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NYC Teachers

Why I Love Unions, But Not Always Their Leadership | GothamSchools - 0 views

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    Unions, as a collective representation of working people, can be an incredibly powerful counter-force to corporate interests. Individual working people can have very little impact on policy because they do not have the financial prowess on their own to affect national policy the way those with a good deal of money at their disposal can. I am proud to be a member of a union, and I am very proud of my fellow UFT members. But when union leadership becomes too far-removed from the lived reality of their rank-and-file members and spends a significant amount of their time with the very people who are pushing the policies they should be fighting, they run the risk of losing sight of their mission.
NYC Teachers

Anatomy of a Protest: From a Simple March to a National Fight | Common Dreams - 0 views

  • Walker held up a photo of President Ronald Reagan, who had famously fired striking air-traffic controllers, and said his plan to sweep away decades of protections for state public employees in a stop-gap budget bill represented "our time to change the course of history." "It was kind of the last hurrah before we dropped the bomb," he said. The budget-repair bill, which would strip most collective-bargaining rights from 175,000 public-sector workers while imposing immediate benefits concessions, went public four days later. Walker, a Republican, called for passage in the GOP-controlled Legislature within a week. Word of the bill's union provisions started to trickle out in press reports Thursday night, which for union chiefs and organizers began what one described as "a freakout of a long weekend."
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    Walker held up a photo of President Ronald Reagan, who had famously fired striking air-traffic controllers, and said his plan to sweep away decades of protections for state public employees in a stop-gap budget bill represented "our time to change the course of history." "It was kind of the last hurrah before we dropped the bomb," he said. The budget-repair bill, which would strip most collective-bargaining rights from 175,000 public-sector workers while imposing immediate benefits concessions, went public four days later. Walker, a Republican, called for passage in the GOP-controlled Legislature within a week. Word of the bill's union provisions started to trickle out in press reports Thursday night, which for union chiefs and organizers began what one described as "a freakout of a long weekend."
NYC Teachers

Why America's teachers are enraged - CNN.com - 1 views

  • Actually, the states with the highest performance on national tests are Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey, Vermont, and New Hampshire, where teachers belong to unions that bargain collectively for their members.
    • NYC Teachers
       
      This fact is conveniently left out of the public discourse.
  • Unions actively lobby to increase education funding and reduce class size, so conservative governors who want to slash education spending feel the need to reduce their clout. This silences the best organized opposition to education cuts.
    • NYC Teachers
       
      It is clear here that the attack on teachers unions is an attack on schools
  • As the attacks on teachers increase and as layoffs grow, there are likely to be more protests like the one that has mobilized teachers and their allies and immobilized the Wisconsin Legislature.
NYC Teachers

Proposed Cuts Strike Teachers as Attacks on Their Value to Society - NYTimes.com - 0 views

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    "The jabs Erin Parker has heard about her job have stunned her. Oh you pathetic teachers, read the online comments and placards of counterdemonstrators. You are glorified baby sitters who leave work at 3 p.m. You deserve minimum wage. Related * Ohio Senate Approves Union Bill (March 3, 2011) * Leader of Teachers' Union Urges Dismissal Overhaul (February 25, 2011) Related in Opinion Room For Debate Why Blame the Teachers? Across America, teachers have become the targets of criticism and budget cuts. Do they deserve it? Enlarge This Image Narayan Mahon for The New York Times Erin Parker teaches high school science in Wisconsin. Readers' Comments Readers shared their thoughts on this article. * Read All Comments (675) » "You feel punched in the stomach," said Ms. Parker, a high school science teacher in Madison, Wis., where public employees' two-week occupation of the State Capitol has stalled but not deterred the governor's plan to try to strip them of bargaining rights. "
NYC Teachers

Shock Doctrine, U.S.A. - NYTimes.com - 2 views

  • What’s happening in Wisconsin is, instead, a power grab — an attempt to exploit the fiscal crisis to destroy the last major counterweight to the political power of corporations and the wealthy. And the power grab goes beyond union-busting. The bill in question is 144 pages long, and there are some extraordinary things hidden deep inside.
sethrader

'Class Warfare' Ignites Class Debate - SchoolBook - 0 views

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    "On Monday, Michael Winerip, education columnist for The New York Times, weighed in on what has become the back-to-school book of the year: "Class Warfare: Inside the Fight to Fix America's Schools," a 400-plus page tome by Steven Brill, the founder of Court TV and the American Lawyer site. Mr. Winerip said Mr. Brill "has little positive to say about teachers," adding that the villains of his story "are bad teachers coddled by unions." (Mr. Brill posted a comment on nytimes.com expressing surprise at the "anger" in the column, and saying it distorted his work; Mr. Winerip responded: Read their debate and other comments here.) "
NYC Teachers

Needed: A national teachers movement | SocialistWorker.org - 0 views

  • The teachers who led the occupation of Wisconsin's Capitol in February captured the spirit of educators who are fed up with being blamed for society's problems. The sick-in by teachers in the city of Madison soon spread statewide--and teachers from across the U.S. came to the Wisconsin capital to show their solidarity.
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