Archives for category: Unions
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Albert Shanker, Reflecting on Forty Years in Education

By dianeravitch
July 7, 2018 //
16

I recently was searching google for Albert Shanker’s connection to the Holweide School in Germany, which inspired some of his ideas about education reform, and I came across this fascinating personal essay about his life in education as a teacher, a labor organizer, and an advocate for authentic learning. Shanker died in 1996, having served for many years as President of the American Federation of Teachers, and before that as President of the United Federation of Teachers in New York City.

In this brief memoir, he reflects on what it means to be “a professional” and how that idea was used against teachers, to control them, and also against unions, to discourage them.

His thoughts about collective bargaining and unions are worth reviewing as unions are today in dire peril given the spread of “right to work” and the Supreme Court’s Janus decision.

His thoughts about the kind of learning that sticks with you through life is well exemplified in his memories of earning a merit badge from the Boy Scouts in birding.

His thoughts about the importance and necessity of public education in building American society are very relevant today.

This is an enjoyable read.

Categories Real Education, Teachers and Teaching, Unions

A Better, Clearer Version of Martin Luther King, Jr., Historic Speech: “I Have a Dream”

By dianeravitch
July 4, 2018 //
7

Thanks to Fred Smith for sending a sharper, clearer video of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s magnificent speech, “I Have a Dream.” In addition to its clarity, it also has captions.

In these troubled times, beware the reactionaries who claim that Dr. King wanted only a color-blind society, where children needed nothing more than to be judged by the content of their character, not the color of their skin. The March on Washington was a march for jobs, a march for basic freedoms, like the right to vote, and a march for justice and equality of opportunity. Dr. King reminded us that 100 years after the Emancipation Proclamation, black Americans were still not free. Given our nation’s embrace of mass incarceration, millions of black Americans are literally not free, and millions more worry about excessive use of force by police.

Today, as the Trump administration plans to abandon affirmative action and desegregation, the movement for equality has been dealt a grievous blow. As it is poised to appoint another justice to the Supreme Court, all the gains of the civil rights movement of the past six decades are in jeopardy.

The March was funded by a coalition of civil rights groups and labor unions.

Please note that Bayard Rustin, the great intellect and strategist of the civil rights movement, can be seen at King’s side. Rustin was a pacifist and a brilliant writer. He was gay, and he was frequently pushed aside or hidden for fear he would hurt the movement. He went to propison during World War 2 as a conscientious objector. He was no coward. He risked his life repeatedly in demonstrations and protests. He was a beloved friend, who performed a capella in my home in a fundraiser for the Young People’s Socialist League. I am proud to have known this great man.

Categories Accountability, Civil Rights, Jobs, Justice, Race, Racism, Unions

Peter Greene: Here Come the Vampires to Suck Away Your Right to Organize

By dianeravitch
July 3, 2018 //
9

Peter Greene writes here about the mass email that went to teachers in many states, advising them about their right to stop paying union dues and have no collective bargaining on their behalf.

Teachers have been targeted by the rightwing Mackinac Center in Michigan, which has never before shown any interest in teachers’ wellbeing.

But there they are, ready to help you kill off your union.

And, wow– it sure is inspiring to see the one percenters so deeply concerned about teacher freedom of speech. I mean, to devote all this time and money just because they want to make sure that every teacher has a chance to exercise her rights. It’s inspiring. Just like all those other times they were out there in the schools making sure that teachers were free to express their opinions and stand up for students and advocate for better education without fear of losing their jobs and– oh, no, wait. They DeVos’s and Koch’s were the ones agitating for the end of job protections so that teachers could be fired at any time, including for speaking up and exercising their First Amendment rights. In fact, the number of times that groups like Mackinac have been out there standing up for teachers’ rights, First Amendment and otherwise, would be, by my rough count, zero. None.

It’s almost as if this whole thing isn’t about teachers’ First Amendment right at all.

It’s almost as if this was just a ploy to bust up the unions and make sure that teachers had even less voice in the world of education. It’s almost as if this was a way to drain funds from the Democratic Party.

Do you think the Koch brothers and the DeVos care about you? Don’t be fooled.

Categories Betsy DeVos, Koch Brothers, Teachers, Unions

Los Angeles: Beutner Fails His First Job, Negotiations with UTLA Break Down

By dianeravitch
July 2, 2018 //
9

This just in. The inexperienced new chancellor of LAUSD Austin Beutner failed his first assignment. We r3cognize that he was chosen to favor the mostly non-union charter schools, but he should recognize his duty to all the children and teachers in the district.


UTLA STATEMENT ON DECLARATION OF IMPASSE

Our employer refuses to partner with us for a sustainable vision for the future. Why? Because our school district is currently dominated by pro-privatization ideologues who would rather starve our public schools than fight for their survival. Therefore, the UTLA bargaining team believes the bargaining process with our employer has been exhausted, and the two parties are at an impasse.

For more than one year, we have attempted to engage our employer in a thoughtful and progressive bargaining process that paves the way toward a better future for our students and the Los Angeles Unified School District, but it’s become increasingly clear that the charter lobby-backed school board majority, along with its handpicked superintendent, Austin Beutner, has a different goal.

That goal is to blame educators for a starved school system, providing a rationale for even deeper cuts, softening the ground to replace our school district with privatization schemes that have failed in other cities. And we cannot, in good conscience, allow it to happen without fighting back.

Recent LAUSD hires, school board actions and reports are building a case for a repudiation of public education in LA, including the report from Beutner’s task force called ‘Hard Choices,’ which pits students against their teachers, and manipulates data to justify a type of private equity “wind down” of LAUSD. Read UTLA’s full response to the ERS here.

Therefore, today, UTLA sent a letter to district officials, declaring contract negotiations are at a deadlock. Read the impasse letter here.

This school board majority and superintendent have no proactive plan to reinvest in our schools or ensure the survival of LAUSD as a civic institution in our city. Rather than advocate for increased state funding, or use the $1.7 billion in unrestricted reserves, they threaten layoffs, say educators get paid too much, recommend increases to overloaded class sizes and increases to special education teacher to student ratios.

Meanwhile, UTLA has a proactive vision that includes proposals to reduce class sizes, provide more health & human services staff, significantly reduce testing, increase parent and educator power over school site spending, require investment in community schools, ensure access to ethnic studies for all students, provide reasonable oversight at co-located schools and improve early education and adult education programs.

In light of the above actions that signal the willful demise of our own district, as evidenced in Beutner’s ‘Hard Choices’ report, we demand LAUSD bring in a state-appointed mediator to assist both parties in achieving a bargaining agreement that is acceptable to both parties.
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UTLA, the nation’s second-largest teachers’ union local, represents more than 35,000 teachers and health & human services professionals in district and charter schools.

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Categories Accountability, Los Angeles, Unions

Hours After Janus Decision, Mackinac Center in Michigan Sends Letters to Union Teachers in New York to Leave Union

By dianeravitch
June 30, 2018 //
32

This is amazing. The ink wasn’t even dry on the Janus Decision, and letters from a rightwing policy shop in Michigan were delivered to teachers in New York, urging them to leave their union. The letters came from the Mackinac Center, which has been a recipient of DeVos family funding.

Mackinac says it plans to spend $10 million on its anti-union campaign.

How do these people sleep at night?

Categories Betsy DeVos, Education Reform, Michigan, New York, Unions

School Choice is Not Good for American Education

By dianeravitch
June 22, 2018 //
41

I wrote this article, which was posted just online by the Washington Post.

Charters are not “progressive.” They pave the way for vouchers. They divert funding from public schools, which enroll 85% of American students. They are more segregated than public schools. Ninety percent are non-union. The far-right Walton Foundation is spending $200 million a year on charters and Betsy DeVos is currently spending $400 million, which may soon increase to $500 million. The vaunted “high performance” charters have either higher attrition or cherry pick their students.

Our nation is evolving a new dual school system, with one system choosing its students and the other required to find a place for all who apply.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Democracy, Education Reform, Segregation, Supporting public schools, Unions, Virtual Charter Schools, Vouchers

Chicago Teachers Union Negotiates Right to Block Tests That Are Not Mandated by the State

By dianeravitch
June 18, 2018 //
6

This is a big step forward. The union gained the right to block unnecessary tests. The ultimate goal must be to block all standardized tests because they are inherently designed to favor advantaged students over disadvantaged students.

Some network chiefs are trying to saddle students and teachers with useless and unnecessary tests. But we know what our students need – and we’re using powerful new language in our contract to reject these tests.

As part of our demand for respect for our professionalism and decision-making, we’ve fought against tests that are unduly burdensome and not useful. In the current Board-Union Agreement, we won the right to vote on ALL assessments that are not mandated by the State of Illinois, REACH, or particular programs like IB or bilingual education.

This is huge. This year, dozens of schools have held discussions in their PPCs, school communities and union meetings, and held votes where members have said “NO” to ‘optional’ assessments.

Some Network Chiefs are pushing back and trying to persuade members to add more tests – but members have held firm and confident in their judgement about the assessments their students need – or don’t need.

Cases which cannot be resolved at the school level will be brought to Strategic Bargaining for resolution. Our view is that the contract is clear and that teachers know their students’ needs.

If you’re having problems resolving testing issues at the school level, contact your field rep so this can be brought to strategic bargaining. And remember to email your plan and vote results to Vera Lindsay.

Both teachers and students have been victims of over-reliance on high-stakes testing for decades. Way too much teaching time has been taken up with prepping students for test-taking and administering numerous assessments — often, it seems, to profit big testing companies. A serious side effect: counselors are so busy with test prep duties on top of huge caseloads that they lack adequate time to counsel students who need the help they’ve been trained to provide.

But we know what our students need, and we’re using powerful new language in our contract to reject the time wasted on unnecessary and pointless tests — and take that time back for teaching.

Categories Accountability, Chicago, Education Reform, Standardized Testing, Testing, Unions

Should Liberals Love Non-Union, Segregated Charters?

By dianeravitch
June 3, 2018 //
19

The New York Times published an opinion article yesterday by Conor P. Williams of the New America Foundation, in which Williams argues that liberals should love charter schools and ignore the fact that Betsy DeVos loves them too.

He selects one school in Minneapolis to make his point. Hiawatha Academies, where 95% of the students are Hispanic. The school is non-union, like most every charter school. Williams proposes Hiawatha as a charter very different from the views of Betsy DeVos. But he forgets to mention that DeVos just gave Hiawatha Academies $1.8 Million. Maybe not so out of step with Betsy as he pretends.

But even though it is segregated and non-union, writes Williams, liberals should love it because it is good for Hispanic children.

But liberals are critical of charters, and Williams doesn’t understand why.

“And now the teachers are being forced to respond to criticism from people who by most measures should be their allies. Robert Panning-Miller, the former president of the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers, has called Hiawatha schools emblematic of a “corporate reform movement” that values “compliance and test scores over critical thinking” and criticized them as being part of an “apartheid education” movement, because their students are almost exclusively children of color.

“It’s true that nine out of 10 Hiawatha students are Hispanic. But if Hiawatha schools enroll a high number of minority students and English learners, that’s because they serve them well.”

Now why in the world would the leader of the state union reject a non-union school? Shouldn’t all schools be non-union?

Williams says certain liberals are picking on charters because they are part of the DeVos agenda.

“Progressive critics are taking advantage of the moment to tie charter-friendly Democrats to her toxic public image. On the day after President Trump’s inauguration, Valerie Strauss, a Washington Post education writer, accused Democratic reformers like Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey, the former Newark mayor, of “advancing corporate education reform” through their support of school choice.”

Corey Booker is not only in favor of charters, he also supports vouchers. Is it possible for Booker to be completely aligned with DeVos’ school choice beliefs and still be a “liberal?”

Williams writes, “Progressives can ill afford this kind of sniping. The last thing the left needs right now is a war between teachers unions and liberal charter supporters.”

He does not explain why teachers unions should support non-union schools.

The New America Foundation has a long list of big donors. The biggest is Eric Schmidt ($4 Million), former CEO of Google. The second biggest is the Gates Foundation.

What Williams forgets to mention is that the biggest funder of charter schools is the far-right Walton Family Foundation, the far-right Anschutz Foundation, the far-right Koch Brothers, the Heritage Foundation, plus ALEC, plus every red state Governor and Legislature. The Waltons funded one of every four charters in Minnesota. This article is fundamentally dishonest.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Reform, Minneapolis, Minnesota, Segregation, Unions

Thomas Frank: The Teachers’ Strikes Burst a Lot of Bubbles

By dianeravitch
May 28, 2018 //
40

Thomas Frank, author, commends the striking teachers in Arizona and elsewhere for dashing the neoliberal dream of demonizing teachers.

He writes in “The Guardian”:

What I like best about the wave of teachers’ strikes that have swept America these last few months is how they punch so brutally and so directly in the face of the number one neoliberal educational fantasy of the last decade: that all we need to do to fix public education is fire people.

Fire teachers, specifically. They need to learn fear and discipline. That’s what education “reformers” have told us for years. If only, the fantasy goes, we could slay the foot-dragging unions and the red-tape rules that keep mediocre teachers in their jobs, then things would be different. If only some nice “tech millionaires” would step in and help us fire people! If only we could get a thousand clones of Michelle Rhee, the former DC schools chancellor who fired so many people she even once fired someone on TV!

Now just look at what’s happened. We’ve seen enormous teacher protests in West Virginia, Oklahoma, Kentucky and Arizona, with more on the way. Actions that look very much like strikes by people who, in some of these states, are legally forbidden to strike. It was the perfect opportunity for education “reformers” to fire people, and fire them en masse. It was the politicians’ chance to show us what a tough-minded boss could do.

And in most cases, it was state governments that capitulated. It was hard-hearted believers in tax cuts and austerity and discipline who caved, lest they themselves get fired by voters at the next opportunity.

That, folks, is the power of solidarity, and the wave of teacher walkouts is starting to look like our generation’s chance to learn the lesson our grandparents absorbed during the strike wave of the late 1930s: that given the right conditions and the right amount of organization, working people can rally the public and make social change all by themselves. Irresistibly. Organically. From the bottom up.

Teachers won’t stand for austerity any more. They are rising.

It is a wonderful article. I urge you to read it in full.

Categories Resistance, Teachers, Unions

Ralph Ratto: What Are They Doing to My District?

By dianeravitch
May 20, 2018 //
43

Read this story if you want to understand why teachers need tenure and unions.

Ralph Ratto is in a state of shock.

His small district is successful by current measures. But a new superintendent decided to disrupt everything and everyone.

“Today the administration decided to shuffle the personnel in our very successful district. Our small K-6 district (New Hyde Park- Garden City Park) has 4 buildings and 145 teachers. I am the local President ( full disclosure).

“Take a look at our NYS report card. Even though I am totally against this type of data, the data shows that we are extremely successful. With this success, one would think that our new Superintendent and our 4 brand new building principals would look towards our successes, collaborate with staff and look to build on them.

“Unfortunately, they have chosen to do the exact opposite. They announced a major shake up of most of the teachers here. They changed our grades we will teach, changed rooms and have us even changing buildings They are taking teachers who have spent many years in lower grades and assigning them to upper grades and vice a versa. They have refused to share the rationale for this upheaval.

“I am well aware that every year there needs to be some changes, due to enrollment and other needs. Those changes are often rational decisions with some teacher input. Not this year! We have been told nothing except this is your new assignment.

As our Local President, I believe my new assignment in another building is due to my position as President. That will not stand. I have has a successful 19 year career and I will be damned if they will get away with this.”

Why? He doesn’t know. No one will say. Disruption is not an end in itself.

Categories Disruption, Education Reform, Teacher Tenure, Unions
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