labor-management issues, and no-strike laws in many states are keeping teachers at the bargaining table. A new generation of teachers is less interested in bread-and-butter issues and more focused on educational and professional matters. And the standards movement, coupled with inadequate school funding and a growing at-risk student population, has given teachers and school boards even more incentive to make common cause.

Today, the relationship between the school board and the union generally can be described as mature and well-established. But it’s seldom comfortable—or predictable. Thus we see the union in Denver collaborating with the school board in a partnership on performance pay that would have been inconceivable a few years ago.

Meanwhile, in Quincy, Mass., we watched the teachers’ union go on strike in defiance of state law—the first teacher walkout in a decade in that state.

At the national level, the unions have a clear agenda. Union political strategists are planning to put millions of dollars into the upcoming national elections, and lobbyists are working the halls of Congress in hopes of a major rewrite of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). And there has been an aggressive effort to bolster the unions’ membership rolls by targeting teachers in right-to-work states, higher education faculty, school nurses, and paraprofessionals. In the last few years, the NEA’s membership has grown by 400,000; the AFT is up 200,000.

There’s a lot going on—and good reason to pay attention, say education policy experts. “They are the most powerful organized force in the politics of education, period,” says Terry Moe, a professor of political science at Stanford University.

“They have a huge impact on education policy, on the way the schools are organized, and on what school boards can and cannot do.” ...

Here's the Boost that Poor Children, Their Teachers, and Their Schools Really Need

The American Federation of Teachers publication American Teacher reports in its current issue:

"By the time children from low-income homes enter school, they are, on average, already far behind their middle-class peers. At the beginning of kindergarten, disadvantaged children are three times more likely than other children to score in the bottom quartile on assessments of reading, math, and general knowledge. In terms of specific skills, they are much less likely than their more advantaged peers to be able to identify the letters of the alphabet or to count beyond 10.

But the actual challenge they face is even greater: The same home and community factors that lead to the school-entry achievement gap are at work over the summer. Middle- and upper-class children not only enter kindergarten knowing more, they continue learning more every summer.

As a result, although the evidence indicates that in school, poor, middle-class, and wealthy children actually learn at about the same pace, by fourth grade, students from low-income families are nearly three grade levels below their peers in reading and about two grade levels below their peers in math."

"...Meeting the challenge is partly going to be the work of the educational research community, who must continue to find more effective approaches to teaching and schooling. And, an important part of the answer is to be found outside the schools, in better healthcare, nutrition, and housing, and in community-based initiatives to enhance parenting skills."

The article recommends:
1. Focus on teaching quality
2. Support a culture of respectful student behavior
3. Diagnose reading problems early and intervene right away
4. Provide a knowledge-rich, grade-by-grade, core curriculum
5. Deliver additional supports, staff, time, and resources to the schools that serve the neediest students