The Vergara Verdict: Tenure and Seniority Laws Ruled Unconstitutional in California. Here are two accounts of the decision in the Vergara trial.
This one appears in politico.com. This one appears in the New York Times. The plaintiffs argued that poor and minority children suffered because they had ineffective teachers who could not be fired. Lawyers for the teachers unions maintained that the causes of low performance were poverty and inadequate school funding. The plaintiffs prevailed and promised to take their cause to other states with strong teacher job protections, like New Jersey and New York. There will be appeals, and the battle will spread to other states. The long-range question is whether the “reformers’” efforts to remove all job protections from teachers will affect the number of people who choose teaching as a career and how they will affect the nature of the profession over time.
Here is the NEA statement on the case: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE June 10, 2014 CONTACT: Staci Maiers, NEA Communications (202) 270-5333 cell, smaiers@nea.org Like this: Like Loading... Vergara trial: For LA public school teachers, verdict tossing out tenure feels like an attack. Grant Slater/KPCC Less than a mile away from Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Rolf Treu's courtroom, dozens of teachers gathered Tuesday afternoon to try to influence the school board on next year's budget.
It's exactly the kind of thing fourth grade teacher Ingrid Villeda said you might see disappear if Treu's ruling is upheld and teacher job protections go away. “We have tendencies to use policies to hurt teachers that stand with community or stand with students,” said Villeda, who teaches at 93rd street elementary in South Los Angeles. RELATED: Calif. judge says state teacher protections unconstitutional During the Los Angeles Unified school board meeting, teachers seemed deflated about Tuesday's ruling, which they saw as a personal attack.
Treu said California's laws that grant teachers tenure after two years, use seniority in layoff decisions and create a complicated mechanism for discipline hurt students. Silvio Vidal, another 8th grade teacher at the school, agreed. How Teachers’ Unions Handcuff Schools by Sol Stern, City Journal Spring 1997. When Tracey Bailey received the National Teacher of the Year Award from President Clinton in a festive Rose Garden ceremony in 1993, American Federation of Teachers chief Albert Shanker called to say how pleased he was that a union member had won this prestigious honor.
But Bailey, a high school science teacher from Florida, is an AFT member no more. Today he believes that the big teachers' unions are a key reason for the failure of American public education, part of the problem rather than the solution. The unions, he thinks, are just "special interests protecting the status quo," pillars of "a system that too often rewards mediocrity and incompetence. " Such a system, he says, "can't succeed. " Bailey is right. Trade unionism is a recent development in public education. Following this example, the once conservative NEA also veered toward militant trade unionism.
Teachers Unions: Do They Help or Hurt Education Reform? The public is split on the subject of teachers unions.
A 1998 Gallup Poll asked whether teachers unions helped or hurt the quality of American education. The response: 27 percent said they helped, 26 percent said they hurt, and 37 percent said they made no difference. (Ten percent said they didn't know.) Politicians generally view teachers unions according to their political affiliation — Republicans are critical, Democrats are supportive. Unions don't learn: Teachers' role in education. Teachers unions need a hug.
After all, they're having a really bad year. So bad that their members are lashing out - blasting Education Secretary Arne Duncan after he questioned the effectiveness of teachers colleges, criticizing President Obama for his approach to education reform, etc. A Different Role for Teachers Unions. PHOTO: Ms Marianne Heikkikä teaches physics in Tikkurila High School in Vantaa, Finland American teachers unions are increasingly the target of measures, authored by friends and foes alike, intended to limit their power, or even eviscerate them.
Looking at this scene, one would never guess that the countries that are among the top 10 in student performance have some of the strongest teachers unions in the world. Are those unions in some way different from American teachers unions? Do unions elsewhere behave differently from American teachers unions when challenged to do what is necessary to improve student performance? To explore these questions, I compare teachers and their unions in Ontario, Canada and Finland with their U.S. counterparts. Teachers Union Facts. Teaching Unions - Role of Teaching Unions in Education. Belonging to a teaching union has its advantages.
Find out what belonging to teaching unions provides you, the people who runs these unions, how teacher retirement works, and how to negotiate a contract. American Federation of TeachersAmerican Federation of Teachers - The American Federation of Teachers (AFT) is the second largest educational union in the United States. They boast over 1.5 million members. The American Federation of Teachers (AFT) was formed on April 15, 1916 and have been fighting for teacher's rights and educational policy reform since that time. The Role Of Teachers' Unions In Education.