Record Numbers Of Charter Schools Teachers Are Organizing Unions | PopularResistance.Org

Record Numbers Of Charter Schools Teachers Are Organizing Unions | PopularResistance.Org:

Sorry, Charter Boosters: Record Numbers Of Teachers At Chicago Charter Schools Are Organizing Unions

Above Photo: Teachers at the ASPIRA charter school network rally on March 9 during union contract negotiations with management. (Scott Olson / Getty Images)

Unionized teachers can help keep charter administrations accountable to their workers—and to students.

It’s a delicious irony for teachers unions that Rauner College Prep—a Chicago charter school named after Bruce Rauner, Illinois’ virulently anti-union governor—may soon have a union.

On March 3, the Chicago Association of Charter Teachers and Staff (ACTS) announced an organizing drive at the Noble Network of Charter Schools, which has 18 campuses across Chicago, including Rauner College Prep. If the campaign is successful, Noble will become the nation’s largest unionized charter network. The addition of Noble’s 800 teachers and staff to its ranks would also give ACTS, a local of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), an impressive density in Chicago’s charter market—the union says it would represent as many as 40 percent of charter teachers in Chicago. About 10 percent of charter teachers nationwide are unionized, according to the pro-charter Center for Education Reform.

The Chicago Teachers Union, a sister local to ACTS, has been a bright spot in a bleak labor landscape. But traditional public school educators aren’t the only ones on the move. Chicago is also at the epicenter of a nationwide push to unionize charter schools. The AFT says it now has 7,000 members across charter schools in 15 states such as New York and California, where large organizing drives are also gaining stream. More than 1,000 of the union’s charter members are in Chicago.

ACTS hopes to increase charter teachers’ pay and benefits (according to data obtained by Catalyst, a Chicago education publication, full-time Noble teachers make about $60,000 a year including bonuses and stipends; CPS teachers make $74,000), increase teacher retention and wrest control away from “unaccountable” charter management. In doing so, the union may eliminate corporate reformers’ incentives for pushing charters in the first place.

The growth of charter schools during the past decade has gone hand-in-hand with the dismantling of public education. In the 2015–16 school year, nearly 3 million students—up 250,000 from the prior year—attended more than 6,800 charters across 42 states, according to the pro-charter National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. In Chicago, charters have spread rapidly at the same time traditional public schools have been shuttered. The city infamously closed 49 schools in one fell swoop in 2013 and closed about 100 in the decade before that. At the same time, new charter schools have continued to open, totaling 130 today. The schools are privately run but operate almost entirely on public dollars.

Charter boosters say the model provides school administrators the freedom to innovate. In a statement responding to the Noble union drive, Superintendent Michael Milkie said that the charter network would “respect the rights of individuals to organize or not organize.” However, he warned that “a restrictive union contract could eliminate the curriculum and Record Numbers Of Charter Schools Teachers Are Organizing Unions | PopularResistance.Org:

CURMUDGUCATION: PA: Are We Future Ready?

CURMUDGUCATION: PA: Are We Future Ready?:

PA: Are We Future Ready?

Pennsylvania is using its newfound ESSA-empowered freedom to create a new dashboard for measuring school awesomeness-- Future Ready PA. Many folks in Harrisburg are very excited about it and are touting it as a relief from the standardized tests that are "failing" PA students. Let's grab our flux capacitor and our supply of illegal plutonium!

Is Future Ready PA all that and a bag of Snyder's chips? Well, I've looked at it before and, spoiler alert-- no. But it's time revisit this mess in more detail. Let's look at a breakdown of the pieces parts courtesy of the state's own power point slides from its webinar presentation about FRPA. I'm going CURMUDGUCATION: PA: Are We Future Ready?:

Catch up with CURMUDGUCATION

CURMUDGUCATION:

Catch up with CURMUDGUCATION

Who's The Boss?

10by Peter Greene / 3h

When someone tells you who they are, listen to them. Representative Markwayne Mullin (Rep-OK) told his constituents a great deal this week, when in a town hall meeting he said this: You say you pay for me to do this. Bullcrap. I pay for myself. I paid enough taxes before I got there and continue to through my company to pay my own salary. This is a service. No one here pays me to go. And as a foll

YESTERDAY

IN: Welcome UPSTART Pre-K Cyberschool

72by Peter Greene / 23h

You probably thought this was going to be one of those posts where I made fun of some trend in education by extending it to its logical yet absurd extreme. Sadly-- I mean, really sadly-- that is not the case. "Seriously, dude. What the hell." Meet UPSTART , a company that... well, let me just quote from their home page: UPSTART is an in-home, technology-delivered kindergarten readiness program tha

APR 13

College-Ready Sixth Graders

30by Peter Greene / 1d

Mike Petrilli, Big Cheese at the Fordham Institute, a reliably reformy thinky tank, is concerned. While he allows that some students and families are uber-stressing about the whole college thing, the rest of us should be in a greater state of panic: We need the majority of parents and kids to be more stressed out. We need to shake them out of their complacency and tell them: You and your kids are

New Merit Pay Study Hits The Wrong Target

47by Peter Greene / 2d

We're all going to be hearing about a piece of research, a working paper that suggests that teacher merit pay works . Sort of. Depending on what you mean by "works." Matthew G. Springer , an assistant professor of public policy and education at Vanderbilt University, has produced a meta-analysis (that's research of the research) entitled " Teacher Merit Pay and Student Test Scores: A Meta-Analysis

APR 12

PA: Charter Reform Sort of Revisited

9by Peter Greene / 2d

Pennsylvania charter law is rather a mess. In April of 2016, State Auditor General Eugene DePasquale issued a blistering report, dubbing PA charter law the " worst in the nation ." There have been occasional legislative attempts to address the issue, but these bills have often confused "reform" with "give charters more freedom and opportunities to suck up public tax dollars." Harrisburg has a hist

APR 11

Corporations versus Human Persons

9by Peter Greene / 3d

The story of United Airlines and the Shameful Assault on a Paying Customer has been more thoroughly covered than almost anything this week (congrats, Beloved Leader Trump, on a widespread distraction from your latest screwup). We've had lessons from the airlines in free market delights before, but this is an even more direct and clear example of why the corporate approach is a bad idea for public

APR 10

Trump Education Sad Argle Bargle

19by Peter Greene / 5d

So, Donald Trump held a town hall, if your idea of a town is a place where only CEOs live. It included some Presidential word chunks on the subject of education, and happened all the way back on last Tuesday and yet somehow I missed it (almost as if I'm not actually a CEO) but Valerie Strauss was right on top of things for the Washington Post . As one might expect, the entire conversation was a fa

Will Investors Love Fake Teachers?

66by Peter Greene / 5d

Well, this was, of course, inevitable. We've heard a lot about CGI students as a training (and evaluation) technique for teachers, a freakish notion in which teachers or neo-teachers square off against cyber-puppets in an uncanny valley showdown. And we've also hear endlessly about artificial intelligence being used to craft a personalized education program , somehow. I'm from the future and I'm h

APR 09

Soap Box Derby Equity

15by Peter Greene / 6d

We have tied to explain the problems of equality and equity and opportunity dozens of ways. Here are two you've probably seen, many times: I'm going to offer another metaphor today-- the soap box derby. Let's imagine two racers approaching the starting line. Our two young divers are seated in similarly-built cars, made well enough for the race. The race down the hill begins at the starting line, b

What the Public Sees

46by Peter Greene / 6d

While reading my way around the web this weekend, I came across this "Topline Report" of the Phi Delta Kappa annual poll about education issues . I'm way late to sifting through this data, but it's an interesting report, so I'm going to do it anyway. It gathers together the data over the past several decades into some quick-and-dirty charts, and it makes for some interesting reading. The newest re

ICYMI: Early Earth Day Edition (4/9)

7by Peter Greene / 6d

Every Sunday I try to share some of the noteworthy reads of the previous, focusing on the pieces you might have missed. You can also keep up with plenty of what's worth reading by using the column to the right, where I list most of my 

CURMUDGUCATION:

CURMUDGUCATION: Who's The Boss?

CURMUDGUCATION: Who's The Boss?:

Who's The Boss?

When someone tells you who they are, listen to them.

Representative Markwayne Mullin (Rep-OK) told his constituents a great deal this week, when in a town hall meeting he said this:

You say you pay for me to do this. Bullcrap. I pay for myself. I paid enough taxes before I got there and continue to through my company to pay my own salary. This is a service. No one here pays me to go.

And as a follow-up--

I’m just saying this is a service for me, not a career, and I thank God this is not how I make my living.

On the one hand, Mullin's point seems to be that he's not a professional politician and doesn't have to kiss a bunch of Oklahoma ass just to keep his cushy job. On the other hand, exactly who is he working for?*

Mullins has an interesting backstory-- he's one of two Native Americans in Congress (Cherokee Nation), a pentecostal, and a former mixed martial arts fighter. He once hosted a radio talk show about construction and fixing stuff up.

Other parts of his story are garden-variety rich kid fare. He took over his father's plumbing business (actually a conglomerate of several businesses). He railed against the Recovery Act in 2009, but his business accepted $370K in stimulus funds. In 2012, he won a six-way primary, followed by a run-off, to ultimate recapture a former Dem seat for the GOP.

So when he suggests that his Congressional salary is not how he makes his living, or that he's just CURMUDGUCATION: Who's The Boss?:

Michelle Strater Gunderson:.Supporting Education Activist Sarah Chambers - Living in Dialogue

Supporting Education Activist Sarah Chambers - Living in Dialogue:

Supporting Education Activist Sarah Chambers 

By Michelle Strater Gunderson.

If you are fortunate, every once in a while you will meet someone who breathes the fire of justice. In my life Sarah Chambers, a special education teacher from Maria Saucedo School in Chicago, fills that role.

Yet, this is the teacher who the Chicago Public Schools suspended last week pending a hearing that could lead to her firing.

Sarah is everywhere in Chicago when there is a call to defend children with disabilities. She is the leader of the Chicago Teachers Union Special Education Task Force, the co-chair of the Caucus of Rank and File Educators, a member of the union’s executive board, and a negotiator on our latest bargaining team.

So, why would the Chicago Public Schools send her a letter the night before our Spring Break removing her from the classroom?

I can only come up with one answer. Fear.

Fear of the truth Sarah tells. Fear of the power of her leadership. And fear of the crumbling of the neo-liberal design for schools: underfund the schools, watch them starve, and blame the failure of the schools on the children, teachers, and the communities. Once our schools are deemed unfit they are ripe for privatization by our mayor, Rahm Emanuel, and his friends. Sarah’s work interrupts these plans.

Lois Weiner writes about why removing Sarah Chambers from her position should be of interest to all of us Supporting Education Activist Sarah Chambers - Living in Dialogue:

President of teachers union will speak on the future of education | Around the O

President of teachers union will speak on the future of education | Around the O:

President of teachers union will speak on the future of education

For the last event in its “Future of Public Education” series, the Wayne Morse Center for Law and Politics is hosting Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, to speak in Portland for a for a free public talk Tuesday, April 25, and also in Eugene on Wednesday, April 26.

The leader of the 1.6 million-member educators’ union, American Federation of Teachers, Weingarten was named as one of the most influential New Yorkers in the past 25 years by the New York Observer. Washington Life magazine also included Weingarten on its 2013 Power 100 list of influential leaders. At her speech on Tuesday, she plans to address the federation’s interest in the future of both K-12 and higher education issues.

As the federation’s leader, Weingarten said that public education is a foundation ofdemocracy,  and stressed that it’s vital to ensure that all schools are successful.

 “There are common traits in every school that is working as it should,” she said in a recent interview. “I call them the four pillars of effective public schools: promoting children’s well-being, supporting powerful learning, building teacher capacity and fostering school and community collaboration. While these pillars are effective, they’re not a given in our schools. And deep cuts to K-12 and higher education have set us even further back.”

Formerly a lawyer and a high school history teacher, Weingarten served for 12 years as president of the United Federation of Teachers, AFT Local 2 in New York City, representing 200,000 public school educators and home child care providers. Also a New York Times columnist, Weingarten was appointed by New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo to serve on the Common Core Task Force in 2013 and recently has pushed efforts to make education reform one of her union’s and the nation’s highest priorities.

“Twenty-three states spend less on education than they did before the Great Recession,” she said. “On top of that, President Trump wants to slash $9 billion in education spending, which would be the largest cut ever made to the U.S. Education Department. We’ve got to focus on what works, and show that we value public education and higher education by making adequate investments in them.”

The event in Portland will take place at 5:30 p.m. April 25 at the First Congregational United Church of Christ, 1126 SW Park Ave. The Eugene event will be at 7 p.m. April 26 at the Giustina Ballroom in the Ford Alumni Center.  

The event is co-sponsored by AFT-Oregon, the World Affairs Council, United Academics, AAUP-AFT Local 3209 and the UO Labor Education and Research center.

Campus News

 President of teachers union will speak on the future of education | Around the O:

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Things That Make You Go, Hmmm

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Things That Make You Go, Hmmm:

Things That Make You Go, Hmmm

Interesting but somewhat concerning article from the Chicago Tribune about students who take the state's free SAT who then find that the score appears on their transcript (whether they want it there or a not).  

While the test is designed to evaluate whether a student is prepared for college, some parents say it's unfair to rely on just one exam. They note that anything from an illness to anxiety could disrupt the test-taking process, leaving students stuck with a score that could hurt their child's chances of getting into their dream school.

Well, yeah. Some kids take the SAT multiple times.  Some do better on the ACT.  Why wouldn't the student and their parent decide what score goes to admissions offices?   Seems like this could be an opt-in thing rather than a blanket item.

Anyone heard of this for SPS?   

Jonathan Knapp, former head of the Seattle Education Association, is running to be the head of the Washington Education Association.  He has quite the interesting (and impressive) resume.  Sadly, he misspells McCleary as "McCleery,"  And he certainly wastes no words in criticizing past administrations.  

OSPI just released data on student attendance and absenteeism, saying Washington state was recently ranked second-worst in the U.S. for the number of chronically missing students.

For the 2015-16 school year, an average of 16.7 percent of students Seattle Schools Community Forum: Things That Make You Go, Hmmm:

6 Ways to Spread Happiness in the Classroom - Teacher Habits

6 Ways to Spread Happiness in the Classroom - Teacher Habits:

6 Ways to Spread Happiness in the Classroom

It’s an exciting day here at Teacher Habits Headquarters! We have our first guest post! Paul Ellsworth (aka Profe Pablo) is a high school Spanish Teacher and a writer. He loves trying “out of the box” classroom management techniques to create a fun and productive classroom. He writes about his classroom at ProfePablo.com. There you can download his Top 25 Teaching Tricks or even tune into his podcast Schooled Radio. Today, he writes about spreading happiness in the classroom, a subject near and dear to my heart, and, not-so-coincidentally, the subject of my next book, Happy Teacher, available on Amazon by the end of the month.

6 Ways to Spread Happiness in the Classroom

When analyzing the classroom often we look at test scores or students’ grades. Grades are important, but what if grades were not a true indicator of success?

Instead of looking at the grades first, what if I asked you about your students’ happiness?

You would think I was crazy.

However, in his book The Happiness Advantage, positive psychology expert Shawn Achor proves that success doesn’t lead to6 Ways to Spread Happiness in the Classroom - Teacher Habits: