The Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) has voted overwhelmingly to authorize a strike, the union announced today. If that happens it would be the union’s second walkout in four years. “Chicago Teachers Union members do not want to strike, but we do demand that you listen to us,” Jesse Sharkey, the vice president of the union,…
Alan Singer is a professor of Teaching, Literacy and Leadership and the program director of graduate programs in Social Studies Education at Hofstra University. Dr. Singer is a former New York City high school social studies teacher and is editor of Social Science Docket, a joint publication of the New York and New Jersey Councils…
I don’t know how much I can add to this item from the political blog Talking Points Memo (the headline says it all): “Police in Texas Arrest Muslim Teen Who Brought Homemade Clock to School.” Read it and weep! UPDATE: President Obama has invited the teenage scientist to the White House for Astronomy Night, to…
Maybe some of us in higher education might think about what these K-12 teachers in Washington State have done, as reported in Labor Notes: Lawmakers in Washington state are scrambling to get ready for a special session after the state’s highest court announced it will start charging a penalty of $100,000 per day while legislators…
Last September I posted a piece entitled “The Kids Are All Right!” in which I praised high school students in Jefferson County, Colorado, who staged mass walkouts to protest a plan by their right-wing school board to establish a curriculum-review committee to not only respond to an allegedly “leftist” AP framework but to promote patriotism,…
In what may hopefully be a small sign that the tide could be turning against a corporate-funded K-12 school “reform” movement that thrives on autocratic administration and the denigration of veteran teachers, Los Angeles Unified School District Superintendent John Deasy has resigned at the request of the school board, The New York Times reports today. …
California Governor Gerry Brown has appealed a state judge’s horrendous ruling that threw out teacher job protection laws on the ground that they deprived students of their constitutional rights. In a one-page appeal filed yesterday, Brown and California Attorney General Kamala D. Harris argued that a decision of such breadth should be made by a…
It should be crystal clear from my two previous posts (here and here) on the topic that not only do I oppose the recent California Superior Court decision in Vergara v. California, which overturned California statutes guaranteeing “teacher tenure” and layoff by seniority for the state’s K-12 teachers, I have also questioned its legal rationale. …
Yesterday I published a post on this blog entitled “The Vergara Decision and the Threat to Tenure,” in which I discussed the potential direct and indirect impact on higher education of a recent California Superior Court decision voiding the state’s K-12 “teacher tenure” laws and summarizing and excerpting some of the critical response that has…
Last week’s appalling California Superior Court decision in Vergara v. California, which overturned California statutes guaranteeing due process protections for K-12 teachers with more than two years experience (so-called “teacher tenure”) and layoff by seniority, has engendered considerable concern among instructors in higher education. To what extent does this decision threaten the protections of the…