Next week’s Chicago Board of Education vote on the closing of fifty-three elementary schools and one high school has prompted the Chicago Teachers Union to go to court, reports Noreen S. Ahmed-Ullah from the Chicago Tribune.

The Chicago Teachers Union filed two lawsuits, one of which proposes a delay of the closings for at least a year, and the other which asks for a permanent ban on the closings.

The lawsuits state that the closings are unfair to students with disabilities and are discriminatory since the majority of the students affected are African-American.

Kristin Mayle, Chicago Teachers Union financial secretary and a special education teacher, says CPS does not have adequate time to properly handle the needs of special education students. Autistic students need a minimum of six months to acclimate to a new environment, which the district has not accounted for.

Critics charge that CPS has also not set up individual meetings with parents to revise individualized education programs or IEPs.  These problems make the district in violation of “Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act in its plan to close schools because it ‘does not permit a timely and orderly process’”.

Mayle also points out social dangers that can occur because of the schools closing:

 ”Students with learning disabilities are much more vulnerable to the pressures of gangs and violence in the neighborhood because of their lack of self-esteem and they want to fit in,” Mayle said. “So these transitions are going to be dangerous for some of these kids, and I don’t think CPS has spent enough time working on it.”

Chicago Public Schools state that the reason for closing the schools is that population decline in predominantly African-American neighborhoods has lead to under enrollment. One of the lawsuits claims racial discrimination in both past and present school closings.

 ”For the 72 schools that defendants have closed to date, African-American children make up more than 90 percent of the displaced children; and in currently proposed closings, they make up more than 80 percent of the displaced children,” the suit says. “Yet African-American children constitute only 42 percent of the children in public schools.”

As for the outcome of the lawsuits, it looks like it could be a “tough road in federal court” according to Brooke Whitted, a Northbrooke attorney who specializes in specal education law, and that it may depend on the plaintiff’s attorney’s skill level.

Lead attorney Tom Geoghegan hopes that the board members consider the complaints filed by hearing officers and do not vote in favor of the closings.

 ”It’s important, win or lose, to get the facts out to the public. I don’t think people really understand how much harm is going to be done to these children.”

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A number of California teachers have filed a lawsuit against the biggest teachers union in the state – the California Teachers Association – to be allowed to stop paying union dues because the forced payment is a violation of their free speech rights, The Associated Press reports.

The ten teachers are being represented by the conservative Center for Individual Rights and are hoping to bring down laws that allow unions to collect dues even from people who don’t wish to join and who don’t share the union’s ultimate mission.

Specifically, the plaintiffs are opposing the fact that at least part of their dues goes towards union-sponsored political activities rather than contract negotiations and efforts to act an an ombudsman to the employees.

CTA spokesman Frank Wells said in an email that the suit is a “baseless challenge” intended to dilute worker rights.
The lawsuit comes about five months after California voters defeated Proposition 32, which was an attempt to starve unions of the tens of millions of dollars they collect from employees or members to use to finance campaigns and political organizing.

Overall, there are about 2.4 million union members in California, and that money has helped make teachers, prison guards and other public workers some of the most feared institutions in Sacramento, where labor has longstanding ties with Democrats who now control both chambers of the Legislature and every statewide office.

The lawsuit, which has been filed in the U.S. District Court, names not only the National Education Association but also the local teachers unions. The plaintiffs argue that the opt-out process which the unions have in place in order to allow members who don’t support the union’s political agenda to withdraw is insufficient, difficult and frequently makes people trying to take advantage of it feel intimidated.

Although the union spokesman reiterated that joining the union is not mandatory, and he further disputed the assertion that the “opt-out” process can in any way be considered cumbersome.

“The lawsuit seems self-contradictory. It acknowledges that those represented by unions can opt-out of paying … and then complains that they are somehow forced to pay for them,” Wells wrote.

In a statement, the center said the fees can be diverted to various programs outside contract talks, including funding what it called a politically biased union magazine.

“Individual teachers have a constitutional right to decide for themselves whether to join a union and financially support its efforts,” said Terry Pell, president of the center. “The government may not compel teachers to provide financial support to policies with which they fundamentally disagree.”

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An 8-week strike that paralyzed an Ohio school district is over after the school board unanimously approved a new teacher contract, The Ohio Plain Dealer reports. The school board met and all 5 members voted to approve the contract, with the news being made public a mere three minutes after the meeting was called to order.

David Frazee, the school board president, said that replacement teachers who have been subbing in for the strikers will be given a chance to take leave of the students formally, though he wasn’t clear on the details. The new contract will be made public on the district website.

The unanimous approval of the board comes after an “overwhelming” majority of the district’s 385 union members voted to ratify it this weekend. According Tracy Linscott, president of the Strongsville Education Association, the contract is quite similar to the terms proposed by the union 10 months ago.

The contract, effective through July 31, 2015, converts the 9.3 percent contribution the district paid into the teachers’ retirement fund to salary “by increasing the base salary by 10.3 percent, an amount equivalent to the amount paid by the board prior to the conversion.”

The contract also restores raises that were frozen in the 2011-2012 school year and gives teachers who are not eligible for step increases payments of $1,200 in September this and next year. Salaries at Step 20, the highest level, range from $60,975 to $93,827 for teachers with a Ph.D.

The contract also bars any reprisals against students, parents and staff members who took part in the strike and leaves until June 1st the renegotiation of a new teacher assessment system which will put the district in compliance with the new state legislation.

In exchange, the teachers have agreed to shoulder a larger portion of their health insurance premiums in the form of co-pays and deductibles. They will also cover their own dental and vision costs.

The new contracts also omits any mention of class size and school day length limits.

Teachers met for about 2 1/2 hours starting at 5 p.m. Saturday to discuss the pact and vote on it. Those leaving the meeting after casting ballots said they could not discuss the contract, but one said, “I’m happy to be back.” Another pumped her fist and said, “Coming back!” They declined to give their names.

Union president Linscott said Sunday that she feels rejuvenated and ready to help bring the schools and community back together.

The post Strongsville, Ohio Teacher Strike Resolved After Two Months appeared first on Education News.

Striking teachers protesting the changes brought about by the comprehensive education reform measures recently adopted in Mexico have stepped up the level of violence by attacking political party offices. The attacks have so far been limited to four offices around Mexico’s Guerrero state, where dozens of teachers broke windows, spray-painted slogans and destroyed computers and office furniture.

They also set fire to the buildings but it doesn’t appear as if anyone else was harmed.

According to a spokesman for the striking members of the Guerrero state’s Education Workers Union, the industrial action and the subsequent attacks were all in response to the Guerrero government’s adoption of President Enrique Pena Nieto’s education reform plan. The new law requires teachers to prove competence before they are appointed to their jobs and takes away power to hire and fire from the hands of the country’s powerful teachers unions.

The 20,000-member group went on strike in Guerrero state, where the resort city of Acapulco is located, shortly after Pena Nieto signed into law the sweeping education reform two months ago. Its members have since staged increasingly disruptive protests, including blocking the main highway connecting Mexico City to Acapulco.
Guerrero Gov. Angel Aguirre said in a tweet that prosecutors had issued arrest warrants for Moran and another union leader because they were the “masterminds of the acts of vandalism that took place today.”

Television footage showed teachers trashing each of the buildings without the intervention of authorities.

Aguirre explained that police and other law enforcement authorities did not intervene because they were focused on keeping the government palace and legislature building free from harm.

The education reform measure is the first major legislative move by the Pena Nieto administration. During the campaign he pledged to curtail the power of the teachers unions, saying that allowing them to continue to exert this much control was hurting Mexico’s students.

The national education law was seen as Pena Nieto’s first major legislative victory after taking office Dec. 1. The constitutional amendment eliminates Mexico’s decades-old practice of allowing the buying and selling of teaching jobs, and replaces it with a standardized national teaching test. That’s heresy to a radical splinter union of elementary and high school teachers in Guerrero, one of the country’s poorest and worst-educated states. The teachers claim the test is a plot to fire them all as a step toward privatizing education, although there is little evidence the government plans that.

The post Mexico Teachers Riot During Strikes, Destroy Offices appeared first on Education News.

Members of the United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA) teachers union have expressed “no confidence” in the performance the district superintendent John Deasy in a formal vote. More than 90% of those casting a ballot said that they did not agree with Deasy’s handling of his professional responsibilities.

More than 17,000 of the union’s 32,000 members voted in the referendum. The vote is non-binding on Deasy, but union leadership says that the outcome means that their members approve of the aggressive stance they have taken against policies promoted by Deasy and other district official.

Even before the outcome of the vote was made public, Deasy called the whole enterprise “nonsense,” including the campaign waged on the union website to sway the member votes via poorly photoshopped pictures of the Superintendent in various unflattering settings.

Still, a no confidence vote was not necessarily a foregone conclusion. The referendum came soon after union members overwhelmingly approved a new teacher evaluation agreement and after L.A. Unified School District restored unpaid furlough days. The confidence vote was placed before teachers by the union’s House of Representatives, which contains many new delegates and younger teachers, who were presumed to be more supportive of Deasy.

Teachers who expressed dissatisfaction with Deasy chiefly complained about the new focus on standardized exams, saying that this has made the classroom a less enjoyable place for both students and instructors.

Yet the opprobrium wasn’t universal. Chris Records, who voted in support of Deasy, said that he was encouraged by the stances he took in support of both school leaders and teachers themselves — especially when he showed the willingness to work with the union on the teacher evaluation issue.

Anticipating the outcome, Deasy’s defenders rallied Thursday with a letter to the L.A. Board of Education.

“Although we have a long journey ahead of us, we believe that LAUSD leadership is taking the appropriate and productive steps to achieve success for all of its students,” the letter states, citing rising test scores and graduation rates and few student suspensions. “During his tenure Dr. Deasy has proven himself a more than capable leader.”

Those signing the letter included James Cuno, head of the J. Paul Getty Trust; Antonia Hernandez, chief executive of the California Community Foundation; Monica Lozano, publisher of La Opinion; and Gary Toebben, president of the L.A. Area Chamber of Commerce.

The vote of no confidence on Deasy did overshadow the other issue on the ballot, which asked the voters to evaluate the performance of the current union leadership — a measure that gained 77% approval.

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Florida teachers unions have filed a lawsuit in Gainesville opposing a new assessment system adopted by the state that would tie their evaluation to student standardized test scores. According to the lawsuit, the law that sets out a new teacher merit pay system would result in thousands of teachers being assessed based on test results in subjects they do not even teach.

According to the plaintiffs, the system as proposed violated the equal protection and due process clauses of the United States Constitution.

Seven teachers in Alachua, Escambia and Hernando county school districts are the plaintiffs, along with their local teacher unions. The education commissioner, the State Board of Education and the Alachua, Escambia and Hernando school boards are the defendants.

“This lawsuit highlights the absurdity of the evaluation system that has come about as a result of SB 736,” said Andy Ford, president of the Florida Education Association, in a statement.

Senate Bill 736 was the merit-pay legislation the Florida Legislature adopted in 2011, overhauling how teachers are evaluated, promoted and paid.

One of the plaintiffs, Kim Cook, was named the teacher of the year at W.W. Irby Elementary School in Alachua, which teaches kids from pre-K to second grade. Even so, her evaluation was largely based on the test results of fourth- and fifth-graders at nearby Alachua Elementary — and because the results of their exams showed less-than-expected growth, Cook’s rating dropped to “unsatisfactory.”

Bethann Brooks, another plaintiff, has a similar story. She teaches health science to older kids at Central High School in Brooksville, and her evaluation was based on test scores by students in 9th and 10th grades.

” I don’t teach most of those students,” she said a telephone call with reporters. “And those I do teach are enrolled in my health–science-related classes.” The union wants implementation of the law halted, teachers’ evaluations from the 2011-12 school year set aside and then the evaluation system revamped. Its lawsuit is backed by the National Education Association, as well. The lawsuit does not seek monetary damages. “This is not a suit about money,” said Ron Meyer, the union’s attorney. “This is a suit about doing what’s right.”

Education Commissioner Tony Bennett said in a statement he supports the law.  But he also said he backs legislative efforts to make sure teachers are not subject to it until an “appropriate assessment for their students and subjects is in place.”

The post Teachers Unions Sue Over Florida Assessment System appeared first on Education News.

Passing the law that stripped the powerful teachers union of most of its powers turned out to be only half the battle for Mexico’s new President Enrique Pena Nieto. The second step – which now presents the bulk of the problem – is getting the union on board with a  new power structure that sees their influence markedly reduced.

Teachers expressed their dissatisfaction with the changes by going on strikeat the conclusion of the school Easter break, leaving support personnel in charge of supervising students and delivering lessons. Meanwhile, teachers were marching en masse throughout the streets of the capital to showcase their displeasure over the education reforms Pena Nieto has implemented.

The fight is dominating headlines in Mexico and freezing progress on a national education reform that Pena Nieto hoped would build momentum toward more controversial changes. Those include opening the state-owned oil company to foreign and private investment and broadening Mexico’s tax base, potentially with the first-ever sales tax on food and medicine.

Pena Nieto’s first major legislative victory after taking office in December was a constitutional amendment eliminating Mexico’s decades-old practice of buying and selling teaching jobs, and replacing it with a standardized national teaching test. That’s heresy to a radical splinter union of elementary and high-school teachers in Guerrero, one of the country’s poorest and worst-educated states. The teachers claim the test is a plot to fire them in mass as a step toward privatizing education, although there is little evidence the government plans that.

Those who advocate for reform in Mexico claim that the strikes and protests are the dying gasps of a movement that hasn’t accepted that its power has been substantially diminished — and union members have struggled with losing access to the substantial mount of money that used to be under their direct control that’s now the responsibility of the regional and central governments.

More than 20,000 teachers have been striking off and on for over a month now, creating chaos for more than 100,000 students across Mexico. When strikes alone didn’t put Pena Nieto in the mood to compromise, unions resorted to more disruptive methods of protesting.

On Wednesday, the protesters won support from a wing of the armed vigilante groups that have multiplied across poor Mexican states in recent months. On Thursday, they blocked the main highway from Mexico City to Acapulco for at least the third time, backing up traffic for hours. On Friday, they shut down entrances to some of the biggest stores in the state capital.

After returning Mexico’s former ruling party to power, Pena Nieto won international acclaim in his first five months by taking on some of the country’s most powerful people. He jailed the head of the far-larger national teacher’s union when she threatened to fight school reform. Then his push to open the telecommunications business provoked a multi-billion-dollar drop in the stock of the market-dominating phone companies owned by the world’s richest man.

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Although American teachers unions have largely opposed the spread of charter schools around the country, at least some local branches have taken steps to organize charter schools even in the face of claims from operators that they are able to perform better and deliver better results to students without unionized staff.

One of the most significant such forays is happening in Chicago, where the city’s representatives of the American Federation of Teachers has approached the leaders of one of the largest charter school networks in the country to allow organizing activities on its campuses. Last month the AFT and the United Neighborhood Organization – which runs 13 charters in the city – agreed to an information swap, including turning over to the AFT the contact information of its 400 employees.

Furthermore, the UNO will also allow union organizers onto school campuses, all without taking a position on whether the group supports or opposes unionization.

Backers of charters, which are public schools run by independent groups, say freedom from union contracts enables innovation in areas like staffing and school calendars. Opponents say charters siphon money and students from struggling traditional public schools. Labor leaders say they want to organize charters because teachers there complain about low pay and poor working conditions, and because unionized teachers can negotiate favorable conditions for students, such as small class sizes. But others say the push has as much to do with unions’ declining membership.

Gary Chaison, professor of industrial relations at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts, believes that these union approaches to charters are in some way part of a fight to stay relevant – or even just stay alive – in the new educational environment.

And he’s not wrong. Teachers unions have been dropping members year-on-year and the attrition only accelerated once more charter schools, funded by tax dollars but run independently, began opening across the country.

The charter-school drive comes as teacher unions face headwinds on numerous fronts, including layoffs and curbs to collective bargaining in Wisconsin, Indiana, Michigan and other states. Last year, the NEA had about three million members, while the AFT had about 848,000 full dues-paying members, both declines of about 3% from 2011, according to data from the Department of Labor.

Nationally, about 12% of the approximately 5,000 charter schools in 2010 were unionized, according to the charter-school alliance. That includes charters in states that require most charter teachers be part of districts’ collective-bargaining policies. By comparison, more than half of all public-school districts in the U.S., including charters, were subject to collective bargaining in the 2007-08 school year, according to U.S. data.

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Over the past several decades a miracle has happened in India — and no one seems to have noticed. Thanks to innovators and companies like GE, the way medical help is delivered to the poor in the country has been completely overhauled and now even those without money to pay can find a doctor nearby to provide them with care and drugs.

So, why hasn’t the same force pushed a revolution in education – a sector in similar need of dramatic change?

Indian children’s thirst for knowledge is obvious if you watch a classroom like one of the small private schools located in the middle of one of the largest slums in New Delhi. Even though getting to the school requires a bus, a car, a tuk tuk and finally a bicycle when the roads narrow too much, once the person is through the door he is greeted by rows of highly disciplined, neatly dressed, attentive students eager to begin their daily lessons.

he school, despite its name, is private, and it is a miracle of compression: floor upon floor of children, 25 to a class, crowded into a narrow concrete block. It is also a miracle of order: the children wear uniforms and stand up to greet visitors. One classroom is decorated with bright pictures and perky slogans such as: “We will get more than 80% in maths.”

The teacher worked for Infosys, a giant IT firm, before finding her vocation. Other classrooms are drabber. Dr Bhandari, the school’s owner and headmaster, is clearly a shrewd businessman. He runs a fancier school next door, decorated with images of Mickey Mouse. He has an impressive collection of certificates. He uses an interpreter to explain that one of his school’s strengths is that it is “English medium”.

What makes schools like this possible is India’s version of a voucher program where the main source of funding is not the government but a local think-tank called the Centre for Civil Society that chooses 400 applicants each year to receive a voucher they can apply to a private school of their choice.

According to the CCS research, the vouchers are a success. Those who are able to take advantage of one perform better on almost all academic metrics against their public school educated peers.

India’s education system does have another thing in common with the education system in the U.S. The role that teachers union play is frequently cited as stifling progress.

That poor parents will pay for something the state provides free speaks volumes. India’s state schools pay their teachers far more than private ones, yet they are often worse. Surveys suggest that a quarter or more of government teachers are absent at any given time. Unions prevent the authorities from disciplining slackers or rewarding good teachers.

The post India Education Reform Looks to Medical System, Choice for Ideas appeared first on Education News.

The Los Angeles teachers union is to hold a confidence vote on Los Angeles Unified School District Superintendent John Deasy, the Los Angeles Times reports. Although the outcome of the vote will have no direct impact on Deasy’s job, it will serve as an indicator of the strength of the relationship between the head of the district and teachers it employs.

The chief issue in front of union members is the performance pay system championed by Deasy which will have up to 30% of pay determined by student standardized test scores and other objective achievement measures. Although the union voted to accept the usage of those metrics in pay determinations, they did so only after being forced by the courts.

The union, United Teachers Los Angeles, has been at odds with Deasy over various issues, such as his efforts to base layoffs on a merit system rather than seniority. Deasy also has moved quickly to remove and fire teachers suspected of serious misconduct — and is seeking authority from the state to move faster still.

Deasy’s own job security was an issue in the March school board election, which ended with mixed results for his supporters.

Voting is set to begin next week and will conclude on April 11th, and members will be asked to decide on the question of whether they have confidence in how Deasy is performing his job. In addition to voting on Deasy, teachers will also be asked to commit or reject the new Initiative for the Schools LA Students Deserve? which calls for working together with the community to negotiate with education officials over issues like class sizes, extra-curricular programs and limits on standardized testing.

The referendum resulted from a petition with 1,130 valid member signatures. The Deasy question was added later, as a result of a vote by UTLA’s House of Representatives, which is the union’s governing body.

Union President Warren Fletcher has endorsed the organizing initiative. He said he is choosing not to state a position on the no-confidence vote. But the union’s newspaper, which is substantially under Fletcher’s control, has promoted the no-confidence vote with doctored photos of Deasy and lists of his alleged failings.

Although union president Warren Fletcher declined to state a position on the no-confidence vote, the union newspaper – which is generally considered to be under the president’s editorial control – did publish a photoshopped photo of Deasy wearing a chef’s hat and a soiled apron accusing him of serving substandard fare to children participating in the classroom breakfast program.

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