Announcing the 2012 Labor-Management Collaboration Conference | ED.gov Blog

Announcing the 2012 Labor-Management Collaboration Conference | ED.gov Blog:

Announcing the 2012 Labor-Management Collaboration Conference

Posted on March 14, 2012 by Guest Blogger

The invitation to this year’s Labor-Management Collaboration Conference is now open. The conference, titled Collaborating to Transform the Teaching Profession, will take place May 23-24 in Cincinnati, and brings together management and labor teams from across the country.

For those interested in attending, please complete the RSVP form (including all three required signatures) and submit it by 5:00 p.m. ET on March 30, 2012. To access Secretary Duncan’s invitation and to download the application package, pleaseclick here.

Last year’s conference in Denver, titled,Advancing Student Achievement through Labor-Management Collaboration, focused on the principles of labor-management collaboration. During the conference, Secretary Duncan stated, “President Obama and I are convinced that labor and management can collaborate to solve many of our nation’s enduring educational challenges. And we believe that progress more often follows tough-minded collaboration than tough-minded confrontation.”

This year in Cincinnati, we’re building on those principles by bringing districts and states together to talk about their collaborative work in transforming the teaching profession.

Last year’s event was for districts only, but this year’s event will be open to state as well as district teams. The state team will include the State Chief and the state’s NEA and AFT teacher’s union presidents(s).  The state school boards association and the state administrators association leaders are encouraged to attend as well. District teams will consist of a district superintendent, a school board president and a teacher’s union or association president. All teams that RSVP will share their visions, strategies and plans for increasing student achievement by transforming teaching into a 21^st-century profession during the conference centerpiece titled “Transformers’ Dialogue.”

This year’s Labor-Management Conference partners include:

• U.S. Department of Education
• American Federation of Teachers (AFT)
• National Education Association (NEA)
• National School Boards Association (NSBA)
• American Association of School Administrators (AASA)
• Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO)
• Council of the Great City Schools
• Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS)

We hope to see you this May in Cincinnati!

Chareese Ross is Special Advisor to the Chief of Staff at the Department of Education