CTU's new graduate school
Get college financial aid to the neediest
AFT releases report on early childhood education programs
MFT back early childhood education legislation
Ohio lobbying effort has legs

CTU's new graduate school

Classes got under way in January for more than 100 students enrolled in a new graduate school established by the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU). The Jacqueline B. Vaughn Graduate School for Teacher Leadership offers courses that lead to a master's degree in teacher leadership.

CTU president and AFT vice president Deborah Lynch says that establishing the Vaughn school was one of the priorities of the union's QuEST Center, which offers professional development to Chicago's teachers. The graduate school is an avenue to enable teachers to take on leadership roles, which Lynch says, is imperative. "Even the best of principals can't take on all the leadership tasks necessary to run a school," she says.

The union-initiated graduate school is named after the late president of the CTU because, "Vaughn believed that teachers are capable of being leaders in the schools," says CTU member Connee Fitch-Blanks, the school's dean.

The courses offer teachers a new vision for learning and restructuring schools by looking at current education research and the issues and challenges that schools face in trying to improve schools, she says. In addition, teachers will be able to learn more about union leadership and prepare for National Board for Professional Teaching Standards certification.

"This program was developed to keep our best and brightest in the classroom," says Fitch-Blanks, who firmly believes that school improvement can only come about when teachers are involved.

Victor Harbison likes the idea of being able to lead from the classroom. Harbison is a National Board-certified teacher at the Chicago Vocational Career Academy and a student at the new graduate school. He had looked at a number of other graduate schools before selecting the CTU program. "It seemed revolutionary because it is more focused on teachers as leaders," he says. Besides, "leadership for teachers has always meant leaving the classroom." After a decade in teaching, Harbison knows he doesn't want to get pulled away from the classroom.

Get college financial aid to the neediest

Decrying financial-aid trends that are leaving poor students out in the cold, a blue-ribbon panel of prominent education leaders has criticized the rise of tax-supported programs that award grants and scholarships based on merit instead of need. Such programs, the educators say, threaten the promise of equal opportunity and access on which the federal financial-aid program originally was based.

The criticisms of federal financial-aid policy emerged from an initiative launched by the College Board in 2001, when it appointed prominent policymakers and researchers to a panel to form a National Dialogue on Student Financial Aid (NDSFA). In January, it released "Challenging Times, Clear Choices: An Action Agenda for College Access and Success" (a copy of the report and supporting documents are available online at www.collegeboard.com).

The panel's recommendations come as Congress prepares to reauthorize the Higher Education Act. That act has at its heart the $58 billion aid programs that represent the federal government's major contribution to higher education in the states. This year, the debate is likely to focus on the financial-aid needs of low-income students, as financial-aid experts raise questions not just about the amount of help given to the middle class in the form of subsidized loans for college but also in the forms of tax credits and need-blind merit scholarships.

"If we do not turn the national conversation back to investment in education access and away from tax reduction, 'No Child Left Behind' will become just an empty phrase, representing broken promises, broken aspirations and broken dreams," said College Board president Gaston Caperton at a conference announcing the release of the report. Caperton co-chaired the NDSFA panel with Michael McPherson, president of Macalester College.

The panel's major student aid recommendations, which are addressed to federal and state governments, colleges and universities, and the private sector, include the following:

• Substantially increase Pell grant funding.

• Improve the terms available to students under the federally funded and guaranteed loan programs.

• Ensure that growth in "merit" programs does not come at the expense of need-based funding.

• Reaffirm commitment to need-based students, and aim to enroll greater numbers of low-income students.

• Improve the design of and funding for federal matching programs for state and institution need-based aid.

• Increase support of programs that provide college success skills and early information about attending college.

AFT releases report on early childhood education programs

The AFT recently released an audit of state-funded early childhood education programs. At the Starting Line: Early Childhood Education Programs in the 50 States, provides baseline information about where states are, and how far they have yet to go, in developing high-quality, universally accessible early childhood education programs for 3- and 4-year-olds.

The new publication, AFT's first effort to identify the types of early childhood education programs states are funding, is one component of the union's ongoing campaign to promote universal, noncompulsory, high-quality preschool.

More money has been invested in state-funded early childhood programs over the past 10 years, but the nation continues to fall short--states only provide funds for programs reaching approximately 12 percent of all 3- and 4-year-olds, according to the report. States with "promising early childhood education initiatives for preschoolers" are Georgia, New York, Oklahoma and the District of Columbia.

At the Starting Line focuses on two indicators--access and quality--that together address a range of issues, including the number of children served by the state-funded programs, the availability of full-day kindergarten, staff qualifications and salaries, and adult-to-child ratios.

The report recommends that states:

• make preschool available to all 3- and 4-year-olds, beginning with disadvantaged children;

• guarantee full-day kindergarten for all families who want to participate;

• require higher levels of formal education, training and compensation for all teachers and staff; and

• require and enforce standards for all programs.

"The lack of quality early childhood programs in the United States is evident in the significant percentage of children starting kindergarten without the necessary skills to do well in school," the report notes. "Too many of these children lack critical preliminary skills, such as knowledge of letters and numbers, knowing how to hold a book, or how to interact positively with their peers and teachers. When not addressed early on, these deficiencies contribute to the achievement gap between advantaged and disadvantaged students."

At the Starting Line can be downloaded at www.aft.org/edissues/pubs. The printed report is available for $3 per copy; request item #39-0391. Send prepaid orders to: AFT Order Department, 555 New Jersey Ave., N.W., Washington, DC 20001.

MFT back early childhood education legislation

Passage of legislation establishing universally accessible early childhood education for all 3-, 4- and 5-year-olds is a top priority of the Massachusetts Federation of Teachers/AFT.

The MFT is part of a statewide coalition--the Early Education for All Campaign--that is pressing state lawmakers to pass a 10-year $1 billion early childhood education reform program that would ensure that all families in the state would have access to quality preschool and full-day kindergarten for their children.

Early childhood education is "the missing link" in the state's 1993 education reform law, says MFT president Kathleen A. Kelley. "If we don't invest in early education and child care, we are making a huge mistake."

A coalition of business, religious, community, education and labor organizations initiated the legislation after two years of extensive research and community input into a draft legislative proposal. The coalition maintains that lawmakers, who are facing a projected $3 billion state budget shortfall in the new fiscal year that begins July 1, cannot afford to postpone the investment in early childhood education.

"Scientific research is compelling about the benefits of high-quality early childhood education: Children who participate in these programs develop better language skills, score higher on school-readiness tests and have better social skills and fewer behavioral problems once they enter school," according to the coalition. "For every dollar invested in high-quality early education, the community can expect $7 in benefits within 16 years due to increased earnings of participants and reduced costs for remedial education and crime."

The union is doing whatever it can to promote the campaign's goals, Kelley says, adding that "our teachers unanimously endorse this campaign."

The Early Education for All Campaign is an initiative of Strategies for Children Inc., a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the well-being of children and families through public policy, advocacy and constituency-building efforts. For more information about the campaign, visit www.earlyeducationforall.org.

Ohio lobbying effort has legs

A grassroots lobbying effort by AFT members across Ohio is beginning to influence state policy on key education issues. One of the first duties of the Ohio grassroots network has been to modify the tone of the debate surrounding charter schools. "Make sure every choice is a quality choice" is the message that AFT members, through the Ohio Federation of Teachers Legislative Education Groups (LEG's) network, have delivered to elected officials. And the message is getting through. Ohio revised its charter school laws this year, adding provisions to ensure that charter schools are accountable to the public and offer quality educational services. That's a positive development--and a far cry from the "buyer beware" strategies of the past, which relied on the marketplace to maintain charter school quality.

LEG's "has surpassed my greatest hopes in terms of how quickly it has gotten up and running," says OFT president Tom Mooney, who is also an AFT vice president. While the battle to make charter schools accountable is far from over, the trend in that direction is definitely in place, he says.

Letter writing to Ohio lawmakers is at the heart of the LEG's initiative. Under the program, AFT locals across Ohio appoint a LEG's coordinator and a liaison for each school, chapter or college department who encourage members to use OFT's Web site to send e-mail to state and federal legislators on issues that affect them, the institutions they work for and the clients they serve. Growth in the network has been impressive. In late 2002, almost two-thirds of AFT locals in Ohio had appointed coordinators, and the volume of e-mail has skyrocketed from 447 letters in 2001 to more than 1,365 last year.

Preserving a strong teacher retirement system, preventing cuts to elementary education, and restoring funding to higher education are among the legislative priorities that LEG's will tackle this year, Mooney says.

"I am particularly pleased with the smaller locals that have reached beyond their membership and generated a high volume of letters to their state representatives," says Juanita Dunlap Smith, special assistant to the AFT president, who believes that Ohio can be a model for other states.

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