Sunday, March 20, 2011

We Are One April 4 #aflcio #wiunion #miunion #tcot #gop #teaparty #dems

On April 4, 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, where he had gone to stand with sanitation workers demanding their dream: The right to bargain collectively for a voice at work and a better life. The workers were trying to form a union with AFSCME.

Beginning with worship services over the April 1 weekend, and continuing through the week of April 4, unions, people of faith, civil and human rights activists, students and other progressive allies will host a range of community- and workplace-focused actions.

Join us in solidarity with working people in Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana and dozens of other states where well-funded, right-wing corporate politicians are trying to take away the rights Dr. King gave his life for: the freedom to bargain, to vote, to afford a college education and justice for all workers, immigrant and native-born. It’s a day to show movement. Teach-ins. Vigils. Faith events. A day to be creative, but clear: We are one.

Is your April 4 event located at a house, a coffee shop or a local community venue? Is your event private or public? There is strength in numbers and whether you invite five people or 100, we want to know about your local event. This site provides event resources and support to help get you started. Private events will not show up on the searchable map. Please register your local event today and be counted!

LEARN MORE:

Learn more about Dr. King and the Memphis sanitation workers' strike.
Join Working America.

Fuzzy Privatization Math #wiunion #NJEA

Fuzzy Privatization Math

Monday 14 March 2011

by: Ellen Dannin | Employment Policy Research Network | Op-Ed

Fuzzy Privatization Math
(Photo: Jorge Franganillo)

On May 31, 2010, Governor Chris Christie’s New Jersey Privatization Task Force reported that more than $210 million would be saved by privatizing work that had traditionally been performed by government workers. The report even set out specific figures for some of the cost savings it identified, while others said savings were “TBD” – “To Be Decided”.

Who crunched the numbers to show that private contractors would do a better job or at least the same job for less money than public employees? The Privatization Task Force Report says that no one did. On page 14 the report says it did no analysis “due not only to the fact that the actual cost of a privatized alternative will often not be known until the

Superintendents for N.J. charter schools able to skirt salary caps imposed by Christie | NJ.com

Superintendents for N.J. charter schools able to skirt salary caps imposed by Christie

Published: Sunday, March 20, 2011, 6:35 PM Updated: Sunday, March 20, 2011, 6:35 PM

By The Associated Press
Follow

Share3

Email Print

John O'Boyle/The Star-LedgerGov. Chris Christie talks to students at the Robert Treat Academy in Newark in this January file photo. Christie announced the approval of new charter schools.

TRENTON — While New Jersey's public schools are facing salary caps for their superintendents, charter schools don't have the same restrictions.

A report in The Record of Bergen County finds that that heads of some small charter schools earn more than $150,000. Gov. Chris Christie has limited public school superintendents of small districts to salaries of $120,000 to $135,000 or less.

Christie didn't respond to questions from the newspaper about the difference in policy.

Charter schools are publicly funded but

GUEST COMMENTARY: We walked out to block radical GOP agenda #wiunion #madin

GUEST COMMENTARY: We walked out to block radical GOP agenda

By Linda Lawson | Posted: Tuesday, March 15, 2011 12:00 am | (45) Comments

Font Size:: Default font size; Larger font size

Provided PhotoState Rep. Linda Lawson, D-Hammond, represents Indiana's District 1.

I watched with great pride, from afar on Skype, as my union sisters and brothers from Northwest Indiana stood tall and strong for their rights during Thursday's rally outside the Indiana Statehouse.

Tens of thousands of workers, from all parts of the state, arrived on more than 200 buses that cold morning. They were fighting for our state's middle class, built largely by labor unions. These men and women were protesting against government abuse as our Founding Fathers, like Thomas Jefferson, had instructed long ago.

That is also why my Democratic House colleagues and I continue to be in Urbana, Ill. We are preventing

KOCH BREAK News | www.kochwatch.org

News | www.kochwatch.org

Reuters: Idaho teacher union may ask voters to overturn curbs *March 18, 2011-* The Idaho state teachers union said on Friday it may ask voters to overturn a just-passed law that curtails public school teachers' collective bargaining rights. The law ends tenure and removes issues like workload and class size ...

The Daily Page: Veterans rally opens fifth consecutive Saturday of Wisconsin labor solidarity protests *March 18, 2011-* Demonstrators opposed to Gov. Scott Walker's agenda for Wisconsin gathered at the Capitol for a fifth consecutive Saturday, opening with a protest led by Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) that sought to "connect the dots" between ...

DC fundraiser for Wisconsin GOP was roadbuilder-sponsored payoff | Uppity Wisconsin #wiunion #wearewi

DC fundraiser for Wisconsin GOP was roadbuilder-sponsored payoff | Uppity Wisconsin

DC fundraiser for Wisconsin GOP was roadbuilder-sponsored payoff

by xoff

This was lost in the shuffle last week, as Wisconsin Republican lawmakers went off to DC to be rewarded with campaign contributions for their union-busting votes, only to be greeted by a huge crowd of protesters.

The $1000 a head fundraiser was hosted by Barbour Griffith and Rogers, doing business as BGR Public Affairs, a lobbying firm that just happens to represent the Wisconsin roadbuilders. On Dec. 20, the firm registered as lobbyists for Wisconsin Transportation Builders Assn. in Madison. Five lobbyists are listed, including former Tommy chief of staff Bob Wood while at Tommy was in the Bush cabinet at HHS, and Bill Viney, a former Scot Klug aide.

The roadbuilders have a lot at stake in Scott Walker's budget. They stand to rake in more than $100-million at the expense of Wisconsin schools, as Rod Clark, a longtime Dept. of Transportation employee, now retired,

Modern School: Misplaced Drug Hysteria

Misplaced Drug Hysteria

1digg

Oxycontin to Be Snorted (Wikicommons)

The SF Chron ran an article Friday on UC Berkeley’s continuing problems with drug abuse at their co-ops. As a result of a series of overdoses and accusations of drug dealing, the University has implemented a Good Samaritan law that would allow students to call the authorities in the event of a drug overdose without risk of arrest (assuming they, too, were high or complicit). Many parents and neighbors are crying that this is insufficient,

Mother hopes others will opt out of standardized testing - CNN.com

Mother hopes others will opt out of standardized testing

By Ross Levitt and Susan Candiotti, CNN

March 20, 2011 3:46 p.m. EDT

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Pennsylvania woman says tests are inaccurate, used to punish schools
College education professor agrees they are waste of time
Proponent calls tests "a parent's ally," says they improve schools
No national statistics exist on opting out

State College, Pa. (CNN) -- A Pennsylvania mother has decided she does not want her two children to take the two-week-long standardized tests given by her state as part of the federal No Child Left Behind law. And she hopes other parents will do the same.

Michele Gray's sons Ted Rosenblum, 11, and John Michael Rosenblum, 9, did independent study the week of March 14 while their classmates were filling in hundreds of bubbles in classrooms with doors marked, "Quiet. Testing in Progress."

Gray says the only legal exemption that would allow her kids to sit out the tests was a religious objection. So that's what she did.

But Gray says her concerns go well beyond religion. "The more I look at standardized tests, the more I realize that we have, as

“Secrets” of the Top Ranked Education Systems in the World - Lily's Blackboard – Lily's Blackboard

“Secrets” of the Top Ranked Education Systems in the World

Mar 18th, 2011

by Lily.

(From the International Summit on the Teaching Profession, New York, March 16-17, which brought together the top performing school systems in the world)

One of the distinguished dignitaries participating in the first-ever world conference of leaders from education unions and education ministers, reported on a remark once offered after a presentation of solid, undisputed education research, “Well, that may be true, but it sure isn’t what anyone believes.”

He was making the point that it doesn’t matter what the research says if the political realities are that most people don’t believe it. Powerful people who have any old idea about what they’d like to try to improve public schools will trump solid, undisputed education research if most people think the any old ide

Latest News and Comment from Education