Why I will vote to raise dues tomorrow.
It is no news to anyone in the Atlanta convention center that educators, our bargaining rights, our union and public education are under ferocious attack. In Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel has closed 50 schools – the largest shutdown of public schools in American history. Our brothers and sisters up the road from Chicago in Milwaukee no longer have collective bargaining rights thanks to Governor Scott
Milwaukee Teachers’ Education Association President Bob Peterson: “Sometimes those hands must become fists.”
Bob Peterson, President of the Milwaukee Teachers Education Association. NEA bylaw amendment 1 would increase annual NEA membership dues by three dollars and allocate the increase to a fund to assist NEA affiliates to, in the words of the proposal, “advance great public schools for all students.” Bob Peterson, President of the Milwaukee Teachers Education Association took the mic to speak in favo
New Business Item 12.
NEA will send a letter to the National Conference of State Legislatures urging legislators of its member states to take the standardized tests of the state in which they live, especially when such tests are required as part of a “high stakes” environment in which portions of teacher evaluations are based on student test scores. The letter will emphasize that legislators should take the test under
Dear Senator Biss.
Dear Senator Biss, As a retired teacher, I very much appreciate your update. Especially on this date, I am reminded of how important it is to respect our Constitution – both the responsibilities and rights it affords us. I sincerely hope your committee does, indeed “respect(s) this clause,” as you note, and does not focus on finding a letter of the law means to circumvent such an important pro
Senator Biss revises?
July 3, 2013 Dear Friends, Thank you very much for contacting me in my capacity as a member of the pension conference committee. A small number of legislators are charged with crafting a bill that will impact hundreds of thousands of public workers across the state, and I take very seriously my responsibility to consider the opinions and concerns of all Illinois citizens. As you know, our
YESTERDAY
Black history.
Me, Reg Weaver, Bob Kaplan and Pearl Mack. “How was your evening?” I asked Pearl Mack as she sat down in the IEA Retired section of the Illinois Caucus this morning. “Oh, I was at the Human Rights Dinner. I always go. It celebrates the merger of the ATA and the NEA.” One of the benefits of sitting in the retired section is that if you listen and if you ask you will learn some history that you w
Stormy Atlanta outside. Anger and common sense from the delegates inside.
The pounding of thunder outside the Atlanta convention center was so loud it could be heard inside the room where 7,000 delegates and 3,000 non-delegates met in the first large session of the RA. From the preliminaries I was concerned that a push by the national leadership and President Dennis Van Roekel of the Common Core standards would cause a big unfortunate fight. I had written earlier about
JUL 02
Short day.
Day two of the RA is a short one. At least in terms of formal meetings. I’m just back from the two-hour Illinois Caucus meeting. And that’s it for the day. The first general session isn’t until tomorrow at 10:30 AM. Apparently the big dogs have met to revisit what Dennis Van Roekel speechwriter Melinda Anderson calls the “intended messaging.” When the NEA Board of Directors’ member from New Jersey
Revenue. The gorilla in the room.
Subscriptions to Jim Broadway’s Update can be found here. Broadway wrote this as part of his report on last week’s Illinois General Assembly Pension Committee public meeting: Which brings us to the unspoken idea – the revenue side of the equation. Rep. Lou Lange (D-Chicago) broached the topic at last week’s committee meeting, suggesting that the temporary income tax increase of 2011 should be mad
Differences emerging on the Common Core at the NEA RA.
I will be heading down to the second state caucus meeting of the Illinois delegation in a few minutes. NEA Board of Director Rainy Kaplan reminded me that when I said Bylaw Amendment #1 was presented to the caucus yesterday, that wasn’t precisely true. It was distributed, but the presentation of it will be today. So far the IEA steering committee takes no position on it and the caucus has yet to h
Fire all the teachers.
Which one is John Tillman, CEO of the Illinois Policy Institute? - By Todd Mertz Yes–fire all Illonois teachers and public employees. I am not kidding. More on that in a minute. The Illinois Policy Institute (IPI) calls themselves a “leading independent research organization.” Far from the truth. They are a right-wing, conservative group with very serious agendas to influence Illinois law and
TRS board of trustee Bob Lyons on the first meeting of the Committee of Ten.
“As other reports on the first meeting of the conference committee on pensions have already been circulated, I will only add some personal observations. First, I will agree with all of those that have said there is no reason to expect they will have a well thought-out bill to be introduced for possible passage on July 9, the date the Governor expects a special session to “at long last to solve th
JUL 01
Roll the video tape and the mysterious three dollar assessment.
It’s twenty-four hours since I wrote a post on NEA President Dennis Van Roekel’s remarks to the NEA Retired Conference. I reported what I heard. DVR positioned advancing the fight for collective bargaining on one side of an equation. Quality and the Common Core on the other. He said that the NEA would be focused on quality and Common Core implementation. I was reprimanded for quoting what DVR said
Shut up and go to bed.
Who is Melinda Anderson? On Twitter she describes herself as writer for @NEAPresident. On her blog she is described as “the creative force behind opinion-editorials, blogs and articles on behalf of a great cause. Ghostwriting pays the bills, but makes it easy to get lost in the shadows. An oversized ego told her it’s time to elevate her own voice. She is a bundle of contradictions. Cynical and hop
JUN 30
DVR’s speechwriter: “This is a gross misinterpretation.”
Melinda D. Anderson This is gross misinterpretation of Dennis Van Roekel’s remarks easily avoided if you had simply ASKED him what he meant! @fklonsky Were you there? Melinda D. Anderson I was not, yet well aware of pre-conf messaging and your “take” is way off-base. Again, did you ASK meaning when you had chance? @fklonsky He left the hall Melinda. Announced he was late and had
Quality control at the NEA RA.
The Retired Conference is over and now I have moved to an upper story room at the Omni at CNN Center. Tomorrow afternoon is the first Illinois and other state caucus meetings. The first general meeting of the NEA RA will be Tuesday. This morning retirees listened to speeches by VP Lily Eskelsen and NEA President Dennis Van Roekel. I posted on Facebook about DVR’s remarks. And it has caused somethi
Changing room.
Mae Smith is an energetic woman who is membership chair of NEA Retired. She’s from Illinois. Michigan before that. When we met the other day she greeted me like we knew each other for years. “Oh, I read your columns,” she said with a smile. She was polite enough not to say whether she agreed with them or liked them. But that’s her way. Her job is building membership among retired educators in the