The Tom Mooney Institute
The Tom Mooney Institute for Teacher and Union Leadership is a new effort by seasoned leaders within the teacher union movement to develop the leadership skills and organizational capacity of emerging progressive teacher unionists. We aim to help prepare next-generation teacher union leaders to implement a progressive vision of the teachers’ union in advocating and implementing change. Our goal is to help local union leaders to be bold, collaborative and creative advocates for the improvement of public education.
News Updates
‘Reinvest, don’t disinvest,’ Weingarten urges in major speech
Randi Weingarten's November 17 National Press Club speech promoted "Collaboration," "Capacity," and "Community," decried the scapegoating of teachers and teacher unions, and offered a 10 point reform agenda.
Measuring 21st Century Skills
A new report by Ed Sector advocates shifting away from NCLB-type multiple choice testing to more robust critical thinking/ problem solving skill measurement. It can be done, and what a revolution in accountability.
Bargaining For Better Teaching
Two award-winning DCPS teachers, Liz Davis, and Kerry Sylvia, together with the Mooney Institute's Mark Simon offered a critique of school reform being carried out by Chancellor Michelle Rhee in a September 28 Washington Post Op-ed. With all the attention that Rhee is getting for her reform model that aims to empower principals to get rid of teachers they consider underperformers, the critique by Davis, Sylvia, and Simon aims to refocus the conversation on what it will really take to improve the quality of teaching and learning -- real reform.
Read the Article (PDF)
Read the Article (online)
A Broader, Bolder Approach to Education Reform (PDF)
In June, a task force made up of an impressive list of more than 60 education, religious, political, and economic leaders published a hard hitting statement declaring that accountability for schools alone will not close the achievement gap. Rather, they called for "A Broader, Bolder Approach" to confront the social ills behind inequality in society.
Read the statement (PDF)
Visit the website
Democracy at Risk – The Need For a New Federal Policy in Education (PDF)
At the National Press Club event launching the Forum for Education and Democracy's new study, "Democracy at Risk," Linda Darling Hammond presented data about the results of current policy to support the contention that we need a new direction in Federal Policy in Public Education. Congressman George Miller too said that we have to take advantage of the change in administrations "not so much to re-authorize NCLB but to re-think the federal role."
Listen in on what Forum Convener Linda Darling-Hammond had to say at the National Press Club event, courtesy of John Merrow and "Learning Matters" podcast of some of the key speakers.
Read the Excutive Summary (PDF)
Read the Report (PDF)
Read Press Release (PDF)
MITUL Commentary in Education Week
A special commentary piece by Mark Simon and Naomi Baden about Tom Mooney's legacy and the need for progressive unionism in the teacher's union movement appeared in the January 30, 2008 issue of Education Week.
Read it here (PDF)
MITUL on the Cover of Ed Week
The Mooney Insitute was the main focus of an Education Week cover story.
Read More (PDF)
Waiting to Be Won Over: Teachers Speak on the Profession, Unions, and Reform (PDF)
On May 7 Ed Sector released the results of a study of teacher attitudes toward their unions, their profession and education reform gleaned from a survey of 1,010 teachers and focus groups. The conclusions:
"This survey points to several important takeaways. First, before the reform conversation can even get started, school district management must meet its core obligations to create a well functioning workplace for teachers. For their part, the unions must take on, in a meaningful way, some of the chronic problems that damage their public brand, frustrate teachers, and have an adverse impact on students. Labor and management must find ways to work together and advance a reform agenda. Ultimately their fortunes are intertwined....That the loyalty of K-12 public school teachers is up for grabs is ultimately an opportunity for education advocates, teachers unions, and policymakers but most importantly for the nation's current and future teachers."
Some key findings from the survey include:
- Seventy-six percent of teachers say that too many burned-out veteran teachers stay because they don't want to walk away from benefits and service time accrued. And over half (55 percent) say that it's very difficult and time-consuming to remove teachers who shouldn't be in the classroom.
- Only 26 percent of teachers say that their most recent formal evaluation was useful and effective in helping them to improve their teaching. Seventy-nine percent support strengthening the formal evaluation of probationary teachers. And nearly a third of teachers (32 percent) say that tenured teachers should be evaluated on an annual basis.
- Teachers are less likely today (than they were in 2003) to support paying teachers more based on test scores. Only half of teachers support the idea to measure teacher effectiveness based on student growth or "value added."
- Teachers are more likely today (than they were in 2003) to say unions are essential. The jump among new teachers (<5 yrs) who say the unions are essential is especially striking.
- Teachers say they would support the union taking an active union role in improving teacher evaluation, supporting and mentoring teachers, guiding ineffective teachers out of the profession, and negotiating new/differentiated roles/responsibilities for teachers.