Teachers Object As NEA Leaders Eye Clinton

Lauren McCauley Common Dreams
The president of the NEA, the largest union in the US, is reportedly drumming up support for an endorsement of Hillary Clinton as early as next week. However, this has spurred protest from rank-and-file members who argue that a primary endorsement excludes the majority's input. Those who support Senator Bernie Sanders are planning a grassroots campaign in opposition to the what they expect will be a Clinton nod.

labor

Teacher Unions Default on the Fightback

ANN ROBERTSON and BILL LEUMER CounterPunch
Because their traditional allies from the Democratic Party have obsessively embraced corporate-motivated innovations, teacher unions seem paralyzed, unable to respond with a new strategy. They criticize the overuse of standardized tests, but they keep electing Democrats to office who, once elected, more often than not join the corporate attack on education.

labor

How teachers unions must change — by a union leader

Valerie Strauss (introduction), Bob Peterson (body) The Washington Post
There is nothing new about Republican opposition to teachers unions, but in recent years, it has become increasingly clear that some Democrats have turned against them as well. In the following post we hear from a union leader, Bob Peterson, the president of the Milwaukee Teachers’ Education Association, about how he thinks teachers union must change to keep alive public education.

labor

Students to Teach for America CEOs: You Are ‘Complicit’ in Attacks on Public Education

Ari Paul In These Times
USAS is the country’s largest student labor organization. The group’s main gripes with TFA and its Peace Corps-like model for American education, bringing college students—most from elite universities—to teach for a short period of time in some of the country’s poorest school districts, are that it is inadequately training teachers and promoting a for-profit, anti-union education reform agenda.

labor

Organizing The Organized Is Now Key To Union Survival

Steve Early CounterPunch
Virtually all labor organizations face the expanded challenge of recruiting and maintaining members in already unionized workplaces where the decision to provide financial support for the union has, for better or worse, become voluntary.

labor

Without Tenure...

Peter Greene Curmudgucation Blog
Civilians need to understand-- the biggest problem with the destruction of tenure is not that a handful of teachers will lose their jobs, but that entire buildings full of teachers will lose the freedom to do their jobs well.

labor

Building Not Rebulding Public Education

Lois Weiner Jacobin
Adapted from a longer piece in the current issue of New Politics (see link below). Fighting corporate education reform is less about restoring the old system to its former glory than building a just one for the first time.

labor

Teachers Unions Turn Against Democrats

Jonathan Chait New York Magazine
How will the clash over education reform between neoliberal democrats and teachers unions play out in the presidential elections?
Subscribe to NEA