Teacher Voice: Randi Weingarten, president, American Federation of Teachers

The American Labor Movement at a Crossroads.

Co sponsored by the Albert Shanker Institute, the AFT, the Hillman Foundation and others.

The American labor movement is at a critical juncture. After three decades of declining union density in the private sector and years of all-out political assaults on public sector unions, America’s unions now face what can only be described as existential threats. Strategies and tactics that may have worked in a different era are no longer adequate to today’s challenges. The need for different approaches to the fundamentals of union work in areas such as organizing, collective bargaining and political action is clear. The purpose of this conference is to examine new thinking and new  initiatives, viewing them critically in the light of ongoing union imperatives of cultivating member activism and involvement, fostering democratic self-governance and building the collective power of working people. Jan.15, 2015.

Sit down, watch, educate yourself.  Prepare DSA and working families  for the coming conflicts.

The conference has a number of leaders, including major DSA activists and former DSA leaders, to understand the  reality of unions today and organizing the working class.

http://www.shankerinstitute.org/labor-conference/

Revolving Doors and Edupreneurs- How Capital Seeks to Make Profit from Public Schools

The Selling of Public Services.

By Seth Sandronsky

Do failed policy proposals from public education officials enjoy an afterlife when their creators depart Washington for the private sector? This is no academic question. In fact, the career arcs of two former federal policymakers may well have foreshadowed the life-or-death clash over the accreditation of San Francisco City College (CCSF), one of California’s 112 community colleges. The state is home to about 10 percent of America’s 1,100 two-year colleges.

See CCSF/ACCJC Story Archive

As San Francisco Superior Court Judge Curtis Karnow’s ruling on the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior College’s bid to decertify CCSF draws near, the story of Margaret Spellings becomes instructive. Spellings, who was George W. Bush’s second-term Secretary of Education, commissioned a controversial 2006 report called “A Test of Leadership: Charting the Future of U.S. Higher Education.”

The report’s language was very much in tune with the pro-business Bush zeitgeist. The commission’s chairman was Charles Miller, a private investor who was joined by Nicholas Donofrio, the executive vice president of IBM Corp., and by James J. Duderstadt, the corporate vice president for Microsoft Corp. Their report predicted disaster unless colleges began protecting their “market share” by preparing  students for the “global marketplace.”

Democracy and social justice teachers' unions

If we don’t transform teacher unions now, our schools, our profession, and our democracy—what’s left of it—will likely be destroyed. I know. I am from Wisconsin, the home of Scott Walker and Paul Ryan 

by Bob Peterson.

In 2011, in the wake of the largest workers uprising in recent U.S. history, I was elected president of the Milwaukee Teachers’ Education Association (MTEA). Unfortunately, that spring uprising, although massive and inspirational, was not strong enough to stop Gov. Walker from enacting the most draconian anti-public sector labor law in the nation.

That law, known as Act 10, received support from the Koch brothers and a cabal of national right-wing funders and organizations. It was imposed on all public sector workers except the police and firefighter unions that endorsed Walker and whose members are predominantly white and male.

Act 10 took away virtually all collective bargaining rights, including the right to arbitration. It left intact only the right to bargain base-wage increases up to the cost of living. The new law prohibited “agency shops,” in which all employees of a bargaining unit pay union dues. It also prohibited payroll deduction of dues. It imposed an unprecedented annual recertification requirement on public sector unions, requiring a 51 percent (not 50 percent plus one) vote of all eligible employees, counting anyone who does not vote as a “no.” Using those criteria, Walker would never have been elected.

Immediately following Act 10, Walker and the Republican-dominated state legislature made the largest cuts to public education of any state in the nation and gerrymandered state legislative districts to privilege conservative, white-populated areas of the state.

Having decimated labor law and defunded public education, Walker proceeded to expand statewide the private school voucher program that has wreaked havoc on Milwaukee, and enacted one of the nation’s most generous income tax deductions for private school tuition.

Under these conditions, public sector union membership has plummeted, staff has been reduced, and resources to lobby, organize, and influence elections have shrunk.

On Testing and NCLB- Lily Ekelsen Garcia

http://www.c-span.org/video/?323824-4/washington-journal-lily-eskelsen-garcia-education-policy

Lily Ekelsen Garcia is at the President of the National Education Association. 

Selma Official Trailer #1- Martin Luther King Jr.

An important film.  More.

Ten Things You Should Know About Selma Before You See the Film

http://zinnedproject.org/2015/01/selma-ten-things/

More testing from renewed NCLB

AFT’s Weingarten on Secretary Duncan’s ESEA Reauthorization Remarks

In discussing priorities for a revision of No Child Left Behind Secretary of education, Arne Duncan, insisted on  January 5, that the administration would not back away from annual testing for students and performance evaluations of teachers based in part on the results of the tests.

Annual testing has become a point of contention in the often-bitter discussions about how best to improve public education.

Monday, January 12, 2015

WASHINGTON—Statement from American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten on Education Secretary Arne Duncan’s speech regarding the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.

"As I've said before, any law that doesn't address our biggest challenges—funding inequity, segregation, the effects of poverty—will fail to make the sweeping transformation our kids and our schools need. Today, it was promising to hear Secretary Duncan make a call for equity, stressing, as we did through the Equity and Excellence Commission, the importance of early childhood education and engaging curriculum. It was encouraging to hear him laud the hard work of educators, who have had to overcome polarization and deep cuts after a harsh recession. And it was heartening to hear him acknowledge the progress our schools have made. However, the robust progress we saw in the first 40 years after the passage of ESEA has slowed over the last 10 years.

The Proposed California Budget

 State Schools Chief Tom Torlakson Comments On Governor's Proposed Budget for Fiscal Year 2015-16

SACRAMENTO—State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson issued the following statement today on Governor Brown's proposed budget for the 2015-16 fiscal year:

"This budget gets an 'A' for K-14 education. Governor Jerry Brown clearly did his homework researching the needs and priorities of schools and proposing to allocate money to meet many of those needs.

"The extra money under Proposition 98 is good news for schools across the state. I am also very pleased with the additional funds to help maintain and expand career technical education programs; implement the Local Control Funding Formula and the rigorous new California state standards in mathematics, English language arts, and science; upgrade technology and connect schools to the Internet; and maintain adult education programs across the state.

"I applaud the governor for outlining a plan that can help bring needed funds to help improve and repair broken and outdated school facilities.

"This budget increases our investment in schools, but we still have a long way to go. California is 46th in the nation in per-pupil spending and that is unacceptable.

"My homework is to work with the Governor, the Legislature, educators, and community leaders across the state to help refine these education spending proposals and increase and stabilize school funding in the long term."

 California Budget Project Analysis: Increased Revenues Boost the Minimum Funding Level for Schools and Community Colleges

Approved by voters in 1988, Proposition 98 constitutionally guarantees a minimum level of funding for K-12 schools, community colleges, and the state preschool program. The Governor’s proposed budget assumes a 2015-16 Proposition 98 funding level of $65.7 billion for K-14 education programs, $2.6 billion above the revised 2014-15 minimum funding level. Because changes in state General Fund revenue tends to affect the Proposition 98 guarantee, the Proposition 98 funding levels included in the Governor’s proposed budget reflect increases in 2013-14 and 2014-15 estimated revenue compared to the levels that had been assumed in the 2014-15 budget agreement. Based on these revised revenue estimates, the Governor’s proposed budget assumes a 2014-15 Proposition 98 funding level of $63.2 billion, $2.3 billion more than the level assumed in the 2014-15 budget agreement, and a $58.7 billion 2013-14 Proposition 98 funding level, $371 million above the level assumed in the 2014-15 budget agreement.
The Governor’s proposed budget increases funding for the state’s new education funding formula and pays off outstanding obligations to K-12 school districts. Specifically, the Governor’s proposed budget:
· Provides $4.0 billion to continue implementation of the state’s new education funding formula. As part of the 2013-14 budget agreement, the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) restructured the state’s education finance system. The LCFF provides school districts a base grant per student, adjusted to reflect the number of students at various grade levels, as well as additional grants for the costs of educating English learners, students from low-income families, and foster youth. The Governor’s proposed budget increases LCFF funding by $4.0 billion to fund grants for K-12 school districts and charter schools in 2015-16. Increasing LCFF funding
may reduce the amount of time it takes to fully implement the LCFF, which depends on funding that is sufficient for all districts to reach a target base grant.

The role of teachers and their unions

Building power beyond elections: The unique
role of educators and their unions

By Joshua Pechthalt, President, California Federation of Teachers

The Republican victory in November reminds us that organized labor and the progressive movement can’t rely on elections to advance our agenda. Our power to improve the lives of members and community allies flows from our ability to organize the kind of powerful labor-community alliance that can demand change from politicians.

In spite of the national drubbing inflicted on Democrats, there were a few bright spots. The reelection of Tom Torlakson as state superintendent of public instruction demonstrated once again that mobilized educators can beat a multi-million dollar, anti-teacher campaign.

Significant victories across the country suggest that voters are not necessarily moving to the right on key issues. Voters passed measures to raise the minimum wage, legalize marijuana, and protect a woman’s right to control her body. In California, Democrats won every statewide office and continue to hold strong majorities in both the Assembly and Senate. They also picked up one congressional seat.

Democracy in 2015

2015 

We Don’t  have to engage in grand heroic actions

to participate in the process of defending  

Our Democracy

from the ongoing  assault by  Corporate Robber Barons.

Small acts, when multiplied by millions of people can

transform our nation.

Derived from a statement by Howard Zinn.

The Start of the Chinese Century

Without fanfare—indeed, with some misgivings about its new status—China has just overtaken the United States as the world’s largest economy. This is, and should be, a wake-up call—but not the kind most Americans might imagine.

By Joseph E. Stiglitz

SOFT POWER For America, the best response to China is to put our own house in order.

When the history of 2014 is written, it will take note of a large fact that has received little attention: 2014 was the last year in which the United States could claim to be the world’s largest economic power. China enters 2015 in the top position, where it will likely remain for a very long time, if not forever. In doing so, it returns to the position it held through most of human history...

The United States then made two critical mistakes. First, it inferred that its triumph meant a triumph for everything it stood for. But in much of the Third World, concerns about poverty—and the economic rights that had long been advocated by the left—remained paramount. The second mistake was to use the short period of its unilateral dominance, between the fall of the Berlin Wall and the fall of Lehman Brothers, to pursue its own narrow economic interests—or, more accurately, the economic interests of its multi-nationals, including its big banks—rather than to create a new, stable world order. The trade regime the U.S. pushed through in 1994, creating the World Trade Organization, was so unbalanced that, five years later, when another trade agreement was in the offing, the prospect led to riots in Seattle. Talking about free and fair trade, while insisting (for instance) on subsidies for its rich farmers, has cast the U.S. as hypocritical and self-serving.

Class War- The New Robber Barons

Christmas 1914

Democracy, Schools, and Teachers' Unions

Leo Casey 

Over the course of the last 12 weeks, I have been thinking about our conversations here on democracy, schools, and teachers' unions. We write under the banner of "bridging differences," and notwithstanding our broad agreement on most important questions we have discussed, there are "differences" that could be teased out of the dialogue.

At the outset, I must confess that I am deeply suspicious of efforts to identify "differences" with those who share most of our view of the world. The impulse to draw "lines of demarcation" around ourselves takes an almost pathological form among many on the American left, a "narcissism of small differences" in which the main political fire is invariably aimed at those who are politically nearest. It creates a political culture where vanguard politics fades into Puritanism: The moral purity of the self-anointed elect is preserved, but at the price of complete political marginality and irrelevance. I have no taste for such political fare.

But let us see if we can arrive at a more productive discussion of our political differences. You ask "Do teachers' unions truly practice democracy?" I could point to the literature on union democracy and to the organizational features that it identifies as crucial for union democracy, and demonstrate how teachers' unions not only possess those features, but possess them in greater measure than other unions.[1]

But there is a more fundamental disagreement at work here: I think your query is the wrong question. When I think about such matters, I ask myself different questions. "At a time that teachers' unions face existential threats, how do we defend the democratic voice that they provide teachers?" "How can we strengthen the voice that unions provide teachers, making teachers' unions more democratic?"

Immigrant Children in Our Schools

Arriving After Trauma

A majority, 58 percent, of the children arriving here have left war-like conditions that could qualify them for international protection as refugees, according to a recent report by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, commonly known as UNHCR. The international agency recommends a thorough screening of each arriving minor to determine if he or she qualifies for that protection. Buffeted by shouting matches in Washington, D.C. and several state capitals, that process is underway.

In the meantime, schools across the country are enrolling large numbers of newly arrived Central American students and trying to figure out the best way to serve them.

Related: Q&A with Elizabeth Yelen: Traumatized children have trouble learning – here’s how to help

Many new arrivals have had little formal schooling. A majority stopped attending school after sixth grade, according to UNHCR. In addition to learning English and the subject matter of their various classes, they also must learn to raise their hands to answer questions, change classes when a bell rings and never wander the halls without a bathroom pass. And there are still those normal teenage concerns: remembering one’s locker combination and flirting, now in a new language.

Moyers: Democrats ( and Republicans) Abandon Working People

This is a bad deal for you and I !

by Duane Campbell

The omnibus budget deal being debated in Congress passed on Sat. evening  includes a continuation of the budget cuts known as the sequester. 

Josh Silver has noted 5 major problems with the deal. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/josh-silver/omnibus-budget-deal-2014-5-worst-things_b_6307852.html

And Senator Elizabeth Warren has revealed the Wall Street subversion in this bill and is making a brave stand against the deal.
http://sacramentopa.blogspot.com/2014/12/sen-warren-calls-on-house-to-strike.html

It is important to understand our current economic situation to understand the  conflict in Congress  and our economic future.

First, know that Wall Street has recovered, but main street has not.

Middle-class wages are stagnant. Unemployment is stalled at record levels. College education is leading to debt servitude and job insecurity. Millions of unemployed Americans have essentially been abandoned by their government.  Poverty is soaring.

 Bankers break the law with impunity, are bailed out, and go on breaking the law, richer than they were before. Only a handful of people have gone to jail, none of the really big operators. Now, more than 6 years after the crisis began,  no senior officials of the corporations that looted our economy have been held accountable.  

LA Unified, San Francisco Unified to Require Ethnic Studies

L.A. Unified to require ethnic studies for high school graduation

Students at LAUSD high schools such as Thomas Jefferson High School will be required for the first time to take ethnic studies classes to graduate. (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

By Stephen Ceasar  contact the reporter

EducationHigh SchoolsStudentsMinority Groups

In an attempt to build cultural understanding, LAUSD will require ethnic studies for high school graduates

Students in the Los Angeles Unified School District will be required for the first time to take ethnic studies classes as part of an effort to encourage stronger cultural understanding.

The idea, brought forward by Board of Education members Bennett Kayser, George McKenna and Steve Zimmer, is aimed at narrowing the academic gap between minority students and their white and Asian peers by pushing students to achieve through the exploration of different perspectives in literature, history and social justice. More than 90 languages are spoken in the district.

Related story: El Rancho schools don't wait on state, adopt ethnic-studies curriculum

Stephen Ceasar

The school system allowed ethnic studies classes in the 1990s, but let the schools decide whether to offer them. Few provided the courses. This time, they will be a graduation requirement at all high schools.

Jose Lara, a leading advocate of the move and a social studies teacher at Santee Education Complex, said students develop a better sense of self-worth when they learn about themselves and their history.

He said teachers will have the freedom to craft curriculum to suit the needs and interests of their students. "In East L.A., it might be Chicano history. In Koreatown, it might be Asian American courses," he said.

Ethnic Studies to be required in San Francisco Unified

antiracismdsa: Ethnic Studies to be required in San Francisco: Ethnic Studies Victory! San Francisco Unified, 3rd District in CA Making it a Graduation Requirement T he San Francisco Unified School ...

The great uninformed- When policy wonks and editorial boards listen mostly to themselves

Headlines and articles in recent press reports raise an alarm about low voter turnout while ignoring some of the most obvious causes.

On Sunday, the Sacramento Bee editorial noted low voter turn out and insisted  on a need for change.  But, these establishment sources seek minor technical changes restricted by their own narrow views of the problem  rather than looking at more  substantive issues.

Young people, particularly students of color, have low levels of attachment to California and U.S.  civil society  messages to vote  in significant part because the government institution they encounter the most- the schools- ignore the students own history, cultures and experiences. Children and young adults need to see themselves in the curriculum. 

Policy wonks and the Bee Editorial Board   urge changing registration and voting systems because  I guess in their segregated white world, students of color are not seen, they are not important. This is, I grant, a little better than the civics curriculum promoted by the Koch brothers in the post below. 

When the 51 % of the California students who are Latino , and the 9 % who are Asian do not see themselves as part of  official history,  for many their sense of self is marginalized.   Marginalization negatively impacts their connections with school their success at school and the likelihood that they will vote as adults.   Marginalization  contributes to an up to  50% drop out rate for Latinos and some Asian students. 

An Economic Agenda for America: 12 Steps Forward

How the Koch Brothers Are Sneaking Their Way Into Public Schools

Bill Bigelow: 

In November  in Boston, thousands of teachers will gather for the annual National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) conference.
Two non-teachers will be there, too: Charles and David Koch, the notorious right-wing billionaires.

Well, the Kochs won’t be there in person, but they will be represented by a Koch-funded and controlled organization: the Arlington, Virginia-based Bill of Rights Institute. For years, the Bill of Rights Institute has shown up at NCSS conferences to offer curriculum workshops, distribute teaching materials, and collect the names of interested educators. What the Bill of Rights Institute representatives fail to mention when they speak with teachers is that they have been the conduit for millions of dollars from Charles and David Koch, as the brothers seek to influence the country’s social studies curriculum. (When I attended a Bill of Rights Institute workshop at an NCSS conference, I asked the presenter who funds their organization. “Donations,” she replied.)

With assets of more than $80 billion, the Koch brothers, who control Koch Industries, are together richer than Bill Gates. As a recent Rolling Stone exposé (“Inside the Koch Brothers’ Toxic Empire”) by investigative reporter Tim Dickinson details, the Kochs made that money largely by polluting the Earth and heating up the climate, with massive oil and gas holdings. And through their network of far right foundations and front groups, they lobby for policies and fund politicians in line with their free market, fossil fuel interests.

Banned Mexican American Studies improved student a...

antiracismdsa: Banned Mexican American Studies improved student a...: by Roque Planas The Mexican-American Studies curriculum in Tucson public schools banned by the conservative-dominated Arizona legislatu...

Community Control and School Budgets