The announced a new partnership to help educators, who are faced with shrinking classroom budgets, enlist public support to acquire the teaching tools they believe will engage and inspire their students.
Beginning on Sept. 22, the NEA Foundation will match donations to NEA members received on , the online charity where teachers post classroom project requests and citizen philanthropists browse and support projects that appeal to them. To date the site has raised over $88,016,035 helping over 5,251,074 students.
NEA members can post requests for up to $500 for classroom supplies on the DonorsChoose.org website, where supporters of public education can browse requests and make donations. When a donation is received, the NEA Foundation will match it, up to $250 per request.
The Evansville Courier & Press reports that Evansville is a national model in teachers union-school district collaboration, visiting union officials said Monday.
Indiana State Teachers Association President Nate Schnellenberger and National Education Association Secretary-Treasurer Rebecca Pringle said Monday that initiatives crafted by the Evansville Vanderburgh School Corp. and its teachers association are making a positive difference in schools of high need.
At McGary Middle School, the guests were shown the school’s new community garden and future greenhouse site. They also met with teachers about school-wide efforts to push students to higher levels of achievement.
“We’re excited to have state and national support of what we’re doing,” Evansville Teachers Association President Keith Gambill said.
McGary and two elementary schools — Delaware and Evans — two years ago were given greater self-governing authority by the EVSC. The school district and teachers association worked on a plan to allow the three schools to lengthen their school days and years and implement more of their own programs.
Ongoing training for teachers has been emphasized at all three schools.
The is occurring in Washington, DC, July 27th-31st. Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc. is the first international fraternal organization to be founded on the campus of a historically black college. Working with , the Omega’s today announced a public proclamation to support . As part of the partnership with NEA and the Priority Schools Campaign, local chapters of the Fraternity will adopt priority schools, volunteering their time and mentoring students in their adopted schools.
(Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn on Monday signed into law Senate Bill 7 (SB7), education reform legislation developed during four months of negotiations involving education employee unions, school administrators, legislators, reform advocacy groups and other education stakeholders.
(In the end, the three major education employee unions, the Illinois Education Association, the Illinois Federation of Teachers and the Chicago Teachers Union all backed the reform bill which sailed through the General Assembly.
(Below is a transcript of IEA President Ken Swanson’s remarks at the bill signing, which took place in Maywood on Monday morning. The video can be found .)
It is to the credit of Sen. (Kimberly) Lightford, Gov. Quinn and others that they stood up to pressure when a school reform proposal, developed with NO input from Illinois teachers, was brought to the statehouse.
They took the position that no one has better ideas, a better sense of what will improve teaching and learning for their students, than Illinois teachers.
So when the teacher unions came up with their own proposal, based on what teachers know will work in Illinois schools, Sen. Lightford and Gov. Quinn encouraged the process that brings us here today.
For IEA, SB7 is the next logical step in addressing the issues of student achievement. Over the last 20+ years, IEA developed or co-developed Priority One, RISE, CEC/CEI, and the Burnham Report. When the opportunity came there was no “learning curve” for the teachers or their unions.
What Gov. Quinn signs today is not Performance Counts. It is not Accountability for All. It is SB7 — it contains historic shifts in long held positions by everyone involved in its development.
Teachers want the opportunity to improve. In the rare case when a teacher does not demonstrate improvement and is deemed ineffective, we all agree that chronically ineffective teachers should be removed through a streamlined but fair process.
With SB7, tenure is based on teaching quality for the first time. And this legislation makes it possible for high-performing young teachers to remain in the classroom, even during difficult financial times for districts.
With SB7 as law, the focus must shift to implementation. Success depends on teachers and administrators receiving necessary support; that means the state providing the resources we need to ensure that the decisions on evaluations are being made by effective evaluators.
No matter how well crafted or implemented, no reform bill can achieve maximum success for students without the commitment of everyone – school boards, community members, administrators, parents and the students themselves.
The teachers of Illinois have again stepped up and done our part for the students of this state. It’s time now for everyone else to rise to the challenge.
A out today highlights how strong labor-management partnerships between teachers’ unions and administrators are transforming schools in communities from coast to coast. The report, from American Rights at Work Education Fund, presents nine case studies demonstrating how “collective bargaining has provided a path for teachers and administrators to work together to find solutions and create opportunities” for their students.
At a time when some governors are trying to strip educators and workers of their collective bargaining rights, unions like the and have stood strong in their knowledge that collective bargaining can be an asset in helping achieve education reform. “Partnerships between schools, school districts and educators may be surprising to many people exposed to a steady diet of attacks on unions,” said NEA President Dennis Van Roekel. “But across the country, in community after community, collective bargaining and other forms of consensus and collaboration are transforming public education.”
has featured several of the success stories included in the “Partnerships in Education: How Labor-Management Collaboration Is Transforming Public Schools” report:
In Evansville Indiana, union members and management jointly redeveloped into an equity school, where teachers and the administration maintain consistent communication with parents.
At in Merced, California, the administration and the union refocused reform efforts based on a strategy of “meeting students where they’re at.” The school has created targeted professional development programs, reduced class sizes, and provided intervention assistance for kids who are struggling.
In Columbus, Ohio, the discussion surrounding ability to close the achievement gaps was community-wide, involving more than 300 parents, business leaders, teachers, administrators, and faith and political leaders in community meetings.
At in Oklahoma, an energetic partnership between educators and community members has helped close achievement gaps.
Learn more about the report and download it at the .
For public schools in Romulus, , the third time was the charm recently as voters renewed an existing business tax to support education that was rejected twice before.
The said the school funding was “desperately needed” and the measure passed earlier this month had the support of both the Romulus Education Association and the school district. Officials said that without the critical funding, , an NEA Priority Schools site, would have been forced to close.
School Board member Robert McLaughlin told Detroit’s , “If we’re not able to get it renewed, basically, with the other cuts the state has imposed on us, within 18 months, we’d close.”
The odds were against passage. The community had twice rejected the assessment in 2010 and local leaders faced opposing messaging calling the measure “ a new tax” without having effective messaging of their own.
Working locally with the , supporters developed and distributed fact sheets and other materials, including video messaging, newspaper ads and a phone bank designed to change the focus of the community conversation to center on “community” and “students” and show that the revenue was not a new tax and cost homeowners nothing. See an excerpt of the flyer below. read more »
By Nora Howley and Jerry Newberry, NEA Health Information Network
There’s no getting around it, stress is everywhere. And if you are an educator working in a priority school (or anywhere, actually) you can’t avoid feeling stressed. It may feel like everyone is against you or that no one really knows what it is like to have your job. There may be too few hours in the day and you may feel like you are shortchanging your family, your students, and yourself. You may find yourself getting sick for “no reason.” What can you do?
First recognize that the way you are feeling is normal. What we call “stress” is our body responding to threats. And you may feel threatened. Our problem is that our bodies respond the same way they did thousands of years ago, when the challenge was more likely to be physical (a saber tooth tiger maybe?). When threatened the body goes into the “fight or flight” response and your body’s hormones cause:
Increased energy production, heartbeat and respiration, and blood pressure so you can fight or run away more easily.
Decreased intestinal movement and faster blood clotting so you don’t leave a trail as you are running.
Well, when you are running away from the tiger, the hormones dissipate because of the physical response. But in the modern world, where the threats are more likely to be situational or other people, the hormones cause the same physical effects, but they don’t dissipate as quickly. This is why stress can contribute to hypertension and heart disease.
To combat these feelings and the physical response you need to tackle the problem from several directions. First, find things to help manage how you feel. This can include exercise, relaxation, talking to a friend, taking time for yourself, or trying a new time management strategy.
Second, try to change the things that you can change either as part of a group or as an individual. Working with your union, community group, or faith community can be an effective way to address the things that cause stress and help you feel better. As educators we know a lot about how schools should work, try to put those things into practice.
Third, get the word out and celebrate . We need to let the world know about the great educators out there and the difference you make.
It is also important to recognize that many common coping strategies, such as overeating, smoking, and alcohol or other substance use can cause serious health problems as well as exacerbating the problems of stress. Making some simple changes in diet, exercise, and sleep can help reduce that feeling of being overwhelmed. If you find yourself with unhealthy coping strategies, don’t be afraid to .
For more information on managing stress, visit the .
Over on the Education Writer’s Association blog , education reporter Matt Franck (St. Louis Post-Dispatch) recently wrote a guest post about his experience at the .
Franck attended a conference session on union-led school reform, where Director of NEA’s Priority Schools Campaign Sheila Simmons was a panelist. At the session, Frank learned about and the efforts teachers unions are undertaking to be leaders in school reform and innovation. With most stories about teachers unions focusing on contracts, the good work often gets overlooked by reporters and editors.
“This may strike no one but me as a significant point. But as I assign reporters to cover various school districts, it now strikes me that they would be doing an incomplete job if they did not also get to know the union leadership. And not just in the context of contract negotiations,” Franck wrote.
Focusing on teachers as the key to their students’ academic success, the has partnered up with for an exciting project.
Issues have been identified and solutions applicable to every grade level have been created. This partnership asks educators and supporters to choose one of two project options to model after. The first option focuses on technology and literacy while the second option utilizes math. Along with this amazing opportunity to be creative and get students excited about learning, the NEA Foundation has agreed to provide $1 for every $1 donated. Teachers can also submit requests for up to $500 for materials for their classrooms. The deadline for this opportunity is May 13th, so choose today!
Whether you’re a teacher who wants to adopt a new solution, or a supporter of public education who wants to help, .
A recent op-ed in the Boston Globe, titled “,” examined the issue of teacher evaluations. The writer, Kim Marshall, believes that pay based on teacher evaluations could potentially be the solution to the nation’s achievement gap. However, Marshall points out that the system is flawed due to a lack of manpower to evaluate teachers, the difficulty in getting an accurate picture of day-to-day class instruction and the reality that teacher evaluations don’t reveal if students are actually learning what they are taught.
Marshall’s solution is that evaluations should be unannounced, teachers should be rated on a rubric scale in addition to their students’ gains on year-round assessments.
Many of the school improvement grants implemented in priority schools this year increase focus on teacher evaluations. What do you think about Marshall’s ideas?