Friday, August 25, 2017

Week in Review – August 25, 2017


Week in Review – August 25, 2017

We hope you survived your first week of school and that you will have a chance to recuperate over the weekend. The Week in Review is a snapshot of what the ABCFT Union representative and officers are doing behind the scenes to help you concentrate on what's important, teaching. It is our hope that these reports will also keep you informed about important educational issues throughout the year.

If you have a great comic/graphic/illustration you'd like us to post at the top, send it in! Any submissions are appreciated.

ABCFT This Week –

Membership Coordinator - Tanya Golden
Although our official work day began August 22nd, like you, since mid-August, I have been actively serving in my new job as membership coordinator and executive vice-president by planning and attending E-Board and Rep. Council meetings, Advanced PAL, Negotiations preparation, New Teacher Orientation, District Interview Panel, School Board Study Session as well as processing new members and preparing the union office for the 2017-18 school year. As soon as next week, the launching of our new locally supported AFT Teacher Leaders Program will be emailed to all members.

Despite the fact that it has been an exceptionally busy last two weeks, I am honored to serve and support our ABCFT members. I’m looking forward to visiting the sites and getting to know each of my union sisters and brothers. I have been an elementary teacher in ABC for thirteen years and union activist for ten years, if I can be of assistance with any questions or if you just want to say hi, feel free to contact me at the union office at extension 21500!

PRESIDENT’S REPORT
First, I hope that you all had a great start of your school year and if it was a rough week for you I hope that this weekend will ease your nerves. The start of a new school year is always both a challenge and a joy simultaneously. Together teachers and nurses are a support system. Your fellow ABCFT sisters and brothers are there to help, inspire, and motivate you throughout the school year. Remember, that the ABCFT Site Representatives at your school are there to support your needs, hear your concerns, and share your victories. Your site representative is your connection to other schools, teachers, and resources. This is Your  Union and You are all the Union.

Over this past week I attended/worked with members on  representations, contract resolutions, site concerns and mediations. Throughout the week I’ve been working closely with the Child Development teachers in our district and the Child Development administrators at the District Office  to work on situations that are directly impacting their programs and their ability to deliver instruction. Together we are looking for solutions to help make our Child Development program even better. A special thank you to all the Child Development teachers who are working to look for solutions and advocating for their colleagues.

On Tuesday Ruben Mancillas, Tanya Golden, Lori Eulberg, and teachers from the ABC Extended Day Program attended a special school board meeting to discuss the ABC District Budget.  I have included the powerpoint from the meeting. In my remarks to the board, I stated that this Union focuses on three areas: academic excellence, working conditions, and compensation. ABCFT takes pride in helping to provide teacher voice to the academic vision of ABC. Teachers and Nurses are the boots on the ground and have the most contact with our students, parents, and community. Your voice is vital in keeping ABC on the right track. ABCFT is always concerned with working conditions, so in the powerpoint slides you can see the four pages of upgrades and maintenance to the school sites.  Master contract language is another way we protect and monitor working conditions. Lastly, ABCFT has a focus on compensation. We all love our work but it has to pay the bills at home. We need wages and benefits that show the District values our work. It is important that the board understands that the ABC Federation of Teachers believes these are the core values that make a successful solution driven union. On September 8th we will be in negotiations with the District to discuss all three of these focus areas.

Lastly, I worked with candidates for the school board election. Next week we will have a link for you to follow to get information on the ABCFT endorsed candidates. So, more to come.

Have a great weekend and we will see you back here next week.

In Unity!

Ray Gaer
ABCFT President

or
(ABC Federation of Teachers)
Or


Now the news...

AMERICAN FEDERATION OF TEACHERS

AFT Applauds Mass. Attorney General’s Lawsuit Against Student Loan Servicer over Systemic Failures

Legal Action Comes after Labor and Community Groups Sent Letter to State Attorneys General Demanding Action Following Betsy DeVos’ Abandonment of 44 Million Student Loan Borrowers
WASHINGTON—AFT President Randi Weingarten issued the following statement applauding the lawsuit filed today in state court by Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey against the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency, a loan servicer doing business as FedLoan Servicing. PHEAA is accused of overcharging public employees and teachers in Massachusetts and across the country, and failing to properly process monthly payments for Public Service Loan Forgiveness recipients:

“Maura Healey has acted where Betsy DeVos and the Department of Education have repeatedly failed. Instead of protecting borrowers from systemic harm from servicers like PHEAA, DeVos betrayed and abandoned them. That’s why the AFT and a broad coalition of labor and community groups wrote 56 state attorneys general and banking commissioners in April to demand a crackdown on bad actors to prevent an imminent financial catastrophe on the scale of the mortgage crisis. The AFT applauds Healey and the state of Massachusetts for taking action against PHEAA, and for putting teachers and public employees—not lenders—first. Teachers and other public employees who have answered the call of public service rely on the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program to defray the cost of their college education. We continue to call on other states’ attorneys general and federal regulators, like the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, to step up to the plate to fill the regulatory gap left by the department and DeVos’ reckless ignorance and inaction.”

Follow AFT President Randi Weingarten: http://twitter.com/rweingarten

NATIONAL NEWS
Performance gap between the oldest and youngest kids in class
A new study from the National Bureau of Economic research has found that children born in September have significantly higher test scores than those born in August, and that the performance gap persists through their school years and on into college. Researchers looked at Florida kids born in August and September. Floridians are eligible to enroll in kindergarten if they turn 5 years old by September 1st, so children born in August are the youngest in the class while September-born children are the oldest. They found that September-born children were on average 2.1% more likely than August-born children to attend college, 3.3% more likely to graduate from college and 7.2% more likely to graduate from a selective college. September-born children also were less likely to be incarcerated for juvenile offenses.
STATE NEWS
State publishes dyslexia guidelines
The state Department of Education last week released Dyslexia Guidelines for California’s schools, setting out exactly what dyslexia is, and what interventions have proved the most effective. Between 300,000 and 1.2m kids in the state show signs of dyslexia, based on estimates that it affects 5%-20% of the U.S. population. The 132-page guidelines, which are not mandatory, are the upshot of years of lobbying by parents, according to Tobie Meyer, state director of Decoding Dyslexia California, who says that many special education teachers maintain they are not allowed to even use the term. Being able to identify it, says Anjanette Pelletier, senior administrator for the San Mateo County Special Education Local Plan Area, increases the chances of being able to intervene with students before their reading “careers” are derailed.

Experts says California’s education plan falls short
According to a report by nonprofit Bellwether Education Partners, California’s proposed plan to achieve a major federal education law is falling short. While the report praises the state’s Every Student Succeeds Act plan for using multiple signs of student performance and employing up-to-date tests, it highlights the plan’s lack of detail about how it will identify and help low-performing schools. “The current method of measuring growth does not actually capture individual students’ improvement over time,” the report says.

DISTRICTS
District to go broke by 2019
Montebello USD is projected to go broke by the end of the 2018-19 school year, according to a letter. According to the letter signed by Patricia Smith, executive director of Los Angeles County Office of Education’s school financial services, the district is projected to have $15.7m in its general fund at the end of the current school year and be $9m in the red by the end of the 2018-19 school year.

CHARTER
More kids attend charters than ever before, report says
About 3m students were enrolled in charter schools in the 2015-2016 school year, up from roughly 1.8m students five years prior, according to a fresh report by the U.S. Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics. The number equates to around 6% of all students in public schools.

SOCIAL & COMMUNITY
Less popular kids may fare better as adults
A new study has found that while the most popular children might seem happier at school, by the time they reach adulthood they are more prone to social anxiety. By contrast, those who maintained a small group of school friends, even if that meant they were lower down the teenage social rankings, went on to be less depressed. "The kind of skills it takes to be popular are not necessarily the ones that adults need," Rachel Narr, from the University of Virginia, suggests. Her paper argues that things that might make one less popular at school – like being sensible – often prove useful later in life.

OTHER
The geo-political divide in civil war classes...
The Associated Press' Will Weissert explores the different ways in which the civil war is taught to students depending on where they live. Only Virginia has more confederate monuments than Texas' 178, he notes, and when curriculum standards were approved in 2010 by Texas' Republican-controlled Board of Education debate focused on slavery being a Civil War "after issue." Texas' fifth- and seventh-graders taking Texas history courses, and eighth-graders taking U.S. history, are currently asked to identify causes of the war including sectionalism, states' rights and slavery. "You don't know, as you speak to folks around the country, what kind of assumptions they have about things like the Civil War," says Dustin Kidd, a sociology professor at Temple University in Philadelphia.


at No comments:

Tuesday, August 22, 2017

Summer in Review – August 19, 2017

Summer in Review – August 19, 2017

WELCOME BACK!!!!

What a crazy Summer of news this was! We hope all of you had some time to decompress in preparation for the 2017-2018 school year.

Below is just a small sliver of the top news stories locally and from around the country.

ABCFT This Week –
We will have more details in future “Weeks in Review” but here are just a few things the union has been working on this week.  You may know by now that we will soon have a new Human Resources Assistant Superintendent. The sudden retirement of Dr. Susan Hixson at the end of July caught everyone off guard. Since it was so sudden our first question was to make sure she was healthy and the answer is yes so that is always good to hear. Because the Human Resources position has not been filled we have not gone into contract negotiations nor calendar negotiations at this time. The ABCFT negotiations team will meet for their first negotiating meeting on September 8th. Don't worry that our current contract says it has expired. It is common practice that during new contract negotiations the past contract is still in place during that time. ABCFT will keep you up to date on the progress of our negotiations as they happen.

Over this past week I attended/worked with members on  representations, contract resolutions, site concerns and mediations. There is nothing more important than starting the school year off right so I’ve been working with teachers and administrators to make sure we can settle as many room issues, assignments, and  placements as possible before we start with students on August 22nd.

This week we also held our first Union monthly meeting for all the school site representatives. At this meeting we discussed the function of the union, union communication, school board endorsements, site concerns, and academic changes. We will have more information to share with you in the coming weeks.

Lastly, ABCFT and ABCUSD worked in collaboration to hold a New Teacher Orientation Day for all of the 47 new teachers in ABC.  At this meeting teachers and nurses are introduced to ABC technology such as the website as a resource and Google as our communication ecosystem.  New hires also get presentations by ABCFT on the added value of the union, the acceptable use policy, professional conduct , mandatory reporting, safety, payroll and fringe benefits.  The New Teacher Orientation Day happens each year as a collaboration between ABCFT and ABCUSD to help support new teachers and nurses.

Look each Friday for our Week in Review for the latest Union activities and news stories that matter to educators. 

Have a great start of the year!!!!

In Unity!

Ray Gaer
ABCFT President

or
(ABC Federation of Teachers)
Or


AMERICAN FEDERATION OF TEACHERS

WASHINGTON— Statement of American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten and United University Professions President Frederick Kowal in response to the torch-light march by white supremacists on the campus of the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. The AFT is the largest union of higher education faculty, professional staff and graduate employees in the United States:
“The atrocious display of racist hate in this march is antithetical to our values as Americans. It is no surprise that white supremacists take their filth to college campuses; they understand at a visceral level what all teachers know—that education is their enemy. We are alarmed that, as the Southern Poverty Law Center and others, including us, have repeatedly said, hate feels empowered in the United States right now. We applaud the elected officials, including Charlottesville Mayor Mike Signer, who have stood up to that hate and clearly expressed their contempt for these actions and the ideology that underlies them.
“We stand with these elected officials, with the people of Charlottesville and with the University of Virginia community in condemning the hatred and bigotry being espoused by the white supremacists who have marched into their town.”
###

Follow AFT President Randi Weingarten: http://twitter.com/rweingarten

NATIONAL NEWS
NEA adopts new charter school policy
The National Education Association (NEA) is to adopt a policy aimed at limiting charter school growth and increasing accountability on the sector, with officials calling the decision a “fundamental shift” in the union’s stance on charter schools. The new policy calls on the schools to prove they are necessary to meet the needs of students. “Handing over students’ education to privately managed, unaccountable charters jeopardizes student success, undermines public education and harms communities,” NEA President Lily Eskelsen Garcia said. “This policy draws a clear line between charters that serve to improve public education and those that do not.”

Teachers union head compares DeVos to climate change denier
The American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten has compared U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos to a climate-change denier, saying she refuses to acknowledge "the good in our public schools and their foundational place in our democracy." Weingarten said the Trump administration's school choice plans are secretly intended to starve funding from public schools, and called taxpayer-funded private school vouchers, tuition tax credits and similar schemes "only slightly more polite cousins of segregation." In response, Mrs DeVos accused the unions of being “defenders of the status quo” who care only about “school systems” and not about individual children.
Nationwide, teachers buy school supplies with own money
A third-grade teacher highlights the situation where teachers are buying school supplies with their own money. Teresa Danks, who says she spends $2,000 a year on school supplies, went to a busy road with a sign asking for help with paying for the materials.  She made $32 in the first ten minutes.

DeVos abandons plan to overhaul student loan collection
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has dropped plans to overhaul how the federal government collects payments from the country’s more than 42 million student loan borrowers after growing resistance from congressional Republicans and Democrats. “By starting afresh and pursuing a truly modern loan servicing environment, we have a chance to turn what was a good plan into a great one,” Mrs DeVos said.

Trump administration to investigate affirmative action college admissions
The U.S. government is reportedly going to redirect Justice Department civil rights resources toward investigating and suing universities over affirmative action admissions policies regarded as discriminating against white applicants. Kristen Clarke, from the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, criticized the project, saying the civil rights division was “created and launched to deal with the unique problem of discrimination faced by our nation’s most oppressed minority groups.”
DOJ says affirmative action limited to one case
A Justice Department spokeswoman said a posting seeking lawyers for “investigations and possible litigation" relating to university affirmative action policies was a call for volunteers to work on a single complaint filed by Asian-American groups accusing Harvard University of racial bias in admissions, not a policy change. The internal document sparked speculation that the Trump administration was preparing to sue universities over their affirmative action policies. “The posting sought volunteers to investigate one administrative complaint filed by a coalition of 64 Asian-American associations in May 2015 that the prior Administration left unresolved,” Justice Department spokeswoman Sarah Isgur Flores said. “The complaint alleges racial discrimination against Asian Americans in a university’s admissions policy and practices.” The Supreme Court ruled last year that the University of Texas' program admitting some students based on consideration of their race was constitutional.

Academic blasts DeVos' Charlottesville response
Andre Perry, a former charter network chief executive and the former founding dean of urban education at Davenport University in Grand Rapids, Michigan, argues that Education Secretary Betsy DeVos' response to the weekend violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, where white supremacists marched and fought with counterprotesters, leaving one woman dead and many injured, was woefully insufficient. "DeVos, the nation’s top teacher (clearly symbolic), failed the basic test of providing leadership to teachers, education officials and counselors on how to educate students out of bigotry, white supremacy and violence," he asserts.

STATE NEWS
UC Davis receives grant to ‘transform’ history education
UC Davis has been given over $1m from the California Historical Society (CHS), as part of the group’s $5m, state-funded contract to establish online teaching and learning resources for K-12 history-social science curriculum, slated to be available in 2019. The objective of the Teaching Californis program is to ensure the state’s large historical and archival resources are readily accessible to all K-12 students to foster a better understanding of the state’s history, improve student literacy, and promote civic learning and engagement. The funding came through Assembly Bill 99, introduced by Assemblyman Phil Ting (D-San Francisco), chairman of the assembly budget committee, and signed into law in late June; they will be administered by San Francisco USD, with the CHS and the California History-Social Science Project working together with school districts, teachers and students to build the program. Teaching California helps implement California’s new History-Social Science Framework, which was adopted by the state Board of Education in July 2016.
  
Teacher pension system beats target
The California State Teachers' Retirement System earned a 13.4% return on its investments in the last fiscal year, surpassing the 7% target for the first time in three years. The pension system’s returns were driven by strong performance in public and private equity, which together comprise nearly two-thirds of the $209bn portfolio. “Just as one bad year will not break us, one good year won’t make us,” said Christopher J. Ailman, the fund’s chief investment officer.

Teacher tenure bill shelved after similar one appears
A bill, which would have increased the time California educators have to earn tenure from two years to three, with an optional fourth and fifth year for additional mentoring and professional development, has been shelved. The bill's author, California Assemblywoman Shirley Weber, pulled it after a new competing one was introduced by Assemblyman Tony Thurmond. His bill extends the time for teachers to gain tenure to three years and provides increased teacher support and professional development. The bill also reinstates the due process for the teachers a district does not keep, something the California Teachers Association supports.
Education department adopts bilingual roadmap
The California Department of Education has adopted the English Learner Roadmap policy and resource guide, aimed at helping the state’s more than 1,000 school districts implement bilingual and multilingual instruction while complying with state and federal education laws. The department said: “The roadmap will ensure that all students receive the highest quality education, master the English language and access high-quality and innovative language programs.”

Schools relying on substitute teachers
School districts are working to fill as many teacher vacancies as they can before the fall semester begins, with substitute teachers being called on to fill the gap.  State Superintendent Tom Torlakson said some districts across the state will start the school year with a 20-25% substitute faculty, and that, of the 24,000 qualified teachers needed each year, only 16,000 positions have been filled so far.
Strong support for 'sleep-in bill'
The Times' Gary Peterson highlights strong support for State Sen. Anthony Portantino's SB 328, a bill that, if passed, would prohibit California’s public middle and high schools from starting classes earlier than 8:30 a.m. Start School Later, he notes, a nonprofit coalition of health professionals and educators, cites the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the American Medical Association and the National Sleep Foundation, he notes, is lobbying ardently for later school start times for teenage students in support for the bill.

DISTRICTS
High school football participation down again
The California Interscholastic Federation's (CIF) annual sports participation survey shows that for the second consecutive year, state high school football participation at the 11-player level decreased by more than 3,000 students. "I don't think it's a concern but reflects concerns by parents and reflects a national trend in youth sports," said Roger Blake, executive director the CIF. "Kids are still playing sports. They're just playing other things."

SOCIAL & COMMUNITY
Childhood poverty affecting academic performance
The Early Childhood Longitudinal Study shows that more children are living in high-poverty neighborhoods are often attending schools in high-poverty areas as well. A 2014 UCLA survey of 800 secondary teachers in California showed that students in these areas lose about 22 days of instruction, compared to 12 days missed by students at schools with lower poverty levels, because of factors like malfunctioning equipment in schools, teacher absences, poor access to healthcare, and unstable housing and chronic hunger.
Education Dive

SoCal homeownership rises with educational level
There is a direct link between a person’s educational achievement and their ability to own their own home, according to a new study from online real estate tracker Trulia, which shows those graduating from college and obtaining advanced degrees enjoy decidedly higher ownership rates. Orange County had the region’s most distinct ownership gap between high school dropouts (33%) and its highest owner category (those with doctorate degrees, at 78%). Orange County home ownership for those with a high school degree was 52%, while Los Angeles County ownership for high school graduates was 43%. In Riverside and San Bernardino counties, 71% of high school grads were owners.

Teachers need greater support for success, argue educators
Addressing 500 educators gathered for the third annual California Teachers Summit at Saint Mary’s College in Moraga, longtime educator Jill Biden warned of teachers who lack resources, communities impacted by poverty or social injustice at unprecedented levels and public policy that fails to reflect the contributions made by educators: “Setting teachers up to succeed has never been more important,” she added. State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson agreed and suggested that the best way to change young people’s lives is to become a teacher.

HIGHER EDUCATION
A third on immigrants have a college degree
According to a study by the Association of American Colleges & Universities, foreign-born individuals in the U.S are just as likely as native born Americans to be college educated with a third of immigrants holding a bachelor’s degree or higher. “The result is that America has switched from importing people who are, on average less educated than the natives to people who are better schooled,” the study says.

It's getting harder to find 'good jobs' in America
A new report from Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce in the U.S. suggests it is becoming more difficult for workers without college degrees to find what the report's authors describe as 'good jobs' - those that pay more than $35,000 a year. The number of such jobs for non-college graduates rose to 30m in 2015 from 27m in 1991 - but the labour market grew in tandem and by 2015, the share of all good jobs that went to non-college graduates fell to 45% from 60% in 1991. This has left 45m workers in low-paying, sometimes part-time roles that don’t offer a path to well-paying careers. Anthony Carnevale, the Center’s director, says post-secondary training is now a necessary stepping-stone to a good job - and workers would appear to know this. The number of career-focused certificates awarded by community colleges more than doubled between 2000 and 2014, according to the American Association of Community Colleges.

Cal State will no longer require placement exams
Cal State plans to eliminate math and English placement exams and remedial requirements at all 23 campuses in a radical move away from the way public universities traditionally support students who come to college less prepared than their peers. Chancellor Timothy P. White wants new freshmen assessed for college readiness and course placement by using high school grades, ACT and SAT scores, previous classroom performance and other measures that administrators say provide a more accurate and comprehensive understanding of students’ knowledge.

LEGAL
Pennsylvania district forced to reverse transgender bathroom policy
A Pennsylvania school district has settled a lawsuit with three transgender teens to allow all transgender students to use bathrooms in accordance with the gender they identify with. Transgender teen Juliet Evancho sued the Pine-Richland School District after the board barred her from the girls’ bathroom last fall.

OTHER
BUSD teacher arrested
Berkeley USD teacher and activist Yvette Felarca has been arrested for her involvement in an altercation between white nationalist groups and counter-protesters in Sacramento. According to the Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office, she was arrested on charges of assault by means of force likely to inflict great bodily injury, participating in a riot and inciting a riot.

Avelica-Gonzalez' deportation on hold
An immigration appeals court has granted a last-ditch reprieve to Romulo Avelica-Gonzalez, whose arrest and potential deportation have made him a cause célèbre in the national immigration debate, after being in the United States illegally for over 25 years. He was arrested in February in Los Angeles by immigration officers moments after he dropped his daughter off at school. The Board of Immigration Appeals, the highest administrative body in the country’s immigration court system, will now review his case.
at No comments:
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)