In this blog item, colleague Sean Cavanagh noted that the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association are on opposite ends of the "21st-century skills" debate. (NEA is one of the partnership's founding members; AFT challenges the effort, per this letter.) This is a curiou... Read Full Post >
The National Education Association plans to put $6 million over six years into "comprehensive strategies and policies to increase teacher effectiveness in high-needs schools." The funds will be focused on four strategies outlined in this paper, authored by Barnett Berry, the president of the Hillsbo... Read Full Post >
A teacher-run public school (take note: not a public charter school) is poised to open its doors in Boston this year as one of the few such schools in the nation. The school is run by two teacher-leaders rather than a single principal. According to a release from the Boston Teachers Union, the uni... Read Full Post >
I checked in with officials at both teachers' unions to get their sense of the Obama back-to-school speech brouhaha. The National Education Association's director of education policy and practice, Kay Brilliant (who surely has the best surname in the field since Margaret Spellings), said the union ... Read Full Post >
Parsing the NEA's comments on Race to the Top. Read Full Post >
Union members object to cost-cutting proposals by the financially beleaguered school district. Read Full Post >
In sharply worded comments, the nation's largest union made clear it will oppose many of the core elements of the $4.35 billion fund. Read Full Post >
An internal AFT newsletter suggests that AFT officials feel the Race to the Top's criteria are "overly prescriptive." Read Full Post >
This just in: The Providence Teachers' Union is suing to prevent Rhode Island officials from implementing a directive for schools to start implementing site-based hiring based on teacher-candidates' qualifications, not their seniority. Former state education Commissioner Peter McWalters made the or... Read Full Post >
At first, I thought Mike Antonucci was reading a bit too far into this recent speech by David Sanchez, the president of the California Teachers' Association: "California law also doesn’t prohibit the use of student assessments in evaluating teachers, but if and how that is done is bargained at ... Read Full Post >
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