Archives for category: Unions
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

Teachers in Hawai’i Speak Up

By dianeravitch
January 1, 2013 //
16

A reader responded to my roundup of the good news of 2012 and chided me for not mentioning the courage of teachers in Hawai’i, who have stood up and spoken up for their profession. And then I received this comment from a teacher in Hawai’i:

Aloha! Hau’oli Makahiki Hou — 2013! Thanks for a terrific blog, Diane! As well as being an Inspiration! Remember… you’re always welcome to come visit, speak, stay with us in Hawai’i ! What started out as a one-school grass-roots Hawaii-Teachers-Work-To-The-Rules Protest in mid-November grew to a every-Thursday Statewide-effort involving nearly 100 schools by mid-December… and though we resisted the (tremendous!) temptation to rally/protest/bring-national-attention-to-our-woes during President Obama’s Christmastime-visit (out of repect for his precious Family’s privacy), the movement is already gearing up again in earnest! Keep your eyes peeled for news of the enormous Statewide Rally for Teachers (and their myriad Supporters!) planned for Thursday, January 17th at the Hawai’i State Legislature…. or…. hmmm… better yet? Come Join Us!https://www.facebook.com/CampbellWorkTheRulesProtest

How I wish I could join them!

Categories Unions

The Best of 2012

By dianeravitch
January 1, 2013 //
54

2012 was a year in which supporters of public education–parents, educators and concerned citizens–won some huge victories against the privatization movement.

Let’s begin with the elections of 2012.

Reform idol Tony Bennett was booted out by the voters of Indiana, who elected veteran educator Glenda Ritz as State Superintendent of Education.

Idaho was a great victory for supporters of public education. Idaho voters decisively repealed the Luna laws, which would have committed the state to spend $180 million for laptops while imposing merit pay, crushing the unions and tying every educators’ evaluation to test scores.

Voters in Florida rejected an effort to amend the state constitution to permit vouchers.

Voters in Bridgeport, Connecticut, voted against the mayor’s effort to take control of their public schools by eliminating the elected board of education.

Voters in Santa Clara County, California, re-elected Anna Song, whose opponent outspent her by about 25-1. She was targeted for defeat by the California charter school lobby after she opposed a bid by Rocketship to open 20 new charters. Rocketship will get the charters but Anna Song proved that big money was not enough to beat a supporter of public education.

The big push for “parent trigger” laws ran into two stumbling blocks:

In Florida, Jeb Bush and Michelle Rhee put on a full-court press to persuade the state legislature to pass a law allowing parents to vote to hand their public school over to a charter operator. But they overlooked the parents of Florida! Every Florida parent group turned out in Tallahassee to oppose the “Parent Empowerment” bill. In reformese, when they talk “parent empowerment,” that means parents are about to lose their voice and their local neighborhood school. Florida PTAs, Fund Florida Now, Testing Is Not Teaching, 50th No More, and every other grassroots group spoke out against the “parent trigger.” A bloc of Republican state senators turned against the bill, and the bill died in the state senate on a tie vote of 20-20. It will be back this year, but so will Florida’s parents.

The billionaire libertarian Philip Anschutz, in league with billionaire media mogul Rupert Murdoch, released a film called “Won’t Back Down,” that was intended to teach the American public that the only way to save their children was to hand their public school over to a charter operator. The film was heavily promoted at NBC’s “Education Nation,” on the Ellen show, and at a “Teachers Rock” concert sponsored by CBS. Michelle Rhee sponsored free showings at both national political conventions, so that every Democrat and Republican could have a chance to see how important it is to turn public schools over to private management, whether for-profit or non-profit. But then Parents Across America sprung into action. They put out a fact sheet about who and what was behind the movie. A few of them actually demonstrated at the Democratic National Convention. When the film was released in late September, it was pegged as anti-teacher and anti-public education and anti-union. It got terrible reviews. It didn’t sell many tickets. It flopped. Within a month after its grand premiere, it had disappeared. The free market is not kind to idlers, even when the guy who produced the movie is one of the biggest theater owners in the nation.

The movement against high-stakes testing roared into high gear:

More than 80% of the local school boards in Texas passed resolutions opposing high-stakes testing. Prominent Texans like state board member Tom Ratliff spoke out against the misuse of tests.

Superintendent Joshua Starr of Montgomery County, Maryland, called for a three-year moratorium on high-stakes testing. He said that the schools were inundated with too many changes at the same time.

Superintendent Heath Morrison of Charlotte-Mecklenburg, North Carolina, said that the national obsession with high-stakes testing had to stop. He said, “we can teach to the top, but we can’t test to the top.” Last spring, Morrison was chosen as Superintendent of the Year by the American Association of School Administrators.

Superintendent John Kuhn of the Perrin-Whitt Independent School District in Texas continues to be an eloquent spokesman for children.

The voucher program in Louisiana became an international embarrassment and its funding was declared unconstitutional:

Earlier this year, Governor Bobby Jindal pushed through sweeping voucher legislation for Louisiana that would give vouchers for more than half the children in the state to attend private and religious schools with money taken from the public school budget. Because several of the voucher schools are religious schools that teach creationism, the Louisiana plan was mocked by media around the world, who laughed at the idea that children would be taught that men and dinosaurs co-existed and that the Loch Ness monster is real, and other nonsense. Just weeks ago, a Louisiana judge struck down the funding of the vouchers, because the state constitution says the money is dedicated to elementary and secondary public schools. The language is clear. The state may not raid the public school’s minimum foundation budget to pay for vouchers.

Oh, and the anti-voucher vote in Florida continued a longstanding tradition: No state has ever voted to approve vouchers.

Local school boards continue to support their public schools with vigilance:

In addition to the many local school boards in Texas and elsewhere that have passed high-stakes testing resolutions, school boards have fought off other intrusions.

In North Carolina, the school boards won a battle to keep the for-profit virtual charter corporation K12 Inc. out of their state.

The Austin Independent School Board, after an election that brought in new members representing the community, severed its contract with the IDEA charter chain.

In Nashville, the Metro Nashville school board turned down Great Hearts Academy four times because Great Hearts wanted to locate their charter in a mainly white neighborhood and had inadequate plans for diversity. The board stood firm despite the fulminations of the governor, the legislature, and the state commissioner of education, who are so determined to open the way for Great Hearts that 1) Commissioner Kevin Huffman withheld $3.4 million of public funds from the children of Nashville to punish the school board for its refusal to follow his orders; and 2) the legislature plans to authorize a state commission to override the local school boards’ wishes. This accords with ALEC legislation.

Bad news for ALEC:

For years, ALEC has been under the radar. The shooting of Trayvon Martin in Florida made the public aware of ALEC’s “Stand Your Ground” legislation, invoked by the man who killed the teen. Then the media starting paying attention to ALEC and discovered its agenda of privatization (see ALEC Exposed) and learned about the model laws written by ALEC for charter schools, vouchers, online charter schools, union-busting, uncertified teachers, and an array of other corporate-friendly legislation.

The Chicago Teachers Union went on strike and said, “Enough is enough!”

Teachers have watched in dismay as state after state has whittled away or hacked away their right to bargain collectively, their tenure rights, their academic freedom, and their pensions. They have seen state after state pass legislation requiring merit pay (even though it has never worked anywhere) and tying their evaluations and their careers to student test scores (even though research says that value-added assessment is inaccurate and unstable and punishes teachers who teach children with high needs).

Teachers and principals alike have watched in dismay as rightwing legislatures and governors have slashed spending for public schools while paying more for testing.

Educators have been appalled by cuts in basic services to students.

And the CTU said, “No more.”

CTU was not allowed to strike about anything that mattered, but they made clear in their words and deeds that they were striking for their students. They were striking to protest the lack of teachers of the arts, of librarians and social workers, and of basic resources for students. They were protesting overcrowded classes. They were protesting school closings.

CTU had the support of parents of Chicago’s students. They had the support of police and firefighters.

The national media never understood what was at stake, but almost every educator in America did.

And to educators, CTU were heroes. Every educator wished they too had one of those cool red CTU tee-shirts.

2012 was the beginning.

Teachers, principals, superintendents, local and state school boards are speaking up.

Parents and students are speaking up.

The friends of public education dominate social media.

We dominate Twitter and Facebook because we have millions of supporters.

The corporate reformers have millions to buy TV ads and to buy media outlets.

But they don’t own us.

And they are failing. Everything they advocate is failing.

That is why we are winning.

2012 is the beginning.

We will take back public education for the public, not for profit, not for private interests.

For the public.

Pro publica.

Categories Charter Schools, Education Reform, Parent trigger, Privatization, Supporting public schools, Unions, US Education, Vouchers

Chicago Teachers Union Sues District, Claims Racial Discrimination

By dianeravitch
December 27, 2012 //
21

This should be of interest to readers. The Chicago Teachers Union has filed a federal lawsuit against the Chicago Public Schools, claiming that African American teachers have been disproportionately harmed by school closings. Over the past decade, their numbers have dropped dramatically in the school system.

Chicago Teachers File Federal Lawsuit Charging CPS with Racial Discrimination

CHICAGO — The oft-maligned Chicago Public Schools (CPS) policy of subjecting neighborhood schools to “turnaround” discriminates against African-American teachers and staff according to a federal lawsuit filed this week by the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) and three public school educators. More than half of the 347 tenured teachers who were terminated by CPS as a result of the most recent turnarounds are African-American. This is the second major legal action on this matter taken by the union.

 

The Dec. 26 lawsuit alleges that the process for selecting schools for turnaround results in schools being selected that have a high percentage of African-American teachers, compared to schools that performed similarly but are not selected for any school action. More than 50 percent of the tenured teachers terminated as a result of the most recent turnarounds were African American, despite making up less than 30 percent of the tenured teaching staff at CPS, and 35 percent of the tenured teacher population in the poor performing schools.

 

The complaint, a potential class action first filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in August by the CTU and teachers Donald L. Garrett Jr., Robert Green and Vivonell Brown Jr., challenges termination by virtue of the Chicago Board of Education’s policy and practice in selecting 10 South and West side schools for turnaround in February 2012—effective June 2012.

 

“While no one wins when jobs are lost, to disproportionately affect a particular segment of the population— whether intentional or not—indicates a glaring oversight and lack of concern for what the loss of jobs does to an individual and their community,” said CTU President Karen GJ Lewis.

 

Most of the district’s African-American teachers are employed in schools on the South and West sides, where school closings and teacher layoffs have been prevalent since 2001. In the last six years, 26 schools have been reconstituted, or become turnaround schools, where all faculty and staff and dismissed and replaced. Dismissals are handed down regardless of qualifications or experience, and are followed by a CPS selection process to re-staff the school.

 

“CPS terminates every single employee when it subjects a neighborhood school to ‘turnaround,’ regardless of qualifications and experience,” said attorney Robin Potter. “The inequity of the most recent ‘turnarounds’ is not merely perception but a reality.”

 

Approximately 90 percent of students in CPS’s 578 non-charter schools are minorities. Forty-two percent of these students are identified as African-American, but the African-American teaching population has gradually declined in recent years, from 40.6 percent in 2000 to 29.6 percent in 2010.

 

It should be noted that once CPS “turns around a school,” one of two operators are given control over the school—either the CPS Office of School Improvement (OSI) or the Academy for Urban School Leadership (AUSL). If the school is operated by OSI, it remains subject to the terms of the CTU labor agreement, but under AUSL—a private entity—it is no longer subject to CPS policies, Board rules or the terms of the current labor agreement. The operator is responsible for the hiring process to re-staff the school.

 

The Board of Education approved the turnaround of 10 schools in February 2012, stating that each of the schools was selected because of its alleged poor performance. Each of these schools was located on the South or West sides of the city, where the student and teacher populations are predominantly minority.

 

The school district has yet to release any information on how these 10 schools were chosen from over 180 allegedly poor performing schools in the CPS system. The Board has been roundly criticized for its lack of transparency and published criteria in selecting schools for turnaround. In fact, the Chicago Educational Facilities Task Force, a statutorily-created oversight group, called for a complete halt of turnarounds and other school action, saying, “CPS’s historic and continuing lack of transparency and evidence-based criteria for decisions resulted in the pervasive climate of public suspicion about what drives CPS to take school actions and allocate resources, often in ways perceived to be highly inequitable.”

 

The federal lawsuit seeks relief for all teachers affected by the 2012 and any future turnarounds—including reinstatement and damages—and importantly, an immediate moratorium on turnarounds and the appointment of an independent monitor to oversee any future turnarounds, should any occur or be permitted.

 

###

The Chicago Teachers Union represents 30,000 teachers and educational support personnel working in the Chicago Public Schools, and by extension, the more than 400,000 students and families they serve.  The CTU is an affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers and the Illinois Federation of Teachers and is the third largest teachers local in the United States and the largest local union in Illinois.  For more information please visit CTU’s website at www.ctunet.com.

Categories Chicago, Unions

Katie Osgood Defends Karen Lewis

By dianeravitch
December 21, 2012 //
22

Karen Lewis spoke up on my behalf when a TFA officer denounced my post “The Hero Teachers of Newtown”) as “reprehensible. Lewis then became the object of attacks from outraged bloggers and tweeters saying that she literally accused TFA of murder. Lewis said no such thing. This was a fine example of the dark art of twisting words. Katie Osgood, who teaches children in a psychiatric hospital in Chicago and has her own blog, here defends Lewis:

“Lewis was not speaking about TFA specifically, but about the Corporate Ed Reform movement as a whole with which TFA is closely aligned. And yes, the corporate education reforms plaguing Chicago for the past 10+ years have cost precious children their lives. The chaos caused by callous school closings, leading to sending children across the city to “choice” schools crossing gang boundaries has indeed led to increases in youth violence and yes, even deaths. The tragic beating death of Derrion Albert in 2009 is one prime example http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/06/chicago-teen-deaths-viole_n_311877.html

“It is the utter ignorance and arrogance of education reformers, including and especially TFA, which allows terrible policies to get passed. Churn in teaching staff after closings and turnarounds is dangerous to kids who need stability. Charter schools do not serve the neediest students and instead these kids are concentrated in schools purposefully underfunded and neglected causing ever more severe behavior issues in schools given fewer resources to help. Our district buys new tests and “data systems” instead of hiring more social workers, counselors, and nurses which my kids desperately need. Ed Reform creates environments of fear and stress with terrible new evaluation systems and sometimes even pay tied to test scores leaving the people who work directly with the children with less emotional energy to devote to them. Ed Reform also pushes more inexperienced, poorly trained teachers-as the war on veteran teachers, tenure, and unions continues-on the children who need experienced, well-trained teachers the most.”

Categories Chicago, Connecticut, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Unions

Another Corporate Reform Group Sets Up Shop in Connecticut

By dianeravitch
December 20, 2012 //
7

Connecticut was the scene this year of a bitter battle over legislation that was intended to diminish teachers’ tenure and to impose a punitive evaluation plan tied to test scores. In efforts to promote this legislation (SB 24), There was a great deal of hostile talk about greedy, lazy teachers, protected by their union and tenure, getting paid just to show up.

Jonathan Pelto puts the events of this past year into perspective here.

 

Pelto is one of those people who follows the money, always a good place to begin any investigation.

This is how he begins:

It started with Achievement First, Inc., the charter school management company co-founded by Commissioner of Education, Stefan Pryor.

Then came the Connecticut Coalition for Achievement Now (ConnCAN), the Connecticut Coalition for Advocacy Now, (ConnAD), Michelle Rhee’s StudentsFirst (calling itself the Great New England Public School Alliance, GNEPSA) and Students for Education Reform (SFER, an off-shoot of 50-CAN, which, in turn, grew out of ConnCAN)

When Governor Malloy proposed his “education reform” legislation earlier this year, these groups, funded by millionaire and billionaire hedge fund owners, along with the Gates, Walton and Broad Foundations, engaged in the most costly lobbying, advertising and public relations effort in Connecticut history.

Since then, many of the same organizations funded Bridgeport Mayor Bill Finch’s record spending effort to eliminate Bridgeport’s elected board of education and replace it with one appointed by the mayor.

Now, with the next session of the Connecticut General Assembly only a few weeks away, comes that news that a group called “Educators 4 Excellence” is opening operations here, as the corporate reformers seek to continue their efforts to privatize and undermine Connecticut’s public education system.

Educators 4 Excellence is a two year-old organization, funded by the Gates Foundation (among others) and set up by the corporate education reform trifecta of Education Reform Now (ERN), Education Reform Now Advocacy (ERNA) and Democrats for Education Reform (DFER).

 

Categories Charter Schools, Connecticut, Teacher Evaluations, Unions

New State Commissioner in Massachusetts

By dianeravitch
December 20, 2012 //
7

Massachusetts’ Governor Deval Patrick has selected Matthew H. Malone as the new state superintendent of education.

Malone has had an interesting past decade.

He is a graduate of the unaccredited Broad Superintendents Academy, class of 2003, which is a worrisome sign as Broadies tend to be lightning rods and alienate the communities they are supposed to serve.

He is currently superintendent in Brockton, Massachusetts, where the town board recently voted 5-2 not to renew his contract. Reportedly, they were annoyed that he never took up residence in the district and had failed to conduct routine criminal checks on employees.

He was superintendent in Swampscott, Massachusetts, where the union passed a no-confidence vote of 138-6 against him. The board quickly responded with a vote of full confidence in Malone.

On the plus side, he opposed the opening of a charter school in 2008 in Brockton on grounds that the charter would cherry-pick students and drain the budget of the public schools.

When the charter proposal was revived in 2012, Malone again led the opposition. If approved, the charter will be run by for-profit SABIS.

If Malone is willing to stem the privatization tide, he will be a good state commissioner. He will be even better if he figures out how to work cooperatively with the state’s teachers and local school boards. I hope he keeps front and center the fact that public education in Massachusetts is a great success story. The hard-working professionals need appreciation, and the public needs to hear it.

Categories Broad Foundation, Charter Schools, Massachusetts, Unions

Tasteless: StudentsFirst Ad Attacks Teachers in NYC: UPDATE

By dianeravitch
December 19, 2012 //
28

While I was watching the television coverage of the tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut, an ad came on that was very upsetting. Sponsored by StudentsFirst ad, it was a typically deceptive TV ad depicting teachers and parents who demand that teachers be evaluated by test scores. It implies that teachers are slackers and need a swift kick to get to work. If they are evaluated, they claim, this will have a revolutionary effect on the schools.

Showing this anti-teacher ad at this moment in time was utterly tasteless. Just as we are watching stories about teachers and a principal and school psychologist who were gunned down protecting little children, we have to see this tawdry ad. Given the timing, it is political pornography.

The ad is meretricious. It does not mention that the city published the names and ratings of thousands of teachers a year ago, generating anger and controversy, not any wonderful transformation. The ratings a year ago were rife with error, but all that is now forgotten in the new push to get tough with teachers.

Who are those teachers and parents in the ad with no last names? Are they paid actors? If they believe what they say, why no last names? Why no school names?

Does StudentsFirst know that most of New York City’s charter schools have refused to submit to the teacher evaluation system? May we expect to see a TV attack ad demanding that charter schools adopt the same test-based evaluation system that Governor Cuomo and Mayor Bloomberg want? Or is it only for public schools?

Andrea Gabor wrote an excellent post providing the context for ad and the stand-off between the New York City United Federation of Teachers and the city (and state). She writes:

“Governor Cuomo has threatened to withhold funding if the city and the union cannot come to an agreement by January. And Mayor Bloomberg has said that he would rather lose the money than compromise on the evaluations.

“The StudentsFirst ad and the mayor’s tough talk highlight one of several problems with the teacher-evaluation debate. While employee evaluations work when they are part of a system-wide effort at continuous improvement, they are often counterproductive when used as a cudgel against employees.

The cheerful-sounding teachers in the StudentsFirst ad not withstanding, everything about the teacher-evaluation debate has been framed in punitive terms.”

Not only has the debate been framed in punitive terms, but as Gabor points out, VAM is rife with technical issues. As I have written repeatedly on this blog, VAM is so inaccurate and unstable that it is junk science. And as Bruce Baker has written again and again, teachers with the neediest students are likely to get worse ratings than those with “easier” students.

No wonder charter schools in New York City refuse to submit their teacher ratings.

The issue now is whether the governor and the mayor, with the help of StudentsFirst, can beat the union into agreeing to a process for evaluating teachers that is demonstrably harmful and demoralizing to its members, that does nothing to improve education, and that is guaranteed to waste many millions of dollars.

Frankly, StudentsFirst should have had the decency to stop their attacks on public school teachers until the public had gotten over the massacre at the Sandy Hook Elementary School. At long last, have they no decency?

*UPDATE: Micah Lasher of StudentsFirstNY informed that the organization asked the city’s television stations on Monday morning to pull the ad, in light of the tragedy. I saw it on CNN or MSNBC on Monday night. Someone goofed. I appreciate the clarification.

Categories Bloomberg, Michael, Cuomo, Andrew, New York City, NYC, StudentsFirst, Unions

Karen Lewis Reacts to the Kerfuffle

By dianeravitch
December 18, 2012 //
40

As readers of the blog know, I posted a tribute yesterday to “The Hero Teachers of Newtown.”
Soon after, the vice-president of Teach for America responded with outrage on Twitter and said that the post was “reprehensible” and should be retracted. I had no idea what he was offended by, but not long after I received many Tweets and comments on the blog from his followers, chastising me for daring to….well, I am not sure why they were upset. Some thought I slandered TFA, though the post didn’t mention TFA. Some thought I slandered non-union teachers, because I praised the Sandy Hook teachers and said they belonged to a union. Some alleged that I politicized the massacre by acknowledging (as many others have) that teachers have been demonized for at least the past two-three years in the media and by politicians, who blame them (and their unions and their right to due process) for low test scores. Sandy Hook demonstrated the falsehood at the core of that narrative. Why TFA decided to turn it into a cause célèbre, I do not know. But as I told one of the complainers earlier today, “Don’t be defensive. It’s not about you.”

I was pleased to receive this comment from Karen Lewis, president of the Chicago Teachers Union:

Diane, et. al.
I have read these posts (alas I do not do Twitter), and I am struck by the lack of authenticity by the Rosenberg comment. Diane has been at the forefront of the desire to lift up the beleaguered profession of teaching in each and every post. She has drawn the connections between people who wouldn’t think of sending their children to public schools and their policies that are destroying the common good. Anyone who doesn’t know that in the marrow of their bones, doesn’t read her blog.

On the other, the educrats who do not agree with her, read her posts, too so as to keep abreast of her thoughts and are ready to pounce if they see an opening. There might have been a time where “politicizing” tragic events, especially mass shootings was thought to be in poor taste. That has changed with the 24/7 news cycle that continues to focus far too much time and energy on the perpetrator of the massacre than that of our precious victims. Rosenberg’s “false outrage” needs to be checked. That same false outrage should show itself when policies his colleagues support kill and disenfranchise children from schools across this nation. We in Chicago have been the victims of their experiments on our children since the current secretary of Education “ran” CPS.

The accolades heaped on a group of education missionaries, (hopefully with beautiful intent on the part of the TFA teachers) cannot go unchallenged. Diane does that. Day in and day out, she champions rank and file educators and the hard work they do. She has a special place in heart for those who see the value of the classroom and not as stepping stone to a more lucrative career or the opportunism of self-promoters like Michelle Rhee who, with her lies about her own classroom experience has catapulted herself into the welcoming arms of those who hate unions, tenure and anything else that provides due process and gives teachers real voice.

To David Rosenberg, Shanda! Shame on you for such a paranoid rant. If you had nothing of which to be guilty, those words would have rolled off your back.

To Diane – Keep speaking the truth!

Karen Lewis

Categories Connecticut, Teach for America TFA, Unions

Last night’s Twitter Kerfuffle

By dianeravitch
December 18, 2012 //
62

Last night I posted a tribute to “The Hero Teachers of Newtown,” briefly describing each of them , noting that they were members of a union, they were career educators, and that the attacks on career educators and unions should stop.

Shortly after, a TFA officer demanded on Twitter that I retract the post, calling it reprehensible.

I was baffled. The post made no reference to TFA.

Someone then wrote on the blog that I was casting aspersion on non-union teachers, which I was not. I was called many names for using this occasion to call for an end to the relentless attacks on dedicated career educators.

Here, Jersey Jazzman explains what happened.

I doubt that I would ever have the amazing courage of the educators of Newtown, but this much I can say for sure. I will not be intimidated by tweets.

Categories Connecticut, Teach for America TFA, Teacher Tenure, Unions

Does StudentsFirst Support Collective Bargaining? UPDATE!

By dianeravitch
December 14, 2012 //
3

StudentsFirst likes to keep everyone guessing about its true purposes.

It wants “great” teachers but doesn’t think teachers should have any due process rights.

It either supports collective bargaining or is neutral on collective bargaining or is against collective bargaining.

It claims to be a liberal group that “puts students first” but gives campaign funds to reactionary candidates that support the Koch brothers agenda of privatization.

All of this will sort itself out over time, as the facts emerge.

Alexander Russo has a post that clarifies where StudentsFirst stands on collective bargaining. It does not support collective bargaining. It is not neutral on collective bargaining. It opposes collective bargaining.

But, wait. Two hours after Russo put up the post showing how much money StudentsFirst has contributed to campaigns to undermine collective bargaining, StudentsFirst sent him a list of how many times Michelle Rhee has said she supports collective bargaining.

What should we believe? What she says or where the money goes?

Categories StudentsFirst, Unions
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »