Issues
2008 – A Pivotal Year to Build on Tom Mooney’s Legacy
A year from now we will have a new president in the White House, and the NEA and AFT will both have new national presidents. If there has ever been a year of opportunity to prepare for new thinking, defusing the increasingly polarized debate about how best to reform our nation’s schools, it is 2008. Whatever the merits or shortcomings of the NCLB law, or the reasons for the resentment it has produced among teachers, the result is that both the NEA and the AFT remain vulnerable to the public perception that they have become the “just say no” organizations.
Teachers’ unions could be playing a very different kind of role, and many within our diverse, decentralized teacher union movement are pressing for a new role as constructive partners in education reform. Read More...
What do Progressive Teacher Unions Do?
The following are examples of ideas – creative solutions – advocated by progressive union locals.
Union-District Joint Interventions in low performing or most challenging schools.
The Leading the Local (PDF) study cites examples of unions championing strategies, including pay incentives, to empower the most accomplished teachers, improve systems of instruction, and make high-need schools more attractive to the most accomplished teachers. These initiatives gain credibility when designed by the district and the union together. In Montgomery County, Maryland, the union and the district, together with the school staff designed a restructuring that led to a professional learning community based on teacher leadership and teaming which resulted in unprecedented student achievement gains. Read the case study on the MITUL Web site. Read More...