BY JONATHAN REES We’ve been arguing over salaries at my university. Sometimes we get cost-of-living adjustments, but those almost never keep up with inflation (even during years when inflation is low). There’s a model developed by our Faculty Compensation Committee designed to allocate additional funds on the basis of equity, but what is equity, anyway?…
POSTED BY HANK REICHMAN It was a tale of two speeches. Yesterday, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos addressed the right-wing American Legislative Executive Council (ALEC) meeting in Denver, where she accused teacher unions of being “defenders of the status quo” who care only about “school systems” and not about individual children. Just hours earlier Randi…
The AAUP and the American Federation of Teachers-Wisconsin today issued the following statement on draft policies on tenure issued by University of Wisconsin regents, which incorporate a number of sound elements, but fall short in other areas. To download the statement as a .pdf file, go here. For more on these proposals see UW-Milwaukee AAUP…
In an article slugged “Tools for Teachers” on its website, the American Federation of Teachers presents what it says are “10 Myths About the Common Core State Standards.” I had a hard time getting beyond its rebuttal to the first “myth”: 1. “The standards tell us what to teach.” FACT: The Common Core State Standards define…
Washington—Statement of AFT President Randi Weingarten in support of striking Chicago Teachers Union members. “For the first time in 25 years, the members of the Chicago Teachers Union are on strike. No one wants to strike, and no one strikes without cause. In this instance, it comes on the heels of numerous steps that left…