5 ways teacher unions advocate for students, educators

• By helping educators help their students: Ohio English teacher Marjorie Punter made a shocking discovery on her first day of school two years ago: There were no books for her students. With 42 years of experience, Punter had a few tricks to get by—but she knew her students, enrolled in the special education program at Dayton’s Belmont High School, also needed books. She started with her principal. He tried. And tried. But no luck. “I went to my union and said, ‘Now what do I do?’ They said you’re going to file a grievance and we’re going to get those kids books.” And that’s exactly what happened—with no less than the enthusiastic support of the frustrated principal. “We took that grievance downtown and the whole district got special ed textbooks as a result,” said Dayton Education Association President David Romick. Reflecting on that experience, and the ongoing collaborative work between union members and Belmont’s administrators, Romick added, “We’re here to serve the students. That’s the bottom line and collaboration is the only way to get there.” Read more at NEA’s Priority Schools Campaign.
• By mentoring new teachers: Nearly half of new teachers quit their profession within their first five years, according to James Rowley, an Ohio education professor. But research also shows that new teachers who have been paired with a mentor are more likely to stay, and more likely to improve student learning. Just ask Delana Hill, a student teacher in Kentucky, who told NEA’s This Active Life magazine in 2009 that her mentor, NEA-Retired member Kathy Drehmel, “Challenges me to think critically about things.” NEA-Retired’s intergenerational mentoring program currently pairs retired and novice teachers in 12 states—with 10 additional states in the planning stages. And it’s just one of the ways that NEA is helping to grow great teachers. Check out NEA’s three-point action plan to leading the profession for more.
• By leading the charge for pro-public education laws and policies: In 2010, through the coordinated advocacy of NEA members who collectively sent more than 900,000 emails to Congress and made tens of thousands of phone calls, more than 500,000 educator jobs were saved by the national Recovery Act and Education Jobs Fund. More recently, union educators in Ohio, organized by the union-led We Are Ohio efforts, successfully shot down a law that would have eliminated collective bargaining and silenced the middle class. Collectively, union members have a powerful voice to advocate for themselves, their students, and their communities. And now, with the presidential election just a few months away, NEA members are mobilizing again to prevent anti-middle class policies from taking over the White House. Learn more about how to get involved.
• By protecting educators’ rights: In 2009, Carol Stensvad was a well-respected, hard-working administrative assistant who absolutely loved her job at Mid-Plains Community College in Nebraska. And then one day her boss said, “I need to see you in my office, Carol,” and fired her for taking too much sick leave! At the time, Stensvad was rightfully using her federally guaranteed Family Medical Leave to take her husband, who suffers from kidney and bladder cancer, as well as Type II diabetes and deafness, to chemotherapy treatments 90 miles away. “My supervisor didn’t like it,” Stenvad recalls. “He told me to put Bob on the shuttle bus. I asked him, ‘How is that going to work? Bob can’t even hear!’ That day, when he called me into his office, he gave me 15 minutes to pack up 10 years of my life.” Fortunately, as a union member, Stensvad wasn’t alone in the fight for fairness. With the skilled help of the Nebraska State Education Association’s field representatives and attorneys, Stensvad recently won a $160,000-plus settlement. Read more.
• By protecting educators’ retirement security: Do you think middle-aged Wall Street billionaires are tormented by the choices they face in retirement: Palm Beach or Aspen? Not likely. But recent legislative attacks on public-employee pensions means that educators surely will have a lot of worrying ahead. Can they keep the house they worked so hard to pay for? Can they afford to send their own child to college? And why are they being blamed for the greedy mistakes of Wall Street? Fortunately, NEA and its allies are advocating for the retirement security of their members—and they have successfully protected defined-benefit pensions from attacks in numerous states. Last spring, well-organized union faculty members in Florida successfully staved off a bill that would have cut their average yearly pension from $30,000 to $15,000. At the same time, a successful class-action lawsuit filed by the Florida Education Association proved lawmakers went too far when they unconstitutionally cut public educator pay by 3 percent and ended cost-of-living increases to their pensions. (Some advice to lawmakers: how about you look at corporate tax loopholes instead?) Sign the petition offered by the National Public Pension Coalition to stand up for public pensions.

Teachers And Their Unions

One of the segments from “Waiting for Superman” that stuck in my head is the following statement by Newsweek reporter Jonathan Alter:

It’s very, very important to hold two contradictory ideas in your head at the same time. Teachers are great, a national treasure. Teachers’ unions are, generally speaking, a menace and an impediment to reform.

The distinction between teachers and their unions (as well as those of other workers) has been a matter of political and conceptual contention for long time. On one “side,” the common viewpoint, as characterized by Alter’s slightly hyperbolic line, is “love teachers, don’t like their unions.” On the other “side,” criticism of teachers’ unions is often called “teacher bashing.”

So, is there any distinction between teachers and teachers’ unions? Of course there is.

People who disagree with policies traditionally supported by teachers’ unions, or support policies that unions tend to oppose, are not “anti-teacher.” That’s kind of like arguing that fighting against environmental regulations is tantamount to hating members of the National Wildlife Federation. It’s certainly true that the rhetoric in education can cross the line (on both “sides”), and extreme, motive-ascribing, anti-union statements are understandably interpreted as “bashing” by the teachers that comprise those unions. Some of the discourse involving unions and policy is, however, from my (admittedly non-teacher) perspective, more or less substantive.

So, you can “love teachers and disagree with their unions,” but don’t kid yourself – in the majority of cases, disagreeing with unions’ education policy positions represents disagreeing with most teachers. In other words, opposing unions certainly doesn’t mean you’re “bashing” teachers, but it does, on average, mean you hold different views than they do.

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No Education Reform Without Tackling Poverty, Experts Say

If many so-called education reformers really want to close the student achievement gap, they should direct their fire away from public school educators and take aim at the real issue—poverty. This was the consensus of a panel of policy advocates and academics that convened recently on Capitol Hill in Washington D.C. to discuss the impact of poverty on student learning over the past 40 years. The panelists presented data that showed the current state of student achievement and discussed what changes needed to be made to address the needs of students and schools in low socio-economic areas.

“It’s time to stop arguing whether schools prepare students for the future and launch a full scale attack on poverty,” said panelist Peter Edelman of the Center on Poverty, Inequality, and Public Policy.

Joining Edelman on the panel were Sean Reardon, Professor of Education and Sociology at Stanford University School of Education; David Sciarra, Executive Director of the Education Law Center in Newark, New Jersey; Eric Rafael González an Education Policy Advocate for the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, Inc.; and Elaine Weiss, national coordinator for the Broader Bolder Approach to Education.

The panel used their presentations to demonstrate how more affluent schools have made significant gains in academic improvement over the past 40 years while under-funded schools, while making some strides, have been unable to close the achievement gap. The panelists urged lawmakers to avoid blaming the public school system and instead put programs in place to address the crippling poverty that obstructs student learning.

“We do have a responsibility to build a system of public schools that address poverty needs as soon as the students walk through the door,” Sciarra said.

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Survey finds parent-teacher relationships strong--Teachers given grade of "A"

Parenting magazine and the National Education Association today announced the results of a groundbreaking joint survey* of 1,000 public school parents and educators that explored the roadblocks to effective parent-teacher communication. When parents were asked to “grade” their relationship with their child’s teachers, nearly half (45 percent) gave the teachers an “A,” with the majority on both sides categorizing the relationship as “great” and “open.”

Despite the strong relationships, the survey revealed that the two sides differ on some key issues. Sixty-eight percent of teachers reported difficulty in dealing with parents. A similar percentage of parents–63 percent–reported they’d never had difficulty with teachers. More than one-quarter of parents stated their biggest challenge has been teachers’ perceived lack of understanding for their concerns, while one in three teachers cited parents’ lack of understanding of their child’s issues as their biggest challenge.

The survey also revealed that:

• Nearly two out of three parents say their child’s teachers offer a supportive response to concerns when they are expressed, and that teachers are willing to help resolve concerns; nearly 80 percent of teachers consider parents to be supportive.
• Nearly 88 percent of parents consider their child’s teacher a partner in achieving success in school, but just over half of teachers, 54 percent, feel that parents do their part at home to ensure that kids get the most out of classroom learning.
• The majority of parents, 8 out of 10, feel their child’s teachers are well equipped with the skills necessary to communicate with them.
• Although 48 percent of parents feel that their opinion is always taken seriously by their child’s teachers, only 17 percent of teachers feel their opinion is taken seriously just as often by their students’ parents.

More at the link.

It's raining in Cleveland

We previously reported on the real story in Cleveland, so it was good to see this report of about Cleveland public school teachers rallying at the statehouse with a simple message to the Governor - it's raining in Cleveland.

Previously on JTF we reported on this funding crisis.

• No Laughing Matter
• Blind eyes and cruel intentions

The people's choice amendement

From Senate bill 5 and the budget, to the Cleveland plan, it has become impossible to separate politics from education. Who represents us in Columbus is a critical as who sits on a local board of education. Making sure those in Columbus meet their constitutional obligations towards providing a quality public education is essential.

It's a job made more difficult, and perhaps impossible by the redistricting process that has produced State House and Senate districts that meander like snakes, dividing cities, townships and counties alike, in the desperate aim to carve out safe seats.

Politicians are choosing their voters. Creating their very own tenure system, many spend so much time railing against, safe from the democratic process and voter preferences

The process of creating safe, meandering districts this time around was especially seedy

A recently released trove of email messages from Ohio offers a rare inside glimpse into how it works.

The messages, sent from June to September, show collaboration between the national GOP and state Republicans to redraw Ohio’s maps and thus cement control of both the statehouse and a majority of congressional districts.

In one email, a Republican consultant working on redistricting for the state suggested that the new political maps could save the GOP “millions" of dollars in campaign funds by making districts safer for Republican candidates.

The maps, approved by the Republican-run state legislature in September, favor Republicans in 12 of Ohio’s 16 new congressional districts. And they strengthen the majority of likely Republican supporters in at least 17 state house districts, according to the mapping consultants' own calculations.

A report on this process revealed redistricting officials rented a downtown hotel room from July 17 to Oct. 15 to keep the map-drawing in a clandestine location. In emails, staffers referred to the hotel room as the “bunker” or “off site.”

Now an effort is underway to change this process to become transparent and fair. An amendment that would allow the people to choose their politicians - to put Voters First.

Step one of this initiative is to collect enough valid signatures to qualify for the November 2012 ballot. Time is short. In order to qualify for the election this fall, over 386,000 valid signatures from half (44) of Ohio’s 88 counties are needed, by July 4th. If you want to help you can go here.

Without a doubt, having competitive legislative districts will make legislators more accountable (something we know they like to legislate for others!) to cohesive communities and produce better, more civic minded policies that suit their constituents needs, not the needs of some special interests who flood the Columbus statehouse with campaign contributions.

If that all sounds good - get involved, today. Tomorrow we'll take a look at the history of redistricting initiatives.