Probably No Early Retirement Incentive This Year | JD2718

Probably No Early Retirement Incentive This Year | JD2718

Probably No Early Retirement Incentive This Year

Today’s email from Mulgrew held out the smallest glimmer of hope, “We will continue to fight until the final hour.” But the final hour is just about here.

When the NY State legislature included in the state budget a provision that would allow the City to negotiate with unions for an early retirement incentive, some teachers got excited.

But the negotiations bogged down. The City made ridiculous proposals (for some teacher licenses, but not others) that they knew the UFT would never agree to. It does not look like the City is serious. They will probably just run out the clock.

What happened? Here’s my guess.

An incentive would save the City money today, but increase overall pension liability. And, with the COVID economy and scary budget this fall, the City was thinking about the incentive more seriously than in any recent year (An incentive gets raised every single year, but usually dies a quiet death. One assemblyman gets to score points at home for introducing it).

Bureaucracy moves slowly, and the City’s interest in the fall turned into serious legislative moves over the winter, and the adoption of the incentive with the State budget last month.

Bureaucracy moves slowly, but the world doesn’t.

While an incentive was working its way through votes and negotiations and back-room deals, the feds sent money – a huge infusion. But at least some of it is only one-year money. So now the City’s CONTINUE READING: Probably No Early Retirement Incentive This Year | JD2718

CURMUDGUCATION: Covid and the Good Guys

CURMUDGUCATION: Covid and the Good Guys

Covid and the Good Guys

You can set this Twitter comment next to a quote from Rep. Virginia Foxx, who said that Weingarten "is attempting to rewrite history by framing her union as part of the 'solution.'"

Both are a fine example of how far off the rails the re-opening school debate has gone (if we can characterize a bunch of people hollering at each other a debate). Notice that the outpouring about Weingarten's call to re-open school buildings in the fall is not talking about whether that's a good idea or not. No, what we're now arguing about is who should get to call themselves a good guy. 

One of the narratives pushed and pushed hard for the last fifteen months has been the Narrative of the Evil Unions, who have somehow been behind the whole school closing thing even though many many parents have balked at sending students back and many private schools have stayed closed and it's not even particularly clear exactly how and where this union pressure has been exerted. Nor have I ever, ever understood what the villains' motivation was supposed to be in this story--if teachers are intent on shutting down schools, why is that, exactly? But anyway-- the Narrative of the Evil Unions has never flagged, and people who are invested in it will be damned if they're going to see the unions wiggle CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: Covid and the Good Guys

A Closer Look at Teacher Insurgency with Dr. Leo Casey - Trending in Education

A Closer Look at Teacher Insurgency with Dr. Leo Casey - Trending in Education

A Closer Look at Teacher Insurgency with Dr. Leo Casey

Mike welcomes Dr. Leo Casey, the Executive Director of the Albert Shanker Institute who has written a book called The Teacher Insurgency: A Strategic and Organizing Perspective. They begin with Leo’s upbringing by two New York City teachers, how he abandoned his dissertation to teach in Crown Heights, and how he began working with the union when his school shut down.

Leo then began to head the Albert Shanker Institute, a strategic think tank within the American Federation of Teachers which examines labor history, especially for teachers. Leo explains the origins of the 2018 and 2019 teacher strikes: theJanus case, post-2008 austerity, deprofessionalization, and movements like the Women’s March on Washington. Teachers saw both their compensation as well as their position in the classroom undergoing rapid decline.

The first teacher’s strikes were held in West Virginia, which had a history labor movement–both within education and beyond. From here the strikes spread, and ultimately the movement was successful in protecting teachers during COVID-19 times (in this context, MIke mentions Leo’s article on Black Lives Matter and the NBA.)  

Leo notes his concern about both the early retirement of teachers and the paucity in the pipeline for new teachers. Leo also expresses optimism for the Biden-Harris administration, notably President Biden’s support of unions. Leo finishes up by discussing the discourses around how teachers see themselves, and the need for true civics teaching.

If you like what you’re hearing, tell a friend and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Visit us at TrendinginEducation.com.

A Closer Look at Teacher Insurgency with Dr. Leo Casey - Trending in Education

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Washington Teachers' Union president Liz Davis dies in car crash - The Washington Post

Washington Teachers' Union president Liz Davis dies in car crash - The Washington Post

Elizabeth Davis, president of the Washington Teachers’ Union, killed in car crash on Easter Sunday

Elizabeth Davis, president of the Washington Teachers’ Union, was killed in a two-car crash in Prince George’s County Sunday night, the union confirmed Monday.

She was 70.

Davis was driving south in the Bowie area near Route 301 and Harbor Way when her car and another car driven by John Starr, 68, of Annapolis, collided, Maryland State Police said.

Davis was taken to Prince George’s Hospital where she later died. Starr died at the scene, police said.

Known as Liz to her colleagues and friends, Davis was elected to one of the city’s most powerful labor positions in 2013, and had spent the last year leading the more than 4,000-person union through a year of unprecedented school closures amid the pandemic. She had previously been a teacher for four decades, working at a half dozen or so schools during her career.

“President Davis has been at the forefront of public education advocacy and reform,” a statement from the union read. “We are confident that her legacy will continue to shape the WTU as well as education across the District.”

Mayor Muriel E. Bowser held a moment of silence at her biweekly press conference Monday and called her “a champion.”

Davis was a straight-talking and tireless old-school organizer who helped to revamp the beleaguered union when she took it over, imbuing it with a broad social justice mandate.

Teachers frequently would get frustrated because Davis allowed everyone to speak at union meetings, making them drag into the late evening hours. And she was known to give every teacher her cell phone CONTINUE READING: Washington Teachers' Union president Liz Davis dies in car crash - The Washington Post

Governor Pritzker signs legislation expanding teachers’ bargaining rights. – Fred Klonsky

Governor Pritzker signs legislation expanding teachers’ bargaining rights. – Fred Klonsky

GOVERNOR PRITZKER SIGNS LEGISLATION EXPANDING TEACHERS’ BARGAINING RIGHTS.

This past week Governor Pritzker signed legislation expanding the bargaining rights of the Chicago Teachers Union.

It was a big win, the first significant victory in the fight for expanded collective bargaining rights since the Illinois legislature’s phony 1995 reforms under Governor Jim Edgar.

That year the legislature and Edgar, with the support of the state’s teacher unions, created the disastrous pension ramp which led to the current pension debt crisis.

It also limited the subjects of mandatory bargaining between the Chicago School Board and the union and solidified Mayor Daley’s mayoral control of the school board.

Mandatory subjects of bargaining must be negotiated and can be the subject of CONTINUE READING: Governor Pritzker signs legislation expanding teachers’ bargaining rights. – Fred Klonsky

President Biden Breaks With His Allies on School Reopenings

President Biden Breaks With His Allies on School Reopenings

Biden’s First Big Break With His Allies Is Over School Reopenings

As Joe Biden took office, the Republican Party had no specific plan to discredit the genial and popular new president, but it did have one clean line of attack: Biden would be too beholden to teachers unions to permit a reopening of public schools. “ ‘Unions Above Children’ is the new motto of the Democrats’ plan to reopen schools,” proclaimed the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

It all made perfect sense. Teachers unions had lavished Democrats with donations and votes, and Biden had repeatedly promised during the campaign to give teachers (including, as he often mentioned, his wife) a strong hand in his education agenda. And indeed, Biden has broadly pleased his party’s left flank. He has given former Bernie Sanders staffers important posts and pushed aggressively for a generous stimulus bill while Larry Summers has wrung his hands from the sidelines. The left, which usually begins expressing its disillusionment within hours of a Democratic president’s inauguration, has instead enjoyed a honeymoon period that has lasted into the spring. On the whole, Biden’s presidency has taken on an unexpectedly progressive cast without the customary intraparty factional strife.

And yet on education, the issue on which most everybody expected Biden to veer left, he has instead swerved right. He has confounded and defied the teachers unions on a crucial policy decision. His choice to prioritize the rapid reopening of schools has surprised and dismayed his friends and his enemies alike.

The first sign that Biden might not follow the script came in late December, when he nominated Miguel Cardona as Education secretary. Biden’s staunchly pro-union campaign rhetoric had created the expectation that he would give the post either to a known union ally or perhaps a union CONTINUE READING:  President Biden Breaks With His Allies on School Reopenings

Stickin’ to the Union- Teacher in a strange land

Teacher in a strange land | Public Education. America's Best Idea.

Stickin’ to the Union

I should start by saying this: My dad was a Teamster, a union guy all his working life. At our house, the union protected the little guy—made sure he was paid fairly, had a benefit package, kept him from spiteful bosses (plenty of those).

When I became a public school teacher, and thus automatically a union member–this was Michigan, flagship union state, in the 1970s–my dad (who didn’t finish high school) was reassured. The union would protect me. He also wouldn’t let me park the first car I purchased on my extravagant $9050 salary, a Toyota Corolla, in the driveway. He had his non-negotiables, and one of them was Made in America.

It came as a surprise to me to learn just how differently teachers in other states viewed the union. A friend who grew up in South Carolina told me teachers there tended to see themselves as ‘above’ a union—to them, he said, the kinds of people who need a union are chicken-processors, or folks who work at the textile mill. People without college degrees. Low-class.

Working in education policy, one of my side hustles was with a dynamic woman who created and ran a professional development non-profit for educators. She began work as a teacher (in the South, in a right-to-work state). She had a distaste for unions. She CONTINUE READING: Teacher in a strange land | Public Education. America's Best Idea.

Attacks against teacher unions uncovers anti-educator nature of Bloomberg and Republicans – North Texas Daily

Attacks against teacher unions uncovers anti-educator nature of Bloomberg and Republicans – North Texas Daily

Attacks against teacher unions uncovers anti-educator nature of Bloomberg and Republicans

The recent controversy surrounding the reopening of U.S. schools during the COVID-19 pandemic has placed former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Republicans on the same team against teacher unions. Bloomberg and Republicans have spewed rhetoric that exposes the anti-educator beliefs inherent to the oligarch and the GOP.

“It’s time for Joe Biden to stand up and to say, the kids are the most important things, important players here,” Bloomberg said during an interview on MSNBC. “And the teachers just are going to have to suck it up and stand up and provide an education.” This is not the first time Bloomberg has made an enemy of himself against teachers’ unions. In 2013, Bloomberg compared teacher unions to the National Rifle Association.

Bloomberg’s unwarranted advice to President Biden does not have much basis in the political reality of the moment. Presidents should never have to “stand up” to teacher unions. Instead, whoever the president is, regardless of party, must always be doubtfully allied with teacher unions.

There is nothing that the unions want more than to be included at the negotiating table. American Federation of Teachers (AFT) President Randi Weingarten published an article that laid out a plan for reopening schools. Teachers are yearning for the classroom, the only problem is lawmakers are not willing to make the investment to do so safely.

Carefully reopening all public schools is a massive task mainly because marginalized schools lack funding for resources required to follow health protocols. It is no surprise that the ninth richest person on the planet — who also made $6.8 billion since the COVID-19 pandemic started — is out of touch with the economic challenges that ill-funded schools face.

AFT has estimated that reopening schools would require $116.5 billion in federal funding. The price tag seems high, but dissecting the figure reveals essential costs such CONTINUE READING: Attacks against teacher unions uncovers anti-educator nature of Bloomberg and Republicans – North Texas Daily

Exclusive: Patrik Williams Threatens Smyrna Teachers Union | Exceptional Delaware

Exclusive: Patrik Williams Threatens Smyrna Teachers Union | Exceptional Delaware

Exclusive: Patrik Williams Threatens Smyrna Teachers Union

Smyrna School District Superintendent Patrik Williams found himself in the hot seat yet again. This time it was with the Delaware Public Employment Relations Board.

In a case filed by the Smyrna Educators Association (SEA) against the Smyrna School District Board of Education concerning payment for part-time custodians during the Covid shutdown in Spring of 2020, the Relations Board ultimately ruled in the district’s favor but not without completely blasting Williams communications to the SEA. It appears Williams’ obnoxious and arrogant way of communicating in any situation knows no bounds. Not only does he lambasted the union over the situation but he doesn’t hide a direct threat to them either. As quoted from the final decision, rendered 2/15//2021:

The tenor of the Superintendent’s emails to the union representatives was unusually caustic.

In the last paragraph of the Superintendent’s last email he states he will not be bashful about sharing his opinion of SEA and CONTINUE READING: Exclusive: Patrik Williams Threatens Smyrna Teachers Union | Exceptional Delaware

Blaming Teachers Unions for Problems Reopening Schools Is Wrong: Reopening Must Be Done Safely | janresseger #openonlywhensafe

Blaming Teachers Unions for Problems Reopening Schools Is Wrong: Reopening Must Be Done Safely | janresseger

Blaming Teachers Unions for Problems Reopening Schools Is Wrong: Reopening Must Be Done Safely

Right now, after nearly a year since life shut down for COVID-19, things feel like a chaotic mess. Children in lots of places are not in school but are instead learning remotely at home.  Unemployment is endemic. Families face unimaginable financial pressures, and if parents are working, the pressures of managing children out of school have been overwhelming. Some parents have felt obligated to quit work to supervise children learning at home, or if parents themselves are working from home, they may be struggling to manage kids learning remotely while the parents try to do their jobs.

As far as reopening schools full-time, the new Biden administration seems confused. The Washington Post‘s Cleve Wootson and Laura Meckler report: “As the country approaches the one-year mark of the pandemic’s isolation and restrictions, the Biden administration is struggling to give precise, consistent answers to two key questions: when will the pandemic truly be behind us? And short of that, when can children safely return to school? Biden himself has blamed miscommunications for some of the inconsistency, but his administration… is also grappling with the fact that science and data don’t produce answers as tidy or linear as campaign promises… For months, Biden has raised expectations that children would soon return to school… and his press secretary, Jen Psaki, recently suggested that the White House considers schools to be open if students are in school at least one day a week. But at a CNN town hall meeting Tuesday evening in Milwaukee, he clarified that he wants students back in school five days a week—while also specifying that his priority is students in grades K-8… It was an attempt to add clarity to an increasingly murky issue at the intersection of safety, education and politics.”

Education policy and politics over the past two decades have outrageously but consistently blamed educators themselves for the so-called “failure” of American public education. No CONTINUE READING: Blaming Teachers Unions for Problems Reopening Schools Is Wrong: Reopening Must Be Done Safely | janresseger

Check Out this Fine New Book on Social Justice Unionism: “Teachers Unions and Social Justice” | janresseger

Check Out this Fine New Book on Social Justice Unionism: “Teachers Unions and Social Justice” | janresseger

Check Out this Fine New Book on Social Justice Unionism: “Teachers Unions and Social Justice”

Rethinking Schools just published an excellent new handbook, Teachers Unions and Social Justice: Organizing for the Schools and Communities our Students Deserve.  I call it a handbook because it was written as a guide for teachers union social justice advocacy and organizing. But it is also a handbook for activists, writers, and bloggers strategizing to confront the recent collapse of public education funding, the alarming growth of school privatization at public expense, and the message, spread for too long, that holding schools accountable according to business principles is more important than educating children.

         The beloved former president of the Chicago Teachers Union and a pioneer in social justice unionism, Karen Lewis died on Monday.  Please read this wonderful tribute to Karen Lewis by Chicago education journalist Sarah Karp.

The editors  have assembled more than 60 short compelling articles and stories by union activists and many of the nation’s prominent advocates for education justice, all telling the story of organized teachers confronting the blindness of the privatizers and the business-accountablity hawks. There is a 2012 interview with the great Karen Lewis, whose loss we mourn this week. And we hear from teachers union justice champions including Jesse Hagopian in Seattle; Jackson Potter and Michelle Gunderson in Chicago; Mary Cathryn Ricker in St. Paul; David Levine in Cincinnati; Eleni Schirmer in North Carolina, Arlene Inouye in Los Angeles; and Michael Charney in Cleveland.

The editors, Michael Charney, Jesse Hagopian, and Bob Peterson, introduce the collection of writings: “More than two decades ago in the first edition of this book, Transforming Teacher Unions: Fighting for Better Schools and Social Justice, we promoted a vision of social justice teacher unionism. We argued that such a vision was essential to improving our schools, transforming our unions, and building a more just society. Since then much has happened. Public schools, the entire public sector, and the basic notion of the ‘common good’ have come under severe attack. Wealth inequality has reached an unsustainable level. The scourge of white supremacy has been intensified by rampant xenophobia… But within our schools CONTINUE READING: Check Out this Fine New Book on Social Justice Unionism: “Teachers Unions and Social Justice” | janresseger

Karen Lewis 1953 – 2021 | JD2718

Karen Lewis 1953 – 2021 | JD2718

Karen Lewis 1953 – 2021

This is not an obituary. I could not do her justice. But one summer I flew to Chicago then on to Minneapolis, and while in Chicago I spoke (indirectly) to Karen, and in Minneapolis I met her, and it makes a little story. Here’s how I told it, the evening after the one and only time I met Karen Lewis.

AFT Convention 2016 – Meeting the President

JULY 21, 2016 PM31 12:40 PM

tags: #AFT100, AFT, AFT Convention, Chicago, Karen Lewis, Minneapolis

Not that one. Obama’s not here in Minneapolis. And not the next one – she left. And not the AFT President. I’ve met Randi many times before, argued with her, agreed with her, e-mailed, etc. And not Mulgrew, we’ve met.

This is the story of how I met the President of AFT Local 1, the Chicago Federation of Teachers, Karen Lewis.

OK, so I could have walked up to her and said hello, but my story is a little more convoluted.

Four days ago, before the AFT Convention, I was in Chicago, debating Fred Klonsky. Actually, I was staying with Fred and Anne. But little debates broke out. Yankees vs Cubs. Hillary vs Jill.

But our strangest debate was about the relative importance of Belief vs Acts in Judaism. Both Fred and I have tenuous links, not enough to claim expertise. Anne suggested we ask Karen. So we did. Fred texted her a series of questions. Each of which she answered with a question. Quite appropriate, we thought.

So I’m off to Minneapolis and Fred says I have to meet Karen. The first day I look a little for her, but don’t really know where to look. I don’t find her. Fred CONTINUE READING: Karen Lewis 1953 – 2021 | JD2718

The False Narrative of “Needy Kids vs Selfish Teacher Unions” | The Merrow Report

The False Narrative of “Needy Kids vs Selfish Teacher Unions” | The Merrow Report

The False Narrative of “Needy Kids vs Selfish Teacher Unions”

The giant lumbering beast known as the US Economy–akin to a conveyor belt with countless moving parts–wants public schools to reopen.  The beast needs workers, but right now too many adults are at home, supervising their children’s ‘remote learning.’  Open the schools, and the adults can go to work: it’s that simple….

But of course it isn’t simple.  Putting kids back in schools will allow adults to work, and that’s important, but it is what happens inside schools that matters more.  

A quick history lesson: We’ve always sent our children to school for three reasons: 1) Acquisition of knowledge, 2) Socialization, and 3) Custodial care.  The internet has turned that upside down because it puts infinite information at everyone’s fingertips wherever they happen to be and because thousands of apps allow for ‘socialization’ with anyone and everyone.  That left only custodial care as a vital school function, until the pandemic made even that impossible. 

However, students swimming in a sea of infinite information need guidance, because ‘information’ is not knowledge.  It takes a certain skill set to distinguish between CONTINUE READING: The False Narrative of “Needy Kids vs Selfish Teacher Unions” | The Merrow Report

“Teacher Unions and Social Justice”–A New Book To Spur Rebellion From Rethinking Schools, With an Online Book Launch and Discussion January 21 at 6:00 pm – 7:15 pm CST – I AM AN EDUCATOR

“Teacher Unions and Social Justice”–A New Book To Spur Rebellion From Rethinking Schools, With an Online Book Launch and Discussion January 21 at 6:00 pm – 7:15 pm CST – I AM AN EDUCATOR

“Teacher Unions and Social Justice”–A New Book To Spur Rebellion From Rethinking Schools, With an Online Book Launch and Discussion January 21 at 6:00 pm – 7:15 pm CST

Register here today for the book launch event. You can order the book here.

Lovers of social justice and education,

Iam excited to announce that I have a new book coming out from Rethinking Schools that I co-edited with Michael Charney and Bob Peterson: Teacher Unions and Social Justice: Organizing for the Schools and Communities Our Students Deserve.

When the epic story is told about how we finally built a society on true democracy and uprooted the last vestiges of systemic exploitation and oppression, there will undoubtedly be an important chapter about how organized workers in unions used their power to shut down segments of the economy and joined together with mass social movements in the streets to demand a better world. This is the power of social justice unionism and we desperately need to revive this tradition of struggle if we are going to achieve victories against white supremacy, undo record levels of wealth inequity, and challenge every other form of oppression in our society.

This beautiful new book includes lessons on reorganizing the labor movement and fusing it with social movements from many of the leading practitioners around the country. With historical lessons and first hand accounts from some of the most powerful educator strikes in the country, this book a contribution to arming educators with the understanding of their own power to change the world.

Included in the volume are the stories of how educator union organizers joined with parents and students around the country to build the movement to refuse to take or give high-stakes standardized tests; how union educators took up the struggle for Black lives by founding the Black Lives Matter at School movement; how they launched a strike in Los Angeles that included demands for immigrant rights and an end to the practice of police searching the belongings of mostly Black, Indigenous, and students of color in school; how educators in Chicago joined with parents and community organizers to win an anti racist reparations curriculum that would teach students the history of police torture in the city; how educators in Republican controlled states launched a wave of strikes that brought millions of more dollars to the school system; how educators have fought for and won community schools that provide wrap around services to students; how rank-and-file educators have built union caucuses that have helped to transform their local unions from a business model of unionism into a social justice union; and so much more.

On Thursday, January 21, the book’s editors will be joined by leading social justice union organizers Arlene Inouye and Michelle Gunderson to launch the book–and hopefully a new era of union power in the struggle for schools and society our children deserve (details about the book launch are below).

In solidarity,

Jesse Hagopian

Join Teacher Unions and Social Justice co-editors Jesse Hagopian, Michael Charney, and Bob Peterson along with contributors Michelle Gunderson and Arlene Inouye for the launch of a new Rethinking Schools book on the promise of social justice teacher unionism.

>> CLICK HERE TO REGISTER

Editors and contributors will participate in a 75-minute conversation about building alliances with the community, the role of bargaining for the common good, the important roles of rank-and-file union caucuses, and how teachers can organize for racial and economic justice in our schools.

Jesse Hagopian teaches Ethnic Studies and is the co-adviser to the Black Student Union at Garfield High School in Seattle. He is a Rethinking Schools editor, co-editor of Teaching for Black Lives,  co-editor of, Black Lives Matter at School, and editor of More Than a Score: The New Uprising Against High-Stakes Testing.

Arlene Inouye is UTLA secretary and co-chair of its bargaining team. She has been a speech and language specialist for 18 years in the Los Angeles Unified School District.

Michelle Gunderson is an educator and union activist from Chicago. She serves as a trustee for the Chicago Teachers Union and is the former co-chair of the Caucus of Rank and File Educators.

Bob Peterson is a founding editor of Rethinking Schools, a former president of the Milwaukee Teachers’ Education Association, and currently serves on the Milwaukee Board of School Directors. He is co-editor of several books, including The New Teacher Book, Rethinking Elementary Education, and Rethinking Columbus.

Michael Charney taught social studies in the Cleveland Public Schools for more than 30 years. He served as vice president of the Cleveland Teachers Union, where he led efforts to motivate teachers and paraprofessionals to change their schools.

The event is hosted by Rethinking Schools.

Participants will need access to Zoom. Register for the Zoom link, a free copy of the book’s introduction, and a 20% Rethinking Schools book/magazine discount code. The book is now available for pre-order. The estimated ship date is Feb 1, 2021.

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER+ Google Calendar+ iCal Export

Details

Date: January 21 Time: 6:00 pm – 7:15 pm CST Website: https://secure.givelively.org/event/rethinking-schools-limited/teacher-unions-and-social-justice-online-book-launch-and-discussion